A key member of our team may be a changed man after spending one winter wearing the CKX Contact Helmet.
Like many team members, he’s traditionally worn an MX-style helmet with goggles for most of his snowmobiling adventures. He felt like the anti-fogging qualities and the vision afforded by that setup were worth the tradeoff, despite the fact that it was typically noisier and colder than an enclosed helmet.
After one ride with the CKX Contact lid, though, he raved about his newfound love of a full-face helmet, and he continued to squawk about it all winter long.
The Contact is a mid-priced, middleweight, injection-molded, full-face helmet. But beyond that, there’s little middle-ground with its features.
It starts with a broad and tall field of vision. That came thanks to a huge front opening that is paired with an oversized, heated shield. When the shield was open, it almost feels like a modular helmet despite the small remaining chin bar that was left near your neck. That made grabbing a drink of water or partaking in a trailside conversation easy. Yet the helmet doesn’t feel as cumbersome as many modulars we’ve tried.
When the shield was closed, both peripheral and up-and-down sightlines were tremendous. It was a huge jump up from his goggles, he pointed out often.
Vision was further enhanced by an oversized, retractable sun visor. It drops down in front of the rider’s eyes with the flip of a lever. Compared to some other drop-down visors we’ve tried in competitive helmets, this one came down far enough to allow us to make full use of its amber color on sunny days.
Meanwhile, a removable chin curtain around the rider’s neck allowed it to really seal on cold days. On those frigid days, we definitely wanted to make use of the heated-shield plug-in on our sleds. On warmer winter days fogging wasn’t much of a problem with this lid.
When we did want to crack-open the front, it had a nice first stopping point to let some air to pass over the shield and our face. When the visor was pushed back down, it closed in place with authority.
Other notable features included a ratcheting quick-release chin strap mechanism, comfortable inner lining material and a mini breath-guard that is built into the shield.
Overall, the Contact helmet offered a quieter and warmer experience than his previous setup. But it was the big field of vision that he most talked about. It truly opened his eyes, so-to-speak. And it had him leaving his MX-style helmet and goggles behind for most of the winter.
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