It's been a while since we updated our blog; we've been ridiculously busy now that the sun has come out and all the
new 2010 kit is arriving.
One brand that's caused quite a stir is
Marushin. We've been doing them for a couple of years now but the quality and style of this years range is astounding! The whole range is made of high tech lightweight composite materials, from the
£89.99 Keikan lid to the range topping
RS2 Carbon helmet. The full face range are all supplied with road legal iridium visors and have removable, hypo-allergenic, washable linings. There's even an eye-bleedingly bright
Hi-Viz model. The most impressive thing about the range is the weight - these are seriously light helmets!
The name "Marushin" comes from the name of the chap who founded the company back in 1958 (in Tokyo), Watanabe Shin. "Maru" means "Circle", so the idea was circle of safety araound the head of Mr Shin. Up until the late 80's you could only buy Marushin helmets in Japan, but this changed when German Ulrich Holzhausen recognised the potential of the brand. When Mr Shin passed away, Mr Holzhausen's wholesale company JF Motorsport bought the tools and machinery and took over manufacturing Marushin helmets. Manufacturing was moved to China in order to keep costs to a minimum, but JF Motorsports are still in control of everything, including quality control.
Marushin went from srtength to strength in Japan and on the continent, sponsoring an awful lot of well known European racers like Christer Lindholm and Katja Poengsen.
There's a lot of clever stuff going on in Marushin helmets - the most obvious thing is the light weight, making the helmets less likely to cause neck ache, and meaning there's less momentum to slow down in the event of an accident. Marushin subscribe to the belief that a soft shell that disipates force well is more desirable than a hard shell that can take a bigger hit - personally I spend more time at 30mph than 200mph (or even 100mph) so a crash helmet that can withstand a 200mph impact is irrelevant to me. The glass fibre is laid out and arranged depebding on where the material is needed before being put into a mould and having the resin added, so like the two "top" brands, the material is thicker where required and thinner where it's not.
All of this is reflected in the finished products - the quality is remarkable, the fit is excellent and there's also the excellent SHARP ratings - the RS2's predecessor, weighing just 1050 grams, scored 5 stars!
