ILM Open Face Helmet Honest Review: Wind Noise, Visor and Value

The guy filling up next to me at the gas station pointed at my helmet and asked if it was worth it. He had the same ILM open face helmet saved in his cart, the one with close to four thousand reviews and a rating that looks too good to be true. I told him I have worn mine for a full season on my Road King, through rain, cold mornings and a few hundred miles of highway, and the honest answer is yes, with a list of caveats as long as my arm. Then I gave him the list.

Here is what nobody puts in the review section. The ILM is a good helmet for what it costs, and it has become my default lid for evening rides around the Puget Sound area. But it has real flaws, and most of the reviews you will read skip right past them. Wind noise, visor quirks, head shape fit, all of it. This is the version I wish somebody had written before I bought mine, so here it is.

How I've Used It

I am a retired utility lineman, 58 years old, and I ride a black Harley-Davidson Road King that I have owned for about nine years. Most of my riding is weekend and evening loops around the Puget Sound area, plus one longer summer trip every year. I also referee youth soccer on Saturday mornings, which means a twenty minute ride to the fields in the dark, the cold, or both.

The ILM has been my go-to for the short stuff. Grocery runs, the ride to the soccer fields, evening cruises along the water with my wife Deb on the back. For rides under an hour, I grab it more often than my full face. It is lighter on my neck, easier to talk through at a stop, and it does not fog up my sunglasses the way a full face can on a damp morning. When the weather cooperates, the open face is the whole point of riding.

I have also worn it on the longer summer trip, and that is where I learned its limits. On a four hour day with stretches of highway, the wind noise builds and the lack of chin coverage starts to matter. For the long days, I switch to something with more coverage. That choice tells you a lot about what this helmet is and is not.

The point of saying all this up front is simple. No helmet does everything, and the ones that try cost a lot of money. The ILM does one thing very well, and it does it for a very fair price. The rest of this review is about the edges of that one thing, the parts the five star reviews leave out.

The First Week: What Surprised Me

When the box showed up, my first thought was that the helmet looked better than the listing photos. The shell has a clean shape, the liner feels solid, and the visor was already installed. It also smelled like a new helmet should, which sounds like a small thing until you have owned one that smells like a chemical plant.

The first ride was the surprise. I expected the wind in my face, and I got it, but I did not expect how quiet the helmet would be at city speeds. At 35 to 45 miles an hour, the ILM is genuinely comfortable. The noise only started to build when I got out on the highway, and by then I had already decided I liked the helmet enough to work around it.

The second surprise was the weight, or rather the lack of it. Compared to my full face, the ILM feels like wearing a ball cap. My neck noticed the difference by the end of a long day, and on a hot afternoon the open face lets air move across your head in a way a full face simply cannot. The third surprise was how often I reached for it. I bought it as a spare and it became my first choice within two weeks. The full face stayed on the shelf until the summer trip.

Wind Noise: What Nobody Tells You

Start here, because this is the thing the five star reviews leave out. The ILM is a loud helmet at speed. Not dangerously loud, not defective, just loud, and that is physics. An open face helmet has no shell between your ears and the air, so wind noise at 60 miles an hour is simply there. No liner thickness changes that.

At 50 and under, it is fine. I ride to the soccer fields at 45 and I do not think about it. But on the highway stretch of my summer trip, the wind noise builds fast. I carry earplugs now, the foam kind you squish and slide in. With earplugs, the helmet is comfortable for an hour plus. Without them, I am ready to get off the bike after about thirty minutes.

The reviews that say this helmet is quiet are either riding at 35 miles an hour or they have never worn a quiet full face helmet. It is not a defect in the ILM, it is the nature of the design. Budget for a pair of earplugs and you will be happy with this helmet. Skip them and you will blame it for something no 3/4 helmet can fix.

One more note on noise. My wife Deb rides on the back sometimes, and we use a simple intercom setup. At city speeds it works fine. At highway speeds we just ride and talk later. If clear communication at speed matters to you, an open face helmet is not the tool for that job, and no review should pretend otherwise.

At 60 miles an hour this helmet is loud, and any review that does not tell you that is not doing you any favors.

The Visor: Better Than Expected, With One Quirk

The visor is the reason I bought this instead of a bare half helmet. It flips down easily with one hand while riding, which I appreciate at a stop light when the sun drops below the trees. It handles a bright afternoon well, and dusk is not a problem either. For the money, the visor is a genuine feature, not a gimmick, and it is the main thing that separates this helmet from the cheaper half shells.

Here is the quirk. At about 55 miles an hour, the visor catches wind and pushes back against the detent, and on a gusty day it will lift a little. You learn to ride with it or you flip it up and use sunglasses. It also fogs in cold, wet weather, the classic Pacific Northwest morning problem. Cracking it one notch helps, but then the rain sneaks in through the gap.

There is also a small gap where the visor meets the shell at the edges. In a light rain, a little water finds its way onto the inside of the visor, right at eye level. It is not a flood, just a few drops that gather at the corner, and you wipe them with a glove and move on. Worth knowing before you ride in a downpour.

For what this helmet costs, the visor is a fair trade. It seals well enough in light rain, it has not scratched badly, and it has held up to a season of flipping up and down. The full face helmets I have owned have better visors, but they cost two or three times as much, so I judge the ILM against its own price.

Fit, Sizing and Build Quality

I measured my head before ordering and went by the size chart. The fit was snug out of the box, the way a helmet should be, and it broke in over the first couple of weeks. The padding is firm and comfortable, and the liner is removable and washable, which matters more than you think after a summer of riding.

The honest warning: this helmet suits a rounder head shape better. I have a riding buddy with a longer oval head who tried mine and found pressure points at the forehead and the back of the skull. He wears a different brand. If you are between sizes, the general advice is to go up, because the padding does not stretch much and a tight helmet becomes a headache by mile thirty.

For the money, the build is better than I expected. The shell is solid, the liner is properly sewn, and nothing has rattled loose after a season of riding on rough back roads. The finish is not premium, and it does not pretend to be. You can see the difference when you put it next to a helmet that costs three times as much. One thing I had to fix: the screws that hold the visor brackets worked a little loose after a few hundred miles. I put a drop of thread locker on them and they have been fine since.

The chin strap uses the standard D-ring setup, and the stitching around the edges has held up fine. The liner unclips easily and goes in the washing machine on gentle, which keeps the helmet from getting funky by August. The certification is the part that matters most: the ILM carries DOT certification, which means it meets the federal standard for impact protection in the United States. I am not going to pretend a 3/4 helmet protects like a full face, because it does not. Your jaw and chin are exposed, and no certification changes that. Ride accordingly.

Alternatives I Considered

Before I settled on the ILM, I looked at half helmets, which are lighter and give you the full open feel, but they leave your whole face in the wind and most of them have no visor at all. I also looked at premium 3/4 helmets that cost a lot more. They are nicer, no question, with quieter shells and better visors, but for the riding I do most often, the extra cost did not buy me anything I would actually use. That is the honest comparison, not a marketing one.

The decision came down to this. For short, slower rides, the ILM does everything I need. For the long summer trip, I wear a full face and accept the heat. A mid-priced 3/4 helmet sits in an awkward middle, better than this one on the highway but still not a full face, and I could not justify the cost for the small gain.

If you already own a full face and you want something for the short rides, the ILM makes sense as the second helmet. If you only own one helmet and you ride a mix of city and highway, spend your money on a full face instead. That is the honest math, and it is the same advice I gave the guy at the gas station.

Who This Is For

Buy the ILM if you ride mostly under 55 miles an hour. Around town, to the store, to the soccer fields on a Saturday morning, out for an evening cruise with Deb on the back. It is the helmet I grab when the ride is short and the day is decent. For that kind of riding, it is hard to beat at the price.

It is also for riders who like the open face feel but want more than a bare half helmet. The visor gives you something between you and the bugs, the liner keeps the wind off the top of your head, and the whole thing weighs almost nothing on your neck. If that sounds like your kind of riding, this helmet is worth a serious look.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your riding is mostly highway. The wind noise will wear you out, and a full face helmet will serve you better. Skip it if you ride in cold weather a lot, because a 3/4 helmet leaves your face in the wind and the fogging becomes a daily annoyance.

And skip it if you have an oval head shape or you want a premium finish that still looks new after two years. This is a good, honest helmet at a good price, not a luxury one. That is not a criticism. It is just the truth, and you deserve to hear it before you click buy.