Right up front, ANY helmet is better than no helmet at all. However, do some helmets "fit" better with certain bikes? I'm not sure about that, but there are a few things to keep in mind when buying a helmet.
What bike do you ride?
Every May I start to see the large touring bikes pull into the parking lot. The riders come in, hand over their credit card and ask for the "best" venting helmet in the store... It typically takes me about 30 minutes to explain that their bike, and a well vented helmet, don't mix. It's like oil and water. Helmets ideally need a smooth, unbroken stream of air to work at their best. If you're sitting behind a huge fairing, or wind shield, you don't get enough of this type of air.
I get comebacks such as, "I have a port (opening) in my windshield. I get air" or, " The top of my helmet gets great air. When I don't wear my helmet I can feel it." Keep one thing in mind, if you have a medium to large wind shield, at best the air has been disrupted. In a nut shell, buying a "high-flow" helmet when you're on this type of bike, is a HUGE waste of money. Focus on fit, weight, or styling. Now do great venting helmets do "slightly" better than average helmets on these types of bikes? Well, a little better, but I don't feel that the difference is worth the extra $150...
Now if you're on a sportbike, sport-touring bike, or a naked cruiser, then go for it. The extra money will be well worth it. Simply, you'll get your monies worth.
Do you ride in town mainly, or Freeway?
Simply put, price has nothing to do with venting... I could walk you around my store and show you a $200 helmet that vents as well as a $650 helmet. I could also show you a few helmets above $350 that vent great at 65MPH, but are somewhat limited below this speed.
I feel that a helmet, regardless of what it was designed for (racing, touring) should vent well below 35MPH. I think it's easy for manufacturers to get sucked into the belief that every guy riding a sport bike wants to wear a "Race" helmet. But lets face it, some things designed for the track, don't always work great during your short in town commute... Finding this middle ground is what I feel makes, or breaks a model. I've lectured it over, and over again. Nothing comes close to the all around performance of the Shoei X-11. Great in town, and on the track. Other companies appear to focus on the track performance, and their helmets work great above 65MPH. Not so great between those stop lights.
I break helmets into two categories. Passive, and non-passive venting. Non passive models are those that work at 3oMPH, and you can actually "feel" the air entering the helmet. There are only 6 models, out of all that I've tested that fit this tough standard. The Arai Models, Shoei X-11, RF-1000, Shark RSR2 and RSi, the Bell Star, and the new HJC FS-15. Yep, no Arai, Suomy, KBC, AGV. know don't get me wrong, these other companies make helmets that vent well above average, they just go about it differently. Some start to work great at around 45MPH, but below that they blend in with every other helmet on the market.
Bottom line? If you spend most of your time in town, then make sure you get a helmet that works great at those speeds. It doesn't always mean a "Race" type helmet. If you're behind a wind screen, know that whatever helmet you get will have a hard time functioning as designed.
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