Kabuto Motorcycle Helmets with Scott Holbrooks #453

What is up everyone and welcome back to the fast life podcast today I'm sitting down with

my longtime friend Mr. Scott Holbrooks who I met back in 20 early 2017 while he was still

the man behind the Simpson motorcycle helmet brand he since moved on and he is now the

guy who is bringing this new brand that we're talking about today Kabuto Americas into the

Americas Scott is a very very deep wealth of knowledge when it comes to the motorcycle

helmet industry and in this podcast you guys are going to hear everything there is to know

about Kabuto the helmets that they have to offer a little insight to some of the motorcycle

helmet industry and a little bit of his backstory all in this episode but first get here from

the sponsors real quick my guys over at Arlen S motorcycles if you guys are looking for

some great products for your motorcycle they are the go to and you can use the offer code

which is down in the description below to save yourself some money on whatever you get

for your motorcycle also my guys at cowboy Harley Davidson down in Austin Texas they'll

get you dialed in on a brand new or use motorcycle you pick they got them all down there go check

them out link in the description my guys over at Law Tigers are going to be there for you

in the unfortunate event that you are in an accident don't forget 1-800 Law Tigers to

get you on the right path and last but not least Kabuto Americas you're going to hear

about him in this podcast so I'm not even going to double whammy this let's just get

into it.

Hey guys you ready to let the dogs out?

We're here in New Braunfels is that how you properly say it I feel like I'm always saying

it the improper way.

Yeah you said it's New Braunfels so people add an extra S or they put the S in the wrong spot

I feel like I say New Braunfels or something like that a lot of people say New Braunfels

so that's pretty normal but it's New Braunfels yeah and so this is a new facility that's kind

of right off the interstate 35 for the most part right absolutely we're right off post road we're

on post road basically right behind Woods cycle center so if everybody knows where Woods is at

we're right there and basically out of this location you're you're fulfilling the orders of

everything for all the dealers on this side of the world basically so we're setting up

distributors in other countries but in America we'll be self-distributed and then we're doing

some direct sales to consumers as well so but we've already got a number of dealers set up

around the country and we're looking for more and we'll be at select events selling we have online

sales so all that kind of stuff yes absolutely so Kabuto like where does this brand come from

like what is the the whole backstory to its existence sure so it's a family-owned business

in Japan multi-generational and it started off as a brand called OGK and that stood for Osaka grip

company in Japan company the way they spell it has like a K when they do that so it's Osaka grip

company we made injection molded plastic and rubber parts one of the funny claim to fame's

is that you know there was a Japanese bicycle in E.T. called a kuhara which was a really cool

BMX bike and there's like a milk crate like a plastic milk crate that E.T. actually sat in

on the front of Elliott's kuhara and we made that crate so kind of a weird sort of tie in there but

the company sort of got its start I think right after World War II and then this part of the family

kind of split off and started a new division in early 1982 called OGK helmets and they specifically

focused on helmets initially injection molded helmets and then that's been over 40 years now

so injection molded helmets that would mean it was plastic right yeah there's and there's

still a number of a great number of plastic helmets made in the world and it's it's it's

you don't really want to call them plastic they're injection molded thermo injection molded

polycarbonate alloy so it's a poly ABS blend and you know when people make helmets out of that

you're still solving to the same exact standards but they have different properties and how they

absorb impact and and spread impact over the shell and so you know you're still going for the same

exact homologations but you're just you're you're basically skin skinning a cat a different way

so while we do make helmets like that for other markets around the world all the helmets that

we're bringing to the United States are Japanese made and they're fiberglass helmets yeah so we're

not doing any which is industry standard right it is and I mean there's a the majority of helmets

sold in the world are injection molded so absolutely the majority of helmets but you

know the majority of helmets are also several hundred dollars so is it are you kind of like

wrapping in every type of helmet yeah no no motorcycle helmets so there's but but in like

places like India they're selling you know they sell probably 10 times more motorcycle helmets than

in India every year than sold in America but there are also helmets that in India it's probably the

equivalent of like $25 US so they're very very simplistic injection molded completely different

standards so to go back to the history of OGK Kabuto in about 1982 we started the helmet brand

at that point was called OGK and I think about right roughly about 20 years ago they decided to

change the name to Kabuto and for those that don't know Kabuto is sort of a generic term

for helmet in Japan so when you say it's like the Kleenex right so when you say helmet or Kabuto

it it basically implies that like helmet let me go grab my Kabuto real quick right before we leave

they don't really say it like that but that's what it sort of implies there's actually even a Pokemon

character that's a little helmet yeah called Kabuto kind of funny so but what it really

specifically means is on the front of a samurai helmet there's sort of an endowment that's you

know it can be really wild or it can be pretty simple but it was I guess to guard against like

sword blows and swings and and it's kind of a stylized kind of piece that goes in the front

specifically that's really what a Kabuto is but over time it's just become synonymous with just

another way of saying helmet so if you look at our logo on the front the oval it's kind of a

stylized version of what you'd see on the front of a samurai helmet and so that's where that logo

sort of comes from nice so right so I've had an association with them and we can talk about that

a little bit later but I've had an association with Kabuto for the family that owns the brand

and the brand itself I've worked with them for about the last 15 years on another project

they really they tried coming to America about 15 years ago and it just didn't work out

the logistics of it was just really hard to do for Japanese company to come to America and set up

and understand the ins and outs of how we do business over here is very different so

since I had a long-term relationship with them and we knew each other very well and they

they were interested in coming back to this marketplace it was a great opportunity for the

both of us and so I agreed that I would sort of set this up and get this going and you know I've

still got maybe 10 or 15 more years before retirement and you know we'll at least get them

a great foundation and get them a place in the U.S. market for sure so when they decided to kind of

break off and create their own division and focus mainly on the helmets like what was it was it all

the injection molded helmets or they have a market whether it's bicycle motorcycle like what was

their their 80s like so we still make a huge number of bicycle helmets and we're the biggest

bicycle manufacturer in in Asia in Japan it is the biggest brand of bicycle helmets by far

right now at this point we want to really focus on the motorcycle helmets so we're not going to

do bicycle helmets at all but they also have an industrial division that does a bunch of industrial

type hard hats and some other things some personal protection device type stuff for industrial

even medical so their kind of focus goes well beyond motorcycle helmets into kind of all

protective gear specifically around the head so we make some very very high-end glasses

that are for a bunch of different applications but but really focus on bicycling so

so I think that we still do injection molded helmets we have a giant factory in China

and that's where a lot of the injection molded helmets are being made

for the domestic market and things like that but again for the US market or for all in

north of South America we're just going to do the Japanese made helmets and focus on that

and the high-end product they have a bunch of other styles that are popular in Europe popular

in Asia for scooters and things like that that just really weren't right for us in the US

so right now we're just bringing in two models we really don't have that kind of a

motorcycling commuter like you know vespas and like yeah maybe in your San Francisco's you're

you're more urban areas but it's not the way it is in other countries where it's

absolutely yeah it's it's a great thing you touched on that so you know we're I won't say we're

spoiled but we're spoiled and a lot of other parts of the world motorcycles are basic transportation

and it's one of the cheapest ways a little more expensive than a bicycle but but not as laborious

you can you know buy a scooter a used scooter fairly inexpensive it's inexpensive to operate

and you know that's in countries where you're selling tons and tons and tons of helmets I mean

just thousands bond thousands of helmets here we certainly have people that commute on motorcycles

every day year-round even in places where the weather is horrible don't ever tell somebody they

can't do something on motorcycle because they'll prove you wrong we had the ice storm a couple

weeks back yeah literally I saw it was a sport bike it was going down my street and I mean it was

slushy right but it was dry sure I was like man are you crazy like yeah yeah no there's I mean

obviously there's people who have done crazy stuff on motorcycles and you know you never say

you know there's there's people who have to have the exact perfect bike for each purpose they ride

or whatever and then there's people who you know use what would what most people deemed the absolute

wrong bike the wrong application and they do the wrong kind of riding with that bike

but more power to them because I think it's kind of cool you know don't tell me what I can't do

because yeah I can do anything sounds like a racing baggers yeah yeah exactly exactly like you know

it's it's kind of fun to do something with something that it's not intended it's intended

purpose that's kind of interesting so yeah so we do a ton of injection mode injection molded

helmets and we do a lot of also fiberglass and fiberglass composition so these are this is our

own proprietary fiberglass there's actually some organic material on it as well and it's it's a

process we've been developing in kind of our own style and everybody has that everybody has

what they deem is is best you know for us it just it works for us we will we'll talk about a little

bit later you know we're we're gonna have a carbon fiber version of this helmet but so that for

people that are out there like the process of making a carbon fiber helmet and making an injection

well not injection but a regular fiberglass it's like you're still vacuum yeah in a sense

it's it's the process is really the same and I only speak on this because I spent time in my life

you know laying up fiberglass race cars and then we would take those in the re

re-pop molds off of it to like do a carbon fiber bodies yeah in the old days

helmets were kind of made like that like there's some people kind of lower level

but there's still some people that use fiberglass molds to make fiberglass helmets

and you know they look kind of funny because they bolt together and you have to unbolt them and

the way you the way you do those is they're they're they're upside down you have a female cavity and

you're basically you know all of us when we were kids had art class and it was paper mache

and it's you're almost doing it exactly the same that's the real old school way

now it's very very specific layers and the fibers are the strips of material are laid in a certain

way instead of using you know dipping in some resin or something like that and having the

really really wet and pooling in the bottom it's pre-preg so it's already sort of wet

with the exact amount of resin and you're also for the most part building modern helmets

you're building them on a male mold which looks like the helmet and then it goes into

metal like a female mold and and so you're laying it up on a mold that looks like this

it's made out of rubber and you put it on there and like I said there's there's an instruction

sheet for each and every model of which direction the pieces go and things like that because you

want the helmet to I mean part of a helmet's protective qualities is it sacrifices itself to

protect your brain yeah so you want the characteristics of what this helmet does

as far as absorbing energy you want it to be consistent so you have to make each helmet

exactly the same when you test a helmet it destroys it so the only way to know that your

testing is as accurate is to make the helmet exactly the same every single time with them

specifically having a direction to lay out each one of the you know the the shards of of glass

or or carbon or whatever like I would imagine that's also to kind of keep it and even kill

around the whole thing and not have too much overlap and create like heavier spots for sure

absolutely absolutely and there's a certain way I mean there there even each size shell which

are's multiple shell sizes for each that has to be cut different so you have stacks of material

that these are all cut and you know I don't know off the top of my head but you know you might have

you know the the cutting people in the factory will cut this material and they'll stack it and

it's like kind of rubber banded together and it'll come on like a tray and it will be like

this is a medium helmet just one helmet and it's all stacked up and you have a guide that

basically and of course yeah once you've made a thousand of them or five hundred of them you know

exactly but it basically again instead of working down inside of a mold you're putting on an outside

of mold and it gets turned upside down and it gets extreme pressure and heat and has to sit there

and basically cure it's a vacuum as well yeah and that what that's doing is also helping getting

rid of all the excess resin which is kind of where the weight comes from is from the weight

where the weight comes from in the old days fiberglass helmets that were made in that upside down

method you know and working by hand with resin and basically a cup it was really easier to work

with material when you used a lot more resin you needed but the problem is since it's upside down

you would have a pool of resin at the very top of the helmet yeah and that's exactly where you

don't want weight yeah as the highest point so they haven't really made helmets like that

or I should say they the majority of people haven't yeah the industry the majority people

haven't made helmets that way in a long time but there's still some lower level factories that

probably aren't selling helmets to the US that do things that way still if you're ready to take

your motorcycle to the next level with style performance and quality this is where Arlen S

motorcycles comes in for over 50 years the legends at Arlen S have been building the boldest customs

and crafting premium parts that turn heads and stand the test of time from the classic big

sucker air cleaners to the new carbon fiber parts line to bars risers wheels brakes the list goes on

Ness even has a full parts line for the 2024 and up touring models whether you're pushing a Harley

Indian or a custom build Arlen S delivers with quality parts that I personally run on all my

bikes from my choppers to the new 2026 bagger I just picked up this year head on over to arlenness.com

and check out the new drops for 2026 and don't forget to drop the fast life 10 offer code to

save yourself 10% off your order your helmet better be as serious as you are Kabuto motorcycle

helmets brings Japan's legendary helmet craftsmanship with cutting edge technology that keeps you

ahead of the game with advanced aerodynamics like the wake stabilizer and crest spoiler you will

slice through wind with rock solid stability at triple digit speeds all while boasting a lightweight

composite shell with ACT tech and MIPS safety standards for the last year I have been exclusively

wearing the F 17 which is a full face model GP race helmet that has an aggressive profile

while having some proper ventilation to help with these extremely hot Texas summer days.

Kabuto helmets are new to America and I'm very honored to stand beside them this year

you can check out these helmets and find out more information at kabutoamericas.com and don't

forget to give my friends a follow at Kabuto underscore Americas on Instagram but this process

is very very high tech it's it's the most modern and even things like cutting out the

eye port which this is filled in when you when you mold the helmet cutting out this eye port

for a long time you know the newest technology was a water jet cutter and you know it has its

drawbacks you know the the little diamond tip it kind of needs its maintenance and wears out

and then you just have the mess of all this water so now the hot setup is this will go in a jig

and there'll be a robot come down and use a laser it's pretty cool and it just it's super super

slick and clean and and the big thing is the accuracy so when you're doing things like

adding events and and your shields and even in modular helmets when you've you've got all the

parts you need them to be super consistent so again every single helmet's exactly the same way

hmm so when did Kabuto get into the motorcycle side of like helmet manufacturing so right off

the bat and and um and like 82 um they were doing it's kind of I'll I'll go into a little bit of

a story how I knew about OGK crazy amount of time ago um I was working at a big shop in Ohio

called Iron Pony a lot of people have heard of them um and I had all these guys coming in

we were very close to Honda North America um in Ohio where they built cars and at that time they

built motorcycles and ATVs as well and this is for four internet days and all that there was no

way to look online to look up parts I just got the reputation as this guy that um knew how to get

my hands on a bunch of really rare and really cool Ducati parts which was kind of odd but I did

use the Ducati plug yeah I knew I knew um Eldor Aldo Farachi and and I knew each other and

these guys these Japanese engineers um were just crazy about air-cooled old school Ducati's so we're

talking about like um late 80s late 80s really yeah and um and so they would come over and

they would come to the shop I don't speak Japanese they spoke very little English but we could

figure it out they could look in some brochures I had and I would call up Eldor Aldo or we did

falicon cranks and we did so many cool things big bore kits and um they would throw away their

clothes and take suitcases back of Brembo rotors and stuff and I mean it was amazing to me as a

young guy working in the industry um zipping credit cards for more than 20 grand back then

with the little slide yeah with the with the you know the the one that does the imprint and um

it was really cool and and what would happen is these guys would rotate in and out and then

there would be a guy that would show up you know my guy would go home with a couple suitcases full

of parts and uh somebody else would show up a couple weeks later and they'd have my business card

and they would you know walk in and be like uh yeah need to talk to this guy um and so

what was cool is is I developed a relationship and a friendship with a lot of those guys and

they started sending me stuff from Japan so I had this collection of motorcycle magazines you know

that was stuff we couldn't even fathom you know there was no Barnes and Noble getting back then

getting like magazines from all over the world yeah it was stuff that you'd never get to see

at all in the US and you know the whole thing about it opening the wrong direction yeah and I'll

I'll never forget um one of the coolest helmets that I saw ads for in there was a brand called

OGK and um on top of the helmet they had this big diffuser this big like it wasn't so much an air

scoop it was just a system of intake and exhaust and and um I'd never seen it like that before

later on a rye had sort of a version of that but OGK was like the first to to do that

yeah the rye helmet has always been this like really round shape yeah with like the yeah I mean

they have a certain kind of design philosophy and that's another um that's another family-owned

business in Japan it's been around a long time and uh the family that owns Kabuto and the family

that owns a rye are really good friends so Hatfield and McCool yeah no no not at all not at all

they're they're actually um I wouldn't say I mean we're still competitors I don't think we're

collaborating on anything yeah but they're very very friendly with each other they're it's no

nobody steps on each other's toes it's you know their society is a little different than ours

it's very respectful and very you know there's there's boundaries and so that was my first

observation of anything to do with with uh Kabuto was this magazine called Clubman and the magazine

still exists um it's kind of cool uh one of the guys that worked at Han to actually quit and went

to work for that magazine so I basically almost had a subscription to it like back in the day

and it's so funny um I still have the original I didn't I'm a pack rat about stuff like that

I still have those original Clubman magazines and the ads the first time I laid eyes on any

Kabuto and these ads that was kind of cool it was kind of a full circle no I know exactly where

they're at well you need to send me a picture of that so I could put it in this video all right

right on yeah and there's some modern Clubmans up front that they gave me when I was over there

just recently so if I'm over there I would do they have like marketplace like Facebook marketplace

or anything like that over there that kind of like uh um like a kind of like a craigslist kind

of thing going on or I don't know maybe probably be there in a while to find out yeah they so I

know one of our racers was there and found some super special bike and we helped him get it

crated up and sent home uh and he lives in Spain um so we did go last time I was there

we did go to a bike shop that specialized in like vintage really cool bikes really bizarre stuff

stuff I'd never seen and there was a couple like really really cool like there was a Ducati there

that was incredible I don't know how much it would sell for here but um you know it's just

motorcycles are much much bigger part of their general society you know here we talk about

maybe four percent of people ride motorcycles that's not money that's not many there it's just you

know um it was winter it snowed a little bit when I was there and um you'd still if you were at an

intersection at any given time in the city we're based in Osaka there was motorcycles even in the

winter at the intersection and scooters and mopeds things like that but um very much so

that it's just part of their everyday life and so um there's lots of shops from brand new high-end

shops um we stopped at a Harley shop and a Ducati shop but but I was getting ready to leave and

they were closed on on Mondays and Tuesdays they need two days off in a row so they were open on

Saturday and Sunday so yeah yeah for sure but um yeah so they're you know it's just it's just

different um so would you say that like that that original helmet you were talking about with the

diffuser on the back yeah so their initial jump into it was to create helmets that kind of fit

a racer profile kind of thing for sure absolutely so right from the very start um we have um I call it

a wind tunnel but it's actually it's more of the building itself as a piece of equipment

so it's it's really awesome um we're one of the few helmet companies that has their own wind tunnel

and um even early on um you know you can look online and find find out some history and things

but we were the first to make kind of that teardrop crazy looking bicycle helmets at some of those

road guys use um and and um you know we were one of the first we've always been um a supporter of

the Japanese Olympic team so they're always wearing kibuto bicycle helmets and so right from the very

star arrow was something we really really paid attention to I know we've worked with several

different universities in Japan as well to kind of understand the dynamics um high pressure points

low pressure points um and you know racing motorcycles has sort of changed over the years as

well so with with moto gp bikes now you know I think here at koto maybe we're going to 225

I mean 225 ish up the hill basically yeah and um even some of the events here you can see that

you know we have something called omnidirectional aerodynamics they play a big giant role in our

focus um you can see for a moto gp helmet the f17 kind of has a smaller wing than some other

people's helmets have these enormous wings and those work well when you're tucked into the bike

and you're under the bubble and you're you know you know you're trying to get as as much aerodynamic

efficiencies you possibly can but as soon as you pop up out of the bubble and you're on your brakes

and then you're you know you have to look through the turn um as soon as you do that you're turning

your helmet and you need the helmet to be stable from kind of the side as well and you can even see

these little vents here in the front they're designed to scoop air when your head is actually

turned sideways not so much when it's turned front so that's specifically for that what kind of speeds

I mean obviously it depends on the turns but like when you're kind of coming into that like on a

moto gp what kind of speeds do you think they're entering those kind of turns in well at the top

the hill I mean they're breaking hard from they're breaking hard from I think they're I think they're

going maybe 225 and they're breaking and and I don't know I mean maybe maybe they're um that's a

top of the hill is a u-turn essentially yeah yeah basically not quite a hairpin but a u-turn right

I mean I don't know the speeds at which I've not done a track day there I wish I did and I wish I had

a chance to do it but it's you would think it's still significantly fast enough to where

you're going to get some wind turbulence and stuff coming at you through things for sure I mean

especially when you're you know the idea when you're tucked in behind basically the shield

and even if you're doing like fast s curves or something you're still going to be looking through

it absolutely and so that's still probably going to have a yeah I mean we've all seen pictures of

guys hanging off so hard yeah that now no are they they're not rubbing their elbows they're

actually rubbing their shoulders now and so when you're doing that the windshield is someplace else

you know you're completely out in in and pretty dirty air actually and so we've got a lot of

things on this helmet you can see these little wake stabilizers right here they're patented

to help with the aerodynamic efficiency and absolute also the stability that's the big part

so this helmet also has something called MIPS actually both helmets that we have in the US

right now have MIPS and and what that is is the easiest way to explain that if we think for boxing

for instance if we were in a boxing match and you get hit in your chin or you get hit in your nose

straight on we're designed to take a pretty good punch straight on yeah and we can absorb that

but you've always you know you've you've absolutely seen people who got a right or left hook on the

chin and it's lights out it just turns your it turns your brain off basically and so MIPS the idea

of MIPS is that you know when you have a motorcycle crash and you have basically a rotational impact

or you're glancing off something and the helmet twists a little bit rather than having

it be rigid to your head and then transferring that force even if it's just minute and very quick

transferring that rotational force to your skull and therefore your brain it's it's damaging and so

what MIPS does is MIPS creates a little tiny bit of slip so that helmet shell basically or the

interior where your head is touching is it's connected but there's a little bit of give to

where the helmet will move a little bit and it's not like a ill-fitting helmet it still fits perfect

it's not it's not perceptible but you have to think about you know when you're trying to

make a helmet that it will will basically have some give if you will but also has to be stable

enough to go 225 miles an hour and pop up out of the bubble it's got to be stable it can't vibrate

or do anything weird like that but yet if you do have an accident and you have a glancing blow

that it helps dissipate some of that energy and not you know reduce the the effects of a brain

injury so this is the only Moto GP helmet that has MIPS MIPS is a much much bigger deal in the

bicycle industry a lot of everybody knows about MIPS in the bicycle industry the rider that that

we've had for a number of years that's still a test rider for us but he's largely retired now

Alessia Sparghio he was a Prelia rider now he's on a test rider for Honda

he's a big bicyclist he's huge in bicycling and it's one of the things he loved about our brand

is that we had MIPS so it's the only Moto GP or FIM certified helmet that has MIPS

so in talking about safety standards you're talking about you got your DOT which is kind

of like a Department of Transportation that's our stuff here in America then EC is a European

standard yeah that's right and then MIPS is that just an additive bonus thing it's not quite a

standard yet for me it's it's not a standard it's it's it's a basically a feature it's a feature so

the the three there's multiple homologations here in America we have DOT which is a Federal Motor

Vehicle Safety Standard number 218 specifically and it gets sort of a bad rap a lot of people like

to talk bad about it that it's not you know it's not that great of a standard um they really

you know it's kind of one of those old adages I always like to tell people you know tell me

exactly what kind of accident you're going to have and I'll tell you what the best helmet

to wear is for that accident because there are times when a plain old DOT helmet probably works

better than anything else yeah but first and foremost all helmets that are sold in the United

States even if it's like for dirt bike riding have to be DOT has to be so that right off the

bat you start there and then ECE we're now at 2206 that standard changes every 10 years or so

DOT typically doesn't change it has a little bit but not much ECE 2206 is the newer standard there

it's actually put out by the United Nations so the UN actually does that and you have to have your

helmet certified to that so they they do testing in in they don't have their own test facility they

contract to labs and then we have to pay to have all the testing done and things like that and we

basically get a certification sticker and you'll see the the note of that on the back of the helmet

and actually there's a notation on the chin strap as well for the ECE

DOT is self-certified so that means I as a helmet manufacturer I know what the certification is

or the standard is and I have to build helmets to that standard

DOT goes out and buys hundreds of helmets a year in the marketplace they buy them off dealership

shelves like secret shopper kind of secret shopper type thing and then it goes to a laboratory

that's contracted there there's there's one the contract moves around so it's not always in the

same spot but there's a fantastic lab that I used in the past in San Antonio called Southwest

Research Institute and it's a you know it's a private for-profit research institute it's

incredible to go there and they've been contracted at some point you really don't know who has the

government contract at any given time but they blind taste they taste test they blind test helmets

in the marketplace and basically it's pretty scary because if you fail any of those tests

you're going to recall your helmet and that's a nasty thing nobody wants to do that so you

you absolutely make sure that you meet the DOT standards things still happen yeah people so by

doing it that way it's kind of like you can slap that sticker on your helmet but if you you're

going to probably get catching major fine or something like that huge yeah you're going to

you're going to spend you know probably they're going to want you to pull yeah all of them they're

going to try to you you have to do advertisements and all kinds of things where you have to pull

those helmets back in if you possibly can so you don't want to do that so you don't want to

mess up with your dot stand your dot standard so and it and again testing wise I would encourage

anybody who's really interested you know there's dwell times and things like that there's jewels

or how much energy gets transferred from the outside impact to the inside impact

DOT has a penetration test where they've got like it's about a 10 pound spike with like a 60 degree

point that gets dropped from I don't know like 12 feet and the spike can go through the shell

but it can't go through the EPS and there's a way to test that and so the European standard

actually doesn't have the penetration test or I shouldn't say that they have a penetration test

but you know as a manufacturer going in exactly where they can drop that spike so you can build for

that the DOT specification you can drop that spike anywhere you want and so you have to build the

helmet strong enough and if you think about something like this like a foot peg on a motorcycle

or something the penetration test shows you that something pointy you know you don't encounter

things pointy too often but let's say you're a motocross guy and you're riding dirt bikes

metal foot peg a lever yeah you know something that would poke right through your shell and

so it also shows the ability of the helmet to take a sharp impact that's at one specific point

and how to spread that impact over the whole entire shell and resist penetration but also

kind of not deflect that impact but kind of spread it out and again like when you would

it would show the crash test in cars sure how a unibody like yeah yeah it would absorb yeah

so again helmets sacrifice themselves when you crash the fiberglass will crack and delaminate

and the pieces kind of slide and and and come apart basically I mean you know people

you know you it's surprising I don't think people really realize you're not trying to make your

helmet strong that's not the idea you're trying to make your helmet like like something to protect

you it's in a way it's actually kind of soft and the outside part is is hard to

absorb the energy and spread it out over a larger area the inside part which is expanded polystyrene

which is basically styrofoam it looks like a styrofoam coffee cup it's an insulator that's

your shock absorber and when you feel that it feels really hard but all it has to do is give a little

bit and when you you know from a coffee cup if you scratch it with your fingernail that the

it's the scratch stays there and so that's another reason why the helmet destroys itself

and protecting you you might get cracks and delamination here but when you have an accident

your head is pushing on the inside against the impact and you're basically squishing from both

directions that EPS and so what happens is once you've had that impact the helmet largely is no

good yeah yeah here in Texas when you're ready to level up your ride there's only one dealership

that I go to and that's Cowboy Harley Davidson of Austin whether you're looking to jump on a new

2026 model or a certified pre-owned Harley that's ready to go Cowboy has you covered genuine Harley

parts expert service by factory trained technicians finance options all from the dealership that I

have trusted to buy my last five motorcycles in the past 10 years swing by or hit them up at Cowboy

Harley Austin dot com and don't forget Cowboy hosts weekly events so follow them on instagram

at Cowboy HD Austin to get real-time updates and one split second your ride can turn into a fight

for your life your bike and your future that's when you want law tigers and motorcycle lawyers to

have your back they're not just attorneys they're riders real ones they've been in the wind they

understand it they know the risks they fought for thousands of injured riders across the country

to get the compensation they deserve 1 800 law tigers needs to be the first call you make they

would get you on the right path with free case evaluations 24 7 call law tigers before the

insurance company starts spinning their wheels again 1 800 law tigers or hit up law tigers dot

com to get on the right path and give them a follow on instagram at law tigers and once again

1 800 law tigers the first call you make so i mean that that's just kind of like one of the added

features of this helmet you know i mean with all the testing and all the stuff that they do for all

these different things what is like moto gp expect you to have to be able to be a moto gp that's a

good question so fim is another standard altogether on top of that and that's this helmet is fim approved

helmet it is the actual helmet we use in moto gp racing it's not like we have one helmet we use

for that another helmet we sell to the public this is our moto gp helmet it's like the prototype

car and then the car that comes right to the public like you're right yeah this is the prototype

right no this is the real this is the exactly the helmet we use in moto gp you know our our painter

that works with a lot of with a lot of the racers he's in i think he's in holland maybe he's in

netherlands i think so anyhow slg graphics we send him a ton of just white helmets just like

that at the beginning of the year and and uh he paints them for a bunch of the racers and uh yeah

so fim is another one of those that you you have to pay um for their certification um they

regularly test the helmets i mean they are absolutely um beating them up and testing them

all different kind of aspects of the helmets and um because they want you know it's catastrophic

if a racer gets a head injury so yeah it's kind of like anything like you know like when you have

a basketball player running down the court and his shoe blows up yeah that's like devastating for

that shoe manufacturer right so you want to make sure when you never know when the cameras are on

the bike or whatever but you always want to make sure that you know this is the the the spoilers

not flying off of it on the camera absolutely absolutely absolutely without question yeah it's

it's uh every once in a while you know you'll have somebody who have a shield problem and there has

been a a time in the past where um shields uh if you watch moto gp you'll see that shields

were coming off and that was a big problem and because if a shield comes off in an accident

there's a chance your rider could have a pretty serious eye injury or some facial injury or

something like that so most moto gp shields now have a locking system and um in fim2 which is

coming up a new standard fim will have they'll even be a more robust locking system that will be

absolutely required in all moto gp helmets so so when did like cabuto finally or when did they start

getting racers in moto gp and things like that so we've been road racing like from the very very

start yeah and we've had uh it's like superbike world superbike those kind of things um a lot of

times as azuka and endurance racing and things like that but our first moto gp rider was a young

man named remmy gardener and um racing fans have been around a while um know his father's name

wane gardener he was a world 500 cc champion from uh want to say late 80s early 90s and so remmy's

his son and uh remmy's not doing moto gp anymore he was our first rider he's gone and he's doing

world superbike now um and then um we got uh um highlasha spargeo and uh he was with aprilia

and he retired at the end of 2024 and he moved on to be a test rider for honda

you were just talking about yeah yeah and then now we have yoan mir who is a champion from a few

years ago on azizuki now he's a honda rider and uh he's our current guy he was with us last year

and uh he's still with us this year we also have uh michael piero who's a ducati test rider

he's a well-known guy that's been with ducati a very very long time and really has played an

important role in helping ducati um develop a pretty dominating bike in moto gp and then we

have a lot of other riders um in in the other two classes um and then all over all over the world

in many different aspects of racing from australia to europe and um there's a lot of people racing

with kabuto helmets right now not so much in the us we're still getting just started with that um

so right now i think we've got um you know torrin collins who's the supersport champion in canada

and comes down and does some some racing in united states um and then we're going to be doing some

flat track so um we've got a rider um signed up to be a flat track racer next year um for us um

we're developing some tear-offs specifically for a flat track um that are different than

the road racing tear-offs but uh they'll largely use the same helmet what does that mean tear-offs

tear-off so um you can see that um not this shield that's chrome but the shield is clear right here

you have these big buttons on the outside on the inside there's uh there's a um pin lock system

where you basically can install a little shield that keeps you from fogging up we'll talk about

that a little bit later but specifically for tear-offs they're they're basically sheets of like

cellophane that go on there and have a tab and and you have basically clear vision again

yeah you pull it off and and um the ones that we use in europe for road racing are just plain

sort of plastic the ones that we use um for dirt track racing us you can stack a lot more of them

because they're actually um there's adhesive between them and they're actually laminated

each other so they're almost like a stack of clear stickers you peel them off one by one and

some guys will use 20 of them on there at one time which is kind of crazy but um yeah so we're

developing those right now um there's a company in in las vegas that makes those custom for us

so i guess let's uh some of the helmet stuff like features and uh you know like go over

the venting system and some of the aerodynamics as to why maybe some of it's that way sure and

um we can kind of give people an insight to some of the helmet stuff in that regard you know what

i mean sure absolutely so this is the f17 which is our moto gp helmet and um you'll see in the

front you've got a couple chin vents right here that you can open up independently and and this is

these largely um they're not going to like add air or send air to your mouth it's more about

keeping the inside of the shield um the same the same temperature as the outside so you don't have

fogging um most racers don't use pin locks it's mostly for street riders um they could use a

pin lock in like really extreme conditions let's say they're doing an endurance race and wet or

something like that um and you got your locking shield it's a little cumbersome on the table

but once you get used to it um and you i use my index finger um you basically um push with one

and it locks it's i mean it's locked down nice and nice and tight yeah when i was wearing mine

it did take a little bit of time to get used to it yeah but it's like any learn it's learning

buttons on a controller right absolutely absolutely then you got these vents right here on the top of

the forehead and again these are really designed so when you pop up out of the bubble and you're

going to the turn these are going to scoop air in when your head's sideways when you're looking

through a turn um you got a central um vent on the top and then you got exhaust vents in the rear

with the spoiler

and then you got this wake stabilizer right here which really helps with

the aerodynamics of the helmet um and basically what you're trying to do is you can see this on some

aerodynamic um commercial vehicles like big trucks and things if you're not if you don't

make something like this and again it's patented um this is designed normally the air is going to

follow the shape of the helmet and it would come on back to here and would break away and cause a

lot of turbulence right behind the helmet this actually makes the help this makes the air actually

break free right here on the side of the helmet and so it makes it move through the air much much

cleaner so again uh super serious so much time has spent on this helmet in the wind tunnel

making sure it's just as perfect as it possibly can be um you know there's uh some people are very

sub susceptible to like wind noise when they're riding a bike and some people seem to not to

care about it these helmets are really quiet um but again it has a lot to do with your height

the windshield you have on your bike um or no windshield how dirty the air is maybe you have

t bars no fairing big risers no fairing ape hangers there's so many different factors in play

if we just had this helmet out in clean air it's super super easy to design a helmet that

works in perfectly clean air but as soon as you start adding other elements yeah the bars are

going to turbulent air the way that it comes off the the fairing or not yeah all that stuff

is going to make a difference even your riding position because you think about how a guy you

know on a bike like this st is going to be riding position it's like sit up and beg compared to a

sport bike guy who's going to be you know tucked in um even when he's riding relaxed he's going to

be much more aggressive i'm not i'm not suggesting people get on the highway and you know tuck it

completely that's ridiculous but um but really uh so the helmet is is sort of optimized to work

as a racing helmet but it still works as a street helmet yeah you've been riding with one for a

while do you find it pretty quiet yeah and and i i guess that's where it kind of gets complicated

trying to um i guess i don't know if the word is educate or just kind of like relay i guess is

better how i would say it relay how i feel because it's almost like you gotta wear a really unknown

or known loud helmet right and then put it on because i've never really been very susceptible

to loud noises sure i'm not a earplug plugs kind of guy like the the noise in the general doesn't

bother me so i've always felt like i've really suck at being the person to answer that question

right but i do notice a difference in like say putting on an awry a showy uh anything that has

more of that almost like sock like sure coming on right it's just it's blocking more and more

areas from like noise to kind of get in absolutely and just knowing from like doing podcasts and

like uh audio stuff i kind of know how sound works how it how it bounces and whatnot and

i don't know i feel like i i don't really have an issue with that at all but i also like i said

i've never really been one that hasn't it's complained about it right what i do what i do

notice and you know when it comes to like an everyday like street rider like myself like the

things that i look for in a helmet is airflow yeah um especially here in texas where it's 110 degrees

right um and and like the pin or not the pinlock but the the detents sure because again when it is

110 degrees you're right with your shield up and sometimes you use maybe not all the way up but maybe

just a little bit of air to come in and give you some like some fresh air or whatever and

the thing is that like whenever the visor is down and you do have the vents right here open

i don't know what the technical term is for those but when those are open i can feel the air kind of

just like as if it was just fingers rubbing over the top of your head right which to me like adds

a lot of value in in the ability to like have you know cool air on your head while wearing a helmet

in a place like texas right right absolutely you know what i'm saying yeah and this is the other

thing because when i when i did my my video of picking up the harley and i was kind of giving

people hey this is riding around blah blah blah the biggest thing that people i think in the harley

space have issues with is um is uh what do you call it the turbulence it's there's a name for it uh

when like your riding and your head starts getting this it's uh um the buffeting buffeting

that's right so i need to ride more to officially say this and i but i feel like me and my wife

which she she's rocking she was rocking the aero blade yeah that's riding around like that didn't

happen i usually only would get a buffeting when i have a passenger sure um the way i sit and the

my bars and the the the visor the windshields i usually do i try to optimize for looks and then

sure what not sure i understand but i i really haven't had much of an issue with that i don't

want to go on record saying that i don't have an issue but that's all a lot of uh like my height

where i'm sitting on the bike the wind is coming over like there's so many variables that like

you know i had said on the video that i didn't have any and i was just saying maybe that's a

testament to the new harley design right but realistically there's just so many factors to

go into that it's hard to make that a blanket statement well even even hd you know for a while

you know it was basically accepted wisdom that you would just put a big block in front of all

the wind and you'd be in this little pocket behind it yeah but they realized as that's where

there was a lot of turbulence and buffeting was that tumbling air behind there and that kind of

low pressure zone and so you see all the new harleys um you know they have vented fairings

where you pop open vents and even that in the center of the windshield at the bottom

there's a pretty big vent and what that does is that allows air behind so you're equalizing the

pressure um that air comes through and hits you in the chest and things like that and what it's

going to do is equalize the pressure and stop that crazy buffeting so they're starting to even

understand that from the bike manufacturing side of things now that i think about it well my wife

is riding and she doesn't have a backrest and she's closer to me i really don't get right but when

she's sitting back on a rest and there's gap between us yeah i feel like that's when you're

gonna get that because you get the dirty air from my element yep in that pocket there yeah absolutely

absolutely so it's kind of interesting um i noticed when i i don't have a road glide now but

when i had a road glide previously you could open and close those doors i don't know if the newest

ones like that they just have them open now they got rid of the mechanisms yeah that when you closed

it was pretty horrible it it might have been a little warmer like in the winter time yeah

but i i didn't really i mean i don't really ride in the winter anyhow but um it might have been

in ohio at the time at the time it was really cold when it's winter um but i had to ride with

them open all the time to basically stop that buffeting so um you know so we're we're trying to

make the cleanest aerodynamic helmet you possibly can

and i was thinking about this earlier not sorry to cut you off but i was thinking about earlier

when you were talking about the wind tunnel and for racing like that's a specific thing that kind

of like encompassing encompasses like the the initial problem at hand we need to make an aerodynamic

helmet to do this job right but then i was thinking like well what if you made what if you went through

the process of doing that for your everyday riders right right but then i'd answer my own question

when i was talking about all the different ways that air is going to be turbulent differently

through the different fairings windshields right manufacturer motorcycles yeah how could you build

something that yeah and i mean and everybody has different ideas of what they want to do you know

right now half helmets are pretty much falling out of fashion um they're kind of in in certain

segments like so right now what's weird is like all the cali dudes they're they're running those

like jockey kind of style like helmets with the they have like the covers for their ears i don't

know if that's just a winter thing or if it's the whole style but that's gotten pretty popular

out there so at one point working for another helmet company many many years ago we were selling

hundreds of thousands of half helmets a year yeah and the funny thing is i couldn't wear one

i was manufacturing them i was developing the the how they fit how they look all of the engineering

side of it i was working on but yet i couldn't ride with them because to me they were just

insanely noisy like the wind i just couldn't ride with them is this the former days yeah just drove

me crazy we were selling massive amounts of those helmets and you know they work for some people

that's great i think most people realize that you when you're wearing a helmet like that

you you have less coverage and and therefore less protection so i think i think mainly those like

small little half shells for its inception time was just to solve the helmet law problem i think in

those cases um ece 2205 2206 and and people like fmi fim and snel and people know none of those guys

authorize those helmets it's only dot and they're largely not available any of those helmets are

not available in europe so it's pretty much an american thing and and it probably was for people

to get by um in states where helmet law states um and that's the closest thing they could do

to still have an open yeah to have no is as minimal a helmet as possible um the projects

i always worked on were absolute dot we wouldn't do the novelty type you know i don't i've never

been involved in that but um you know i think uh a couple different things have happened one um

they've sort of fallen out of favor with um with the younger crowd i think a lot of the older

crowd still wears them maybe in california that's coming back around yeah um and i think also a lot

of a lot of um states that had helmet laws now have changed their helmet laws and they've they

haven't made helmet use mandatory they might have helmet laws but it might be that you have to have

insurance or you have to be 21 or you have to be you know there's a multitude technically i think

it's like that here where you're supposed to have sure a certain uh life insurance policy

and and uh of you know at least i think it's at least 18 years old or something like that right

yeah almost every single state has some form of helmet law but that doesn't mean you necessarily

have to wear a helmet it just means you have to wear a helmet unless you meet certain criteria

want to say even like i want to say vegas had some or not vegas but nevada had some weird one where

it was like on a highway you have to wear one but not on the streets but i could be completely

asked backwards on that but you know i it was either that or it was lane splitting helmets

or lanes but i can remember which one but but i think i think you know that's also kind of um

you know people have have sort of changed up from that you know and um you know styles morphe

and and um helmet technology you know full face helmets are a lot more comfortable now um than

they used to be um they're better venting um better peripheral vision things like that so

i think that um and maybe as we age we we worry about getting in accidents more maybe

we're not as invincible as we once were and um and maybe uh maybe they are more comfortable when

it comes to you know wind in your face all day long yes uh is yeah traveling on a bike it definitely

changes the dynamic the first time i ever rode across country i was doing everything i could

i think i did have like a a full face it was like a cheap little sure hjc or some something you get

from like cycle gear real cheap and uh it was on the it was strapped to the back seat in all the

states that i didn't have to wear it but when i got to california i threw it on and then you

start to realize like man like i've been riding all day long and just the wind burn and the sun and

all the different things and they get to your your destination for the day and you just look at

yourself looking like a raccoon and all the different stuff right got the little half moon

shell from your your backwards baseball cap going down the road you know um even even from a

dehydration standpoint your exposed skin on the highway um you really get crazy dehydrated i mean

it basically the wind pulls the moisture out of your body and so again you start getting fatigued

you start getting dehydrated you start making bad choices it can just snowball into all kinds of

bad stuff so proper gear um and and we're you know we're not the type of people to tell people

that they have to wear this they have to wear that you know i'm every once while i jump on a bike

with a t-shirt on yeah i know that that is less protection than a jacket yeah um but i also know

that all of motorcycling is risk management yeah you know even getting on a bike the majority of

people in america 96 of people don't risk riding motorcycles and so um even deciding to take

that risk means that um you know we can do all the right things and it still go horribly wrong

so as motorcycle riders what i what i hate is i don't like telling people how they should ride

or what they should ride with gear wise or not that at all that's not my place yeah that's your

risk to manage and it's my risk to manage yeah so yeah don't tell me how to raise my kids no

not at all not my job so you know maybe jumping around a little bit like where like you you kind

of always been working within the motorcycle industry right i have but where was the transition from

being in the parts and all that kind of other side of it to getting specifically into the

helmet brands and manufacturing and all that type of stuff so um i went to work for tucker rocky

which is one of the big giant distributors um they're no longer around they've been kind of

private equity out of business basically but they were actually based in Irving Texas

Dallas area up in your neck of the woods um and so i actually lived there um i don't know you might

have been three or four years old or something like that was the nineties it was uh early nineties

okay yeah i was uh i was i was eight nine yeah okay yeah yeah so um you know it was it was a funny

time uh we worked for a motorcycle wholesale distributor um it's a place where for people who

don't know um you like the Harley dealer gets a lot of parts directly from Harley Davidson

but then there's a lot of parts that come from the aftermarket and like tucker rocky's division was

was biker's choice and at one point it was nemco um our friend bob k mutual friend um from that

and i worked with bob at tucker rocky for a long time and so um you know i went to work for them

after working in motorcycle shops initially after school um i went to work for them as a buyer

and um basically i i was we had i think at that time 10 buyers and we bought all this stuff you

know it's hundreds of millions of dollars in sales a year to all the dealers united states

and um you're buying from brands to bring into the catalogs right yeah we're buying from brands

to bring into the catalogs and we didn't do any it's all wholesale so we only sold the dealerships

and at the time i think at the peak i think we had 12 warehouses 10 in america and two in canada

and they were strategically placed all over the america and it was my job like for instance uh i was

the yoshimir exhaust buyer and it was my job to buy the yoshimir exhaust to put them in all those

warehouses based on you know we had already decided we were going to be a yoshimir distributor so

then what you're doing is you're just letting your numbers do the talking like what demand is

coming out and then you're because maybe yoshimir is not going to do as well in like the the pacific

northwest sure but you know downward the tracks and where the people that are riding sports bikes

absolutely so you're basically going by demand so i mean there was a number of different i mean i

think each of us had 50 or 60 brands and at that time we had our senior product line manager they

were called product line managers or buyers a guy from dallas a dear friend of mine his name is

ronnie han he bought all of takaraki's helmets he was the helmet guy i focused on exhausts i did

yoshimir and f m f um a couple other brands that came and went i did a bunch of chemicals so a lot

of the chemical companies i dealt with and i did all street apparel so field shear first gear hind garrick

those were all my brands and you know i'm a 24 year old guy and i'm writing purchase orders for

several million dollars you know you some of that and it was blowing me away i mean i was like shocked

in the 90s in the 90s yeah and and uh what was crazy is you know we're a motorcycle company

and uh we were required every single day to wear a suit and tie to work damn and it kind of drove

me crazy like i really really hated that yeah so i i i did that for many many years and um

then uh an opportunity arose uh for uh another distributor that's kind of the third

distributor and at that time the third largest one um there was parts unlimited which still exists

today and there was another one that was based in missouri called motorcycle stuff and it was a family

owned business um not uh you know private equity or not like that and it was a family owned business

and they only had three buyers and three guys did all the but it was a much smaller volume yeah

not as wide of product line and i went to work for them and i did exhaust um they didn't have

any street apparel at that time but we brought in some street apparel and i bought that um we

developed our own line of leather and that's where i had my first um involvement with buying

helmets and some of my brands that i bought then were um bell there's an italian brand

that's no longer with us called bfa or bafi uh it was the bfe buyer and uh m2r which was a brand

um of kind of inexpensive helmets and they also did some dirt bike racing um by a friend tonia

oliver out of australia had that brand and so and i think o'neill o'neill dirt helmets so those were

our brands there and i bought those and again um mostly exhaust and street clothing yeah and for

everybody listen like i think most people get like they understand the models behind like drag

specialties and stuff but like these smaller distributor companies help like a small you

know a smaller shop like a mom and pop shop be able to have access to parts lines to sell to

customers yeah absolutely and so this day there's like smaller ones that aren't as big as like your

specialties or uh hard drive i think it's what they call it now but like mid usa is still out

there and they do a lot of consumables so like your oils your gaskets that way people can still

maintain spikes and have less of a 10 or 12 000 are buying to get set up with companies yeah and

there's there's regional guys that have been around for a long long time there's guys that

specialize in certain things um you know there's a company called helmet house that does helmets

and apparel basically um there's another company called western power sports of course parts and

limited um tucker rocky's been bought up by some company called turn 14 that's usually like it's

it's more focused on automotive type stuff um but so the distributors kind of operate in

kind of the background and um and now a lot of brands kind of like what we've decided to do

instead of going with distributors and having that extra discount that extra level in there

because they need to get paid we just work directly with dealers even even like tucker rocky

because ups and fedex and everybody got so much more efficient they certainly didn't

need 10 warehouses around america so they they pared that down smaller and smaller and smaller

and now that we're here in texas we can service west coast and east coast pretty well yeah

fairly quickly out of out of central texas so south central texas so yeah i want to say that like

the one maybe good thing that came out of amazon was that now i see a lot of uh ups and fedex

trucks running on sundays now sure yeah yeah you know you see a lot more uh you see like i mean

it just seems like it doesn't make sense for it not to it's a competitive world everybody's you

know and everybody's trying to offer a better service level the next guy and i think that sort

of peaked right before covid and then covid was an excuse for everybody to pull back a little bit

you know no more breakfast at hotels and all this stuff and and and people pulled back and started

doing almost the bare minimum and now we have again because you want a competitive advantage

now hotels are starting to add breakfasts back in and things like this just because they they

want to beat the next guy yeah and so uh covid was kind of a reset for all that stuff

this is a pullback but like a rubber band it's like now everybody's having to do

twice the amount of work that they would have had to do right to keep up or to keep right alive now

right yeah for sure so you're buying all this stuff and and you're you're in Missouri at the

time in Missouri Cape Cape chart of Missouri which is a really cool place motorcycle riding is epic

what's it closer to so it's right on the border it's on i-55 it's um about 120 miles south of

st louis and about 200 miles north of memphis oh so 55 is what goes north and south right there

kind of along the mississippi a little 55 goes new orleans to chicago that's right that's right

and so for for riding um it's was it like poplar bluff or something poplar bluffs a little bit west

of there but yeah so for riding going west towards poplar bluff and all that and then down into northern

and western arkansas kind of where the camp out was yeah incredible riding some of the best

riding that i've ever experienced my entire life i mean um you know it's great to ride in california

it's great to ride in east um and the smokies and things but man those arcs are pretty special

yeah and it's like uh there's it's not crowded and people sort of leave you alone yeah kind of

like it a lot so and we're like hey get get your gas and get right right well i just you know it's

it's uh you know where you have a lot of motorcycle riders showing up and riding in bunch and then you

have you know more law enforcement and and you have to be a little bit more careful and you

know as long as you're you know not doing too many passes on wo lines yeah yeah and and you

don't have too many citizens calling in uh you know 911 on you um you know you know going to a

place that there's not many bikes out is uh is preferable so yeah there's some there's some

great riding in arkansas and southern missouri no question so i i did that um i worked there for

a number of years and um you know things changed uh the family decided to sell that uh company into

some private equity and um you know basically the company that owned custom chrome they wanted

they had the v twin thing locked down with custom chrome they also owned chrome specialties and

paco frames yeah and they thought that they needed in their portfolio a company that was

focused on japanese and european stuff and that was us and so i stuck around for about three years

after that transition and it was it was to be expected i mean it's kind of how those things go

and um i was reading one of the trade publications uh and um

there was an ad in there for a company a helmet company based in memphis tennessee

called arthur fulmer and i knew about them but they weren't in distribution they kind of

they kind of you know they operated to beat of their own drum like they didn't do things normal

they were largely outside of the motorcycle business they didn't go to any of the trade shows

which is weird yeah and so i decided to take a day off work at motorcycle stuff and go to memphis

and talk to him yeah i sent my resume down and uh it was funny i i didn't keep a resume at work but

it just so happened um a friend of mine wanted to plagiarize because we'd had kind of the same career

path and he wanted to plagiarize what i'd written previously and so i happened to have it and i was

just like i did a couple updated lines in senate and uh you know i got early 2000s this would have

been right at um 2000 yeah so um 2000 2001 and so i got a call from home and my significant other

that was at home at the time was like um hey uh you just got a call like 10 minutes ago from like

fulmer helmets and uh they needed you calling back and i was like wow i sent it 15 minutes ago

like cool so we set something up a few days later i just drove the 200 miles down to memphis

it was a really interesting process um very very wealthy family owned that family owned business

for a long long time and they did have a very different approach to motorcycling uh

the motorcycle helmet business they just they'd been doing it since the late 60s and um they'd

had some real success and then they kind of forgot about it for a while and then success

was coming back to them and it was getting a little bit out of control and they needed they

needed a motorcycle guy to kind of manage that whole thing and so that was my first time working

for a company and solely focusing on helmets and only helmets and that's where i really got my

basically my education and product development so i started traveling um all of their product

was made in asia so i started traveling for them to taiwan china uh korea and vietnam

on a pretty regular basis so it was kind of interesting i had a lot of say in what the

helmets look like and how they fit and the range of sizes and when we would introduce new models

and when we would discontinue models and the whole life cycle of helmets and um investing in

tooling and testing and all these kind of things and it was a it was a wonderful time for me to

really um take it i have to use the term to the next level but the the family was wonderful to

me they were really great people um they treated me so well and and um and i learned a lot and it

was great and i was there um for 10 years for 10 years so that was a fantastic um it was a fantastic

time for me um i uh unfortunately my father uh passed away and um at that time nobody worked

from home nobody you know everybody was in the office and even though i was away a lot traveling

to different events and visiting dealers and interviewing them about what they needed for

their helmets and going to the factories overseas um when i was home i was in the office and i tried

to kind of work it out to where i could work remotely and come you know for one week a month

or something like that and we just we i worked on that a year so um on the anniversary date they

say it when somebody you know close to you when something happens to somebody the best thing to

do is nothing for a while um i resigned that position on the day my father passed away one

year later so i went back to Ohio where my mom was um i had a house in Ohio and um i went back to

work for my friends at at iron pony um the debt for a while did help them they added a bunch of

new brands to their portfolio i think now they're over 20 different brands of motorcycles um at the

time when i was there i think they just did Yamaha and Suzuki but we i mean i was there a couple

years and we added another five or six brands including indian um so i had a lot of a big

experience with like the initial setup of an indian dealership and the very reverse bikes they did

and things like that it's kind of cool process um being part of that and then a person i worked with

at fulmer um was working for another helmet company based in california's office but they were in

china in shanghai and they needed some help and uh they needed more of like a

not so much a product development guy they needed like a person who understood the helmet

business and the manufacturing side and actually kind of you know what that process looks like

and um they had all these customers already set up like um arctic cat was a customer of mine

simpson helmets was a customer of mine and so i would basically go around the country

and offer them our services to develop a helmet specifically for them or to take helmet that was

already existing and update it or do new graphics or whatever was needed for their marketplace but

also helped them understand the timeline of how long that takes to get that done so you kind of

like created a new business of being kind of like a middleman or kind of a a little bit i mean they

sort of had that already and that still exists for many many companies i mean i i don't know if

people realize this but like harley davidson does not make any helmets yeah like they're not a helmet

manufacturer so the helmets harley davidson has they've got a guy that works for that helmet company

that goes to harley and says this is what we can make for you yeah and this is the timeline and this

is you know i need to talk to your graphics people and we need to you know you can't just do any

graphic you want there's a certain way you have to do it and harley's gonna want a specific kind of

box and specific kind of packaging and all these different rules and stipulations so

that still exists yeah for a bunch of different companies but one of my customers was simpson

and i went there for maybe 18 months or so maybe close to two years and we would talk for a brief

moment about the helmets that i was making for them and then um their business was starting to

kind of take off and they didn't fully understand it because they were all race car guys yeah and

they'd had some real uh success back in like the 80s with like original like the very first like

z1r super bikes and stuff um late 70s early 80s but when nascar kind of blew up for simpson it was

all hands on deck motorcycles and small potatoes we need to focus on nascar yeah when nascar started

going downhill they decided to take another look at motorcycles they had some initial success

but they just couldn't really quite figure out how to like where that success was coming from and

they were worried they couldn't maintain it and so i would go and we would talk about my helmets the

couple helmets i was making for them and uh then we'd spend the rest of the day talking about

general motorcycle business and how it all works and how you approach dealerships and i had a lot

of experience with that and so they um they asked me to come to work for them and so i was there for

10 years and did all the product development and traveling to the factories and that for or that's

how you and i met so i left there to start cabuto americas this and you know we're a division of the

company um i left there uh my last day was may 31st 2024 so um we really the first year um we took

to get all of our ducks to row with dot and third party testing and warehousing and going to events

and you know for the first year i didn't even have any product yeah so we're right now we

received our first product in may of 2025 and so we're not even fully have been up and running

even for a year yet yeah so still still new yes so you had to you know this space that we're in

right now you had to acquire this which this is the the you had a smaller one while this was being

built out right right you had to get the van get it wrapped you had to yeah you know you texted one

day i said i've never spent you think you said you spent 20 000 on boxes yeah and you know helmets

already come in boxes but then when you ship it to a consumer you ship it to a dealer and you need

a box that's you know these are all six packs well i need a single pack i need a two pack i need a

three pack i need a four pack and then i need a box for somebody just orders a shield and a t-shirt

yeah so suddenly i'm like okay and uh you know you're doing artwork on the boxes and you're

trying to figure this all out and of course i want to you know keep japan involved so it's all

you know you want to have consistent branding of course yeah um and so there's a lot of hoops

to jump through and then all of a sudden it's like okay how many boxes what's the minimum order

quantity to get a decent enough deal how much and it's like you're going to stroke check for

20 000 just for cardboard boxes and those are things that i'll i'll completely admit that i took

it granted for at places like full it was already kind of established and that was already established

people didn't have i didn't have to worry about that yeah yeah so i mean you got pallet racks in

here you have a forklift right um like like i said uh or what we're kind of implying here is that

this this thing is existed in japan but you know being on this side of the world north south canada

yeah you know like this is where it all kind of comes from now yes what's the market like

in like south america so it's growing there's pockets i mean there's there's certainly that

there's um you know there's there's a lot more business there for people um to use the bikes as

basic transportation you know and then and when that's the case they're it's inexpensive helmets

but like anything else um there are people there with money and when they have money they want to buy

yeah all the cool european bikes you know dual sports harleys um and they want premium products

i mean there's there's uh you know there is you know like the dynamite mic crew guys down there

yeah brazil is huge um brazil has really weird helmet laws and it's really really tough so most

motorcycle helmet companies ignore brazil even there's a lot of business there and they really

want your business the government is kind of um it's not a horrible thing you know it depends

on where you live the government is very very protective of their business and they they sort

of really want you to have a helmet factory there is what they'd prefer oh it's like a og terrace

a little bit a little bit yeah yeah exactly exactly so yeah so uh in regards to like what

it's on the market right now for for the helmets and stuff like that sorry someone's blowing me up

no worries um you have the f17 yes you know there are some race replica graphics that you guys offer

some of these but your solid colors are basically the white the black uh there's a there's a gray

that kind of matches kind of in my opinion it matches pretty well like uh my roglad which is the

the billiard gray or something like that billiard gray and then there was um battleship gun gunship

gray yeah and and it's we call it nardo gray because that was audi originally called it nardo gray

but that's sort of a sample that that is right in the middle so we try to hit a bunch of different

bikes basically the gray on the band right basically the gray on the band right exactly it's it's uh

people call it flat but it's not what they really want to call it is non-metallic so it's like a

pan-tone color so metallic colors have depth you know all these things um that doesn't have

depth when you see something painted like that you don't look into the paint you're looking at

the surface and it does do some cool stuff with your eyes yeah as does paint that you look into it

so just a different vibe yeah it seems to be really popular right now and so this is the

flagship model this is what let's run around the race tracks um the visor setup that you have

is now the the arrow blade is the other one that's coming out it's not quite not out yet

so we're looking at what april may yeah that it will be this spring for sure um and the arrow

blade is largely um the same shape um it doesn't have as big a wing in the back and and some of the

parts of them are molded into the shell instead of applied turn around sure yeah and the wake

stabilizers are kind of built into it um this helmet we haven't finalized pricing exactly yet

but it should be probably about two-thirds of what the f-17 is now it's going to use the same exact

shield system so that makes it kind of nice um it is a a hair lighter because it it's not an

FIM approved helmet it's just DOT and ECE 2205 but it is going to be a little lighter um it is going

to be um about two-thirds of the price so a third less yeah so what like these venting

is that like just more of like exiting like kind of like yeah because you don't have the

absolutely okay yeah yeah i like the shape on this i'm actually in this one for us that are

into the custom painted helmets this one i think is going to be a much uh more i wouldn't say the

word is easier i would say it's it's just more compatible to paint because you have less of

the uh the these spoilers these uh these more i'm gonna this spoiler is very very complicated i

spent a day um learning how to put this spoiler on in japan and and i don't i won't say it was a

mr. Miyagi experience but i had to put it on and take it off and put it on and take it off

a hundred times and i mean it's like lexus level of getting it lined up so perfect there's no

there's no um margin for margin for error at all i mean it's not acceptable and so

that makes it really really difficult for a painter to pull that off and then you to get that back on

even the little tapes are on there especially cut so they fit perfect and it's very very difficult

like i said i spent a day learning how to do it myself um then i mean we'll get it figured out one

way or another but you know the thing is that like i think that you know you know what's what's

crazy is like what people i think what people tend to do shopping wise or being a consumer

things is when they go to someone's website they automatically go to us the most expensive thing

they show i'm gonna go see what uh you know dodge sells well what's the most expensive car and then

i'm gonna work my way back sure um i've actually had both of these helmets for quite quite a while

i've been riding with this one a lot and to me this one solves like it is lighter i find it

a little bit easier sometimes just though that went on it's got a much like i know this is like

simple technology stuff but being able to throw some sunglasses on on the inside like i've always

worn sunglasses in my helmet um it's it's like uh you know you have the other helmets that will

have the drop down visor but it's so clunky it's so far away it you know it it does kind of weird

things with light coming through it sometimes um so just sunglasses on is just super simple for me

and i find that this helmet's like the the space that it allows for it is so much more comfortable

sure and i'm a little bougie and i have like those uh those meta glasses that like play music

oh yeah and record and i found that like other than the battery life on that because it's not

like you can rock them all day long or be on a road trip and listen to it for eight hours right

like a traditional headset but i can put those glasses on in those pockets in there such a

it's so nice that i can hear a podcast okay you know just clear as day you know what i mean

i need to try those out i love them so right now um melissa and i have um we have uh

kardo pack talk edges in in our cabudos and they work perfect there's little plugs that you pull

out and you can install a pack talk edge in these so quick and uh we prefer the the adhesive style

instead of the clamp style but it's super super easy to to add those but i've been thinking about

the meta the meta glasses for sure even the f17 and the other the dual sport helmet the geosis

have special little cutouts between where the crown eps is and the cheek pad starts

to allow glasses to fit a little bit easier in these helmets than most traditional helmets

this is absolutely without question designed to be a street helmet first and foremost these

are designed to be race helmets yeah and and so you know the difference there race racers want

their helmets really really small and tight they just do and uh we have a crazy variety of interiors

and and um you know we can um adjust cheek pads and the crowns and and fit nearly anybody

but for instance um i'm an extra large and and uh you know there's not a whole lot of room i

like my helmets tight um and they break in um i always encourage people to wear them as about

as tight as you can stand because they're going to break in and what we hear from a lot of people

especially the first helmet purchase or two they make in their life they buy a comfortable helmet

and then six months later it's sloppy on their head and it's 70 miles an hour it's moving around

which makes it feel heavier even it makes it noisier and they're really dissatisfied with

their helmet of course as a person that's selling helmets um you want to encourage somebody to wear

a helmet that's about as tight as they can stand but if i keep pushing them that direction

they'll just walk away from me yeah so at some point you have to like try to help explain it

that it's you know it's it's something that you want uniform tightness you don't want any hot spots

or any pinching or like that and we want to focus on the crown which is where a baseball cap would

fit we want that to be as close to the perfect fit as you possibly get it in the different sizes

of helmets it's going to break in less because right behind that padding is your eps which is

fairly hard down in here where you're having the cheek pads um i tell people this all the time

you shouldn't be able to chew gum when you ride your motorcycle it should be pushing on your cheeks

enough to where it's going to push your cheeks into your yeah into your teeth um so we can just

cheek pads we have lots of different size cheek pads but i would encourage you just people to start

off with the with the pads that come in it and and these are going to break in more than the

crown well yeah the crown's going to stay pretty much there but the cheek pads are going to break

in a lot and again you want the hell i mean we've we've got a highway here between here in austin

that's 130 that's marked 85 and if you're not cruising at 100 miles an hour you get ran over

i just came down it yeah yeah i mean people they don't mess around yeah

yeah the i think that so for me coming from a simpson to this like i'm traditionally a large

and most helmets sure i had a large in the bell star helmet large in these um now on simpson i fit

mod bend it's like the modular helmet mediums the large was like it was comfortable but then it

would break in so much that i could almost pull it off yep but i found that the medium uh fit me

better and i would sometimes have to massage a little bit of the eps just personally i was really

in between sure two shells basically right um on these how many shells are they are there for

in size options so for this particular helmet the f17 there's three different size shells

and it's a little different than what we did in other kind companies um there is uh extra small

small and medium are all in the smaller shell they really wanted medium most of the moto gp guys

are mediums and they really wanted medium in the smallest shell possible yeah because they want

the outer dimensions to be as little as possible as as aerodynamic as possible so then large is a

standalone shell that's only one size just for that helmet and then large and extra large is another

bigger shell and for some people it just depends um you know it's one of the reasons why motorcycle

helmet manufacturers you'd think you'd start off with one head shape and you build all your helmets

to that one shape but if you did that it would be like nike making all their shoes fit exactly the

same you want to make a variety of head shapes um so you can fit different people um and so maybe

this one doesn't really work for you but this one might or vice versa for melissa and i've mentioned

her before she's um my wife and um she's also helping me with kabuto she's um basically running

all the operations so i'm doing more of the sales and that kind of thing and she's the one that's

helping me uh get all the stuff up and running and getting it done in a timely manner uh more so than

me um but for instance uh in whether it's our dual sport geosys helmet um or the f17 uh the other

brand of helmet she's worn in the past she typically was a medium and she had to go to a large in this

brand for me i'm an extra large i wasn't the previous brand of helmet and i'm also an extra large

in this so it just depends on how your head shape is and what your expectations are and what what kind

of options do you have as far as padding like like say you are a medium helmet is you you're

already if you're a medium in this helmet you're kind of already at the max you're at the max as

far as the crown is concerned okay the next step is to go to the large right if you bought this and

let's say uh it loosened up on you or you want to do you want to buy a new helmet and you want to

give this to your girl or something like that you could make a medium theoretically you could make

a medium into a smaller extra small yeah um but the crown itself is going to stay the same um you

know there's there's very little you can do in that particular one you can you can do three

different options the cheek pad there's a multitude of options yeah so mate like maybe to hit at home

it's like this circumference of your crown is the is the main focus like get that right yep and then

you can tweak the rest absolutely kind of like get it out there absolutely absolutely and that's

something we do when we're at the track or any kind of event or even here um somebody comes by we

you know we break out the extra cheek pads and we'll get people fitted up to where but we're

going to encourage you to keep it pretty tight in the cheeks and and uh you know try that and

once it breaks in if they're not right for you we'll we'll send you some more yeah you know we

want it to be um we want it to fit correct yeah it's the whole idea so like i said we have the

aeroblade probably coming out within the next couple of months uh you want to show them the

sure the crown jewel over there yeah so working on the f17 r which is basically the f17 in carbon

yeah and um it's very very cool it's beautiful um you can see the carbon is really nice um

for somebody who's been doing this a long time uh there's a lot of different quality of carbon

you can see that people have a tendency to hide certain things and for the general public you

really don't pick that up but but i can pick that up and and these are really really nice carbon

helmets uh believe it or not carbon is not the ideal material for um for a helmet it doesn't

delaminate and crap and absorb energy the same way like fiberglass does it looks really cool

you might save about a hundred grams because it is lighter than a typical f17

um but it it is it isn't the best material um we know carbon fiber is very strong and very

stiff and i just talked about earlier how you're not really trying to build a strong helmet that's

not the idea you're trying to build like crumple zones so um it's almost too good uh to be to be a

helmet but it looks fantastic and people people love carbon fiber so this is probably going to be

2027 oh yeah it's probably going to be 2027 and um and it's you know it's going to be

significant this is already the f17 is a pretty expensive helmet and and this is going to push

the price up there um i don't know exactly what it's going to be yet but it's going to be something

that's um an aspirational helmet yeah and we got to have the have the nice baller stuff for the

absolutely absolutely it is beautiful it is a nice helmet i think it's you know for a lot of

the helmets that are out there that are carbon fiber it does get complicated for the you know

and i'm speaking on just my experience of painting a lot of these helmets and what i've learned from

knowing you all these years like say a mod band you know because we both come from simpson yeah

that whole front piece is plastic and for it to be able to have all the things that have to go on

there it it has to be yep absolutely um you did work on ways with the newer versions of

like the the the adventure helmet to have like a carbon fiber shell that goes over the plastic

yeah they kind of still gives you the the the feel of this but when you have venting and

i i guess for me it just it works with this uh the spoiler system it looks good still having that

while still having carbon fiber if you like the race star from bell has like some weird thing that

goes on in the carbon helmet when you get up there by all the venting it's like it's not solid carbon

it's like they painted some of it or something like that or it might be the way the weave comes

together in the top or something like that um i don't want to specifically say anything bad about

any helmet brand and i won't but that's what i was talking about when you when you have a really

really nice shell um we're not having to hide anything in these areas where you have these

details it's just carbon fiber um you will see where there are some other brands that subtly

where there are some details and maybe the carbon's not so perfect um almost air they'll air brush it

they air brush it by hand in black and it looks nice it doesn't look horrible but when you start

really looking at it you realize oh there's you know and that paints there to sort of hide booboos

yeah so um you know it's just an observation i had when i did my i had bought a a race star years

ago to to paint and to ride with um before we worked together at simpson sure i think that was

the helmet that made you guys like say hey look we're gonna we want you riding the simpson right

you know what i mean so um it was a it was a cool experience but you know like like coming from

sport bikes in the early 2000s i kind of had some idea of helmet technology you know i've

worn them but then i had about eight years of like really trying to avoid wearing helmets on on

motorcycles you know sure and then when i got into the fxr's and the dinas and then you know

at the same time was kind of like when the boom was happening with simpson through unknown and

things like that yeah you know our mutual friend brad was like you gotta try this helmet so it gets

us back into the helmet world and now fast forward you know nine years later you know

thinking about the helmets that i'm wearing and what not is much more part of my

motorcycling than it's ever been even back in the day i can afford to have nicer helmets now

right you know what i mean uh when i was 21 years old i was you know before even craigslist it was

more like hey i bought this uh you know Kawasaki zx six r and it came with two extra helmets right

and whether they fit or not like it's you know you just wore it right right and then when you go to

the cycle gear or the bike shop you know you it's you know there there were always the rf

you know 1200 or whatever it's at now whatever it was in but i mean i was that was the thousand

hour helmet in like 2003 you know i mean four so you needed tires you needed other yeah i you had

to have the tires had a white cord in it and i still was right right because you know right i

wanted to be on the bike so bad but it's just you know there's different levels of like i think cost

and and helmet styles and all this stuff that it it exists for a reason you're paying for a quality

of certain aspects maybe you don't care about those aspects sure you know maybe you just it's all

about looks which right i get because i'm i'm that way in a lot of my shit you know what i mean

i'm just glad that like i actually do dig the shape of these helmets the look of the helmets and

like i said i've been riding them for almost a year now and i have no issues with anything that's

going on it i just want to get the painting step down if i get it so i can paint these things yep

it's gonna be uh it's gonna be a game we're gonna we're gonna get that worked out yeah and and you

know we were i was very proud to be part of um a small group of people that i think that um

that took guys that the young hd guy that was probably not going to wear a helmet at all

and we sort of made something that was cool enough for them to accept and wear and so that's

it's really seldom that you take something like that a piece of safety equipment and you make it

part of and i always called it a crown of a subculture you know because for a long time

that's the helmet you had to wear yeah you know for for that scene basically and so i'm i'm proud

of that of of helping um of having a hand in that that was a pretty cool agree and i think that it

like i said it it did a lot to just get a community of riders like like harley riders like to the

point where like you know what i want to try a helmet sure you know everybody's always you know

like we kind of you touched on earlier someone's always saying you need to wear a helmet you need

to wear a boots you need to do this what's like every once while you're like yeah i think i might

try a helmet you know what i mean sure absolutely um and i don't know i think it's it's better late

than never sure for that for that thing uh there's a lot more people on the roads nowadays there

these these especially in in in terms of talking about harley david sins these bikes are a lot faster

out of the box than they ever have been yeah so you know i i remember distinctively like

early sport bike days where i had my first jigsaw was like a oh one two or three jigsaw 600 right

and i remember the ship from like that that kind of bigger bulkier one to like 0708 when these things

got tiny and just way faster yeah you know and the thing is there used to be a used bike parts

thing with the old jigsaws and then now the newer ones are at the time they're old now but like you

know eight those things would just explode right it's just poof you know what i mean so there wasn't

much left to kind of pick through and part out but yeah it's just different i think that the helmets

are just kind of becoming more a part of the just the everyday thing you know i mean when i ride my

chopper i have a little half shell that it fits the feeling of that bike that that's really trying

hard to do 70 miles an hour right you know well it's an open face right yeah but it's it's not a

half well it's the the three-quarter yeah open face yeah that's the proper term yeah well you

don't want to wear a half helmet it's like it's like what your grandpa'd wear yeah i just don't i

don't feel like the did i have the i don't know i know it's just not my you don't want your mug out

in the in the wind like that i mean i really are you wearing a three-quarter i i think i've

what i've loved about wearing helmets over the last like you know religiously over the last seven

eight nine years is that the just being kind of like not having my face out there you know a little

bit of autonomy or not while you're riding a motorcycle so that is i mean that's a that's

something i always like to talk about and and uh you know motorcycling is one of those things that's

i want to say we you know we don't wear outfits or costumes but it is one of those things where

when you're wearing some gear and you're wearing a helmet maybe you have a dark shield you're

you're pretty anonymous you're really visible to everybody else around you because you're so exposed

but yet they don't know who you are they don't know what you look like they don't

know your race they don't know sometimes your gender they're just you're just anonymous you're

just someone on a bike yeah and you're so out there but yet anonymous like you said and it's

kind of um i think some people find that really empowering to kind of be like that i remember

you know because i grew up loving basketball played basketball and i remember when michael

jordan got into into racing like you know motorcycle racing yeah he loved and i remember

reading this in a magazine that he loved the motorcycle because he could be anonymous right

you know sure and putting on that stuff and going to ride a ducati or whatever he was on

around he could just be normal in in the world and not have to worry about the mob

coming over him and then you had a race team for quite a few years yeah he has a couple bikes at

barber at the museum at barber nice you need to go there so yeah it's it's you know you can imagine

somebody like that um some celebrity just getting mobbed at traffic lights and stuff like that where

if you're on a bike um you know i think it's pretty normal for a lot of celebrities that ride to to

kind of um you know if you know what to look for you probably can't pick out if you you know if

you ride in the same circles you probably can pick out when Brad Pitt rides by or Keanu Reeves

is probably riding one of his bikes yeah so that's super super cool um but it is a neat aspect of

being kind of out there but anonymous you know it's kind of cool yeah i think you know to send

this one off and to kind of wrap it up i think the the one thing about helmets it's it's a very

if i would put my take on i would say it's just like your seat your handlebars it's something

that that fits you you know what i mean that what maybe you don't like about this isn't necessarily

because it's bad like you know someone may be like i feel like i sit or i like a Corbin seat

more than i prefer a saddleman seat sure and then someone might be the other way and that's why i feel

like you always see seats and handlebars on you know resell sites quite a bit because it's like well

i tried that seat it didn't didn't like it as much right and that's kind of what the helmet

stuff is like sometimes yeah um i mean i've i've been fortunate there was specific helmets within

the brand of simpson over the years that i found myself more keen to um and the same thing that i'm

here i i am kind of torn between these two because the aeroblade sometimes i'm like man it's just so

much easier my glass is fitting it so well i like the shape it still has it so it's you know

but i do love the venting on this for the summertime so it's kind of like one of those

situations where i found myself in quite a bit where i'm like i i like the fit is it fits very

similar on each on both of them so i think that's it goes back to as you know i i ride a variety

of different kind of bikes and i don't really try to match my helmet to the bike i'm riding

i try to match my helmet to the ride i'm going on whether it's the vibe or you know if i'm

riding a dual sport bike i'm going to wear our geosis um it's just it's just sometimes i like to

wear a solid white helmet you know we and we have a lot of other things coming out i'm working on a

modular um we've just started uh we just hired a designer um that i'm going to be doing a project

designing a a true motocross professional level motocross helmet so we've never had that before

so i think that's important for the u.s market like i said a modular helmet we have a lot of

people asking us for a modular helmet we make a modular helmet overseas but it's not right for

this market so instead of bringing it and having the wrong thing i'm like we could we we need we

can wait and have the right thing yeah so that's going to be important to us um and you know no

what um we're gonna remain small yeah um we're handmade in japan um we don't have that much

capacity i if this thing blows blows up um we're gonna be out of helmets and i won't be able to

supply them it's it's gonna be one of those things that's sort of exclusive um i think i worked very

very hard to build sort of a family at my previous employer and i'm going to be doing the same thing

here i mean there's people who have already made the switch for sure um people that are close to me

that that you know um they're going to ride um wherever i go probably there's that you know and

that's the family will want to build i can tell you these people are it's a family owned business

they're so um serious about what they do and they love it so much and they love you know they

they just embrace it all around and they're they're worthy of of our business they're worthy of uh

of being part of that and it's you know it's it's kind of cool to have something that you don't see

everybody in their brother wearing yeah you know i think that's kind of another reason

when i first saw the ogk brand back in those club and magazines yeah um you you couldn't

you know it was something you couldn't get in america and that made it that much more attractive

to me is i wanted something that nobody else could get yeah i kind of i kind of dig that well

that's that's i mean that's literally the philosophy of custom you know i mean like i want something

that's that's uniquely mine or something that i don't have to worry about running into someone

has the same thing um you know that's why the custom painted helmet thing i think went really

well with a lot of people in the harley world wanting to open their ideas to wearing helmets on

motorcycle so then they can personalize them right and i think it's just kind of synonymous with

with the v-twin world sure you know what i mean sure absolutely i mean i was painting you know

custom painted helmets to sport bike world long before sure i do my leg over harley so it's it's

i mean all the helmets are all my favorite helmet painters of all time you know the air

tricks and guys like that of the world chris woods they were painting rad sport bike helmets

sure you know for sure you know bin boss room and so and so and even on the v-twence side of

things since you've been on it um doing that for more than a decade now look at how it's morphed

and changed yeah and it's it's every evolving you know it just it just really is it's it changes

all the time i think big wheelbaggers never coming back the audience is drops off right here

sorry the uh yeah all my listeners are big old guys uh well i mean those dudes a lot of those dudes

you know want the helmets i mean they they they've been the they've they've i've done a lot for

those guys as well you know sure i know the problem is that like this shit can get expensive yeah

i mean and when i say expensive to some it's it's expensive just to buy this helmet to others

you know like that's the smallest part of what they're about to put on top of this helmet right

i mean so it's it's really i mean i've i've painted simpson helmets that were in the four

thousand dollar range paint wise sure and i don't do it much but i get guys every once

while they just want everything on the menu right you know what i mean right and it gets

up there you know it's it's not to say that we don't offer paint jobs less than two grand right

but we don't offer anything right less than a thousand for sure you know what i mean so but

you also make sure that when something leaves your hands you know you don't paint anything twice

the same thing so nobody's gonna get you know and and a lot of people that i i know you know this a

lot of people that aren't very creative they're gonna see somebody else's helmet they're gonna go i

want one just like that but a different color yeah and and you still change it up so it's different

enough to where there's no and that's important and that's part of what you're paying for is that

you know yeah it's always funny because like we we post a picture of a helmet we painted

you know it shows you how many times it's get it gets shared to somebody right so

it's usually someone sharing that picture to their painter right or it's someone that's saving that

picture the craziest thing is when someone who's having a helmet painted will tag the painter

hey i want it just like this in my post of the thing which i i i can only paint around 20 to 25

helmets a year tops right that's about as much capacity as i can do right and i get scared

whenever i post more pictures of the helmets i've painted because of the the amount of people that

start asking you know you'll get you'll get an influx of people that start following you right

and then you'll start getting a lot of messages about dirt track cars uh my kid softball team

sure um i got a retarded kid i probably should cut that out um you know you'll get all these things

and it's like whether i kind of like the idea of painting a helmet for someone in the world that

i'm in the motorcycle world right so i'm not really super i don't really drag race drag bikes sure

you know not saying i wouldn't do one for them but like i would rather paint 20 helmets

for dudes that are going to be ripping their baggers or their bikes across the country or

riding them you know just there i don't i don't know i've i've done a lot of dirt bike helmets

or uh dragged bike helmets but the thing is that like i don't you you came to me i don't

need to advertise right so i don't necessarily need to do the work and put my logo like i don't

put my logo on anything i paint right unless it's mine you know and i don't know i'm just kind of

going on a on a tangent here i've gotten inundated quite a bit the last couple weeks with helmet

paint work if if somebody um wants you to paint their fighter jet helmet i think you got to have

to do that i've had people ask me that someone did ask me to do that and i lost the message

in like i know how easy that is to do yeah yeah when you're getting messages from like

eight different accounts yeah and so it's tough i i hate it because that makes me feel like i'm

not on top of things and i yeah it's i'm going to message his personal instagram because he

he'll he checks that no no no i never check my personal stuff i'm going to message him on facebook

i'm like i don't even that is only for marketplace right and whatever i post on social media or on

instagram fault it it dumps into facebook right or you'll get an email and you're like god damn it

like yeah or or you know you have a message and you know you want to follow up yeah and you

can't find it yeah i mean i i'm looking my ass off and i cannot find it's like i know that he sent

me a message i can't find it yep it's a it's a it's a good problem to have i mean i don't have i

used to have a binder that was this full of like pictures that i would have printed out of like

walgreens and i used to walk into shops like this you know uh not so much like this but like a shop

that sold motorcycle stuff or whatever and be like hey man i can i'm a painter i can do this and

talk about a lot of awkwardness right being able to be in the person cold call cold yeah

that's tough man knocking on the door like you know so it feels good to be able to say like hey

i can only paint 25 helmets a year and you're number 26 sorry about that yeah um are we going

to talk at all about about about uh about a sponsoring the podcast yeah yeah i mean i think

that it's it's uh you know like you got you you specifically supported me with simpson uh for

many years yeah uh you were the first podcast we ever did yeah on the fast life podcast and

technically this is kind of like an eight-year anniversary sure kind of a recap um you know

when you decided to go this direction with your career you know i i did stick with simpson

for a time and they you know they had other plans with with their brand and uh it kind of

left me wide open to be able to come over here and follow you here you know i i want to support you

as a friend 100 but when simpson decided not to work with me anymore they made it completely

easy to switch sure i'm saying sure well i think they don't um their decisions they make are their

decisions so that's that's whatever but um i will give you huge huge credit for um playing a

giant role in the success simpson had in this in this space in the marketplace um i think that you

being part of the podcast um you exclusively painting simpson helmets all those years um

and the quality of your work and your your close ties of simpson um really helped their success

so um you know i'm hoping that uh you know we've got some close friends that that i i'm sure will

will ride with cabuto um um already some of them are will have more that will that will start riding

with us um i still love i mean my my dna is all over the simpson product um for years those were

my babies and and i always have love for that and and um you know i don't want to throw any shade on

their their uh their brand it's an awesome brand it's been around for a long time and uh still have

a lot of love for that brand um but um these are fantastic helmets i think um it's it's um it's

something different and uh it's exciting and um you know we're we're focused on uh maybe going a

little faster uh a little quieter yeah well as as uh as we said earlier you know the harleys

you know especially for the people that listen this are mostly on harleys and you know a few

indian people out there right these these motorcycles are getting pretty fast yeah and

we're we're we're in a spot now where the helmets probably the technology needs to resemble what's

been available for the sport bike market sure for a long time um and i think that as as we see more

more uh progression in the in these bikes and what what harley's putting out what indians

putting out like these bikes are just going to get more technologically advanced sure and so i

think so should the things that we put on our bodies you know um so yeah it it works absolutely

well i appreciate you coming down yeah and uh the opportunity to talk to you about about cabuto

i'm excited man right all right guys uh yeah this is uh our new helmet sponsor scott and he's been

with me for a long time so this is an easy transition for me but hopefully you guys will

you know take a chance to check out these helmets uh if you see scott at any events like any events

you're going to be at this year for sure um this year i'll probably um probably focus a little you

know i did last year i did a lot of the between events just because i knew everybody there and i

wanted to have some continuity this year i'll be focused on a lot more racing type stuff um so we'll

be at kota um for moto gp we'll be at several super bike races a lot of the bagger races of

course we'll be at um hopefully some flat track races i'm probably going to go to mama tribe and

just be there i don't think i'm going to have a booth this year um i just want to go and and see

friends and shake hands and hugs and all that stuff um and um i don't know about born free um

we'll have to see cross that bridge born free texas for sure yeah absolutely 100 but born free

california maybe not yeah um i just gotta play it by ear um we'll definitely be on the road a lot

this year though yeah yeah for sure all right guys check them out there's links down in the description

you can go straight to this website check out these products and uh yeah we appreciate it all right

thank you thanks thanks who i hope you guys enjoyed that i want to thank scott again for

sitting down i had a great time sitting and talking with him about all of this stuff uh i have been

rocking this helmet for over a year they are absolutely badass if you guys enjoy these podcasts

it's imperative that you check out our sponsors down below it's also very very recommended that

you check out our patreon something that you know helps keep this podcast alive keeps it financially

afloat keeps gas in the tank keeps lights on in the shop i appreciate all the support

i appreciate everybody taking the time to listen to it and hopefully you're finding value in all

these episodes that we put out and um i do truly appreciate it there's a lot of great stuff coming

up we have the lone star swap meet here in dallas fort worth and i think the weekend of march 7th

two weeks after that we have the nitty gritty chopper city going down and then the week after

that down in austin you have the modal gp which is also going to have the uh the harley racing

on the track which i'm pretty excited to go check that out i haven't i've only done one of the

brl things before so i haven't seen the moto america i'm looking forward to going to check

that out and um yeah all right that's it we'll catch you guys on the next one peace

Kabuto Motorcycle Helmets with Scott Holbrooks #453

About this episode

Suzuki Samurai

Arlen Ness

Ducati

Brembo

MotoGP

wake stabilizers

aerodynamic efficiency

MIPS

DOT

ECE

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard number 218

Harley-Davidson

Law Tigers

Kabuto

tear-offs

buffeting

Yoshimura

Parts Unlimited

Bell

Drag Specialties

Porsche 911

Simpson

Z1R Super Bikes

NASCAR

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from The Fast Life Podcast