Nolan N70-2 X – Review

The Nolan N70-2X is an adventure helmet for off-road riding that you can wear as a jet helmet or a touring helmet.

Today we are going to take a look at the Nolan N70-2X. We have sent our test rider out on the road, and he came back with a lot of interesting data.

Today, we will look at the popular adventure or dual sport helmet from Nolan. This helmet offers several riding style options.

For example, you can take off the peak and chin piece giving you a certified jet helmet including an integrated sun visor, or take out the visor and place your motocross goggles on the helmet.

The N70-2X offers many options, and we are going to discuss them all in this review.

First, however, the Nolan N70-2X has a recommended retail price of about 300 euros or $335.

Because of this price, Nolan's helmet will compete with the Bell MX-9 Adventure, Icon Variant Pro, Scorpion ADX-2, and the Airoh Commander.

Shell Construction

The outer shell of the N70-2X is made of Lexan, which is essentially just polycarbonate and comes in two outer shell sizes. This means the helmet gets 2 stars for the material.

However, if we compare it to its competitors, it ends up at the bottom of the list along with the Scorpion ADX-2.

The Icon variant Pro and Airoh Commander do slightly better thanks to their fiberglass outer shell and come in 3 shell sizes.

This means that Nolan's N70-2X doesn't have a strong start, but how does it do on other criteria?

Weight

When we weighed Nolan's helmet in a size M, the scale indicated 1893 grams.

Because this helmet can also be used as a tour or jet helmet, we weighed the peak and chin piece separately so you can take this into account. The peak weighed 133 grams, and the chin piece weighed 192 grams.

If we compare this to its competitors, it ends up at the bottom and is the heaviest helmet on this list.

The lightest helmet weighed was the Airoh Commander weighing 1494 grams. With its almost 1900 grams, the Nolan N70-2X earns 2 stars for this.

Visor

Now that we have discussed the weight, we will move on to the visor. Again, if we look at the Nolan N70-2X, we will immediately see that it has an ultra-wide visor, which gives you an even better field of view.

In addition, this visor is Pinlock lens prepared, and the Pinlock lens is included in the box depending on the version you buy.

In addition, the helmet has an integrated sun visor that is adjustable in multiple positions and is UV and scratch-resistant with an anti-fog layer over it. If we add all this together, we see that the N70-2X scores 4 stars for the visor.

If we compare this to its competitors, it does well and ends up at the top of the list, along with the ADX-2 and the Commander.

Bell's MX-9 Adventure finishes at the bottom with 2 stars. Unfortunately, this helmet was only Antifog prepared.

Noise Isolation

The Nolan N70-2X gave us an average of 102 decibels at a wind speed of around 130 km per hour in terms of noise isolation.

With a score of 102 decibels, the N70-2X gets 3 stars for noise isolation.

When we compare it to its competitors, we see a nice list that goes down from 105 decibels to 101 decibels.

At the top is the Scorpion ADX-2 with 101 decibels which is a nice score, followed by the N70-2X with 102 decibels. Finally, the Icon Variant Pro ends with 105 decibels at the bottom ends.

So on the noise isolation part, it doesn't score badly at all, but we're not done yet and will continue with the helmet's ventilation.

Ventilation

Looking at the ventilation, we will see a vent in the chin that you can open or close.

Furthermore, there are some openings on top for extra airflow, and you can also control them using a slider. The warm air can then escape from the back and lining opening.

When testing the helmet on the road, it was 16 degrees Celsius outside. However, on the thermometer, we noted that inside the helmet, it was 18.5 degrees which means that the temperature inside the helmet was 2.5 degrees warmer. This means that it deserves 2 stars for the ventilation.

When we start comparing this to its competitors, it does not score well. It comes against the Bell MX-9 Adventure, which scores two stars here.

At the top end, the Icon Variant Pro had the same temperature inside the helmet as the outside temperature. Only the Airoh Commander did exceptionally poorly with a temperature difference of 12 degrees, giving it only 1 star.

Comfort

We have arrived at the comfort section, and for this section, we are leaning on the more than 15 years of riding experience of our test rider.

Our rider has also tested all the other helmets and can make the comparison like no other.

We will start the comfort section by looking at the inner lining. The inner lining of the N70-2X is removable and washable. So when we remove the inner lining, we see that it comes out as a whole.

Inside the EPS shell, you will see that there is good airflow through the holes in the EPS shell and that the helmet is prepared for a communication system.

Therefore, we see that the N70-2X deserves 3.5 stars if we add all this together.

And if we compare this to its competitors, we see that it does just a little better than the MX-9, Commander, and ADX-2, all three of which received 3 stars. Only the Icon Variant Pro did as well as the N70-2X with 3.5 stars.

Features

We will look at what extras the manufacturers have put into the helmet for Features. And we'll start with the chin bar.

As I had already mentioned, this is removable, and because the helmet is P/J certified, you may also ride without a chin bar.

In addition, the N70-2X is prepared for speaker pockets and a communication system. Nolan has also prepared the helmet for an ESS system. This is an emergency light that can be placed on the back of the helmet if required.

Finally, we look at the options around the peak, and this is easily removed without any tools if you wish to remove it. The N70-2X deserves 3 stars for features if we add all this up.

If we compare it to its competitors, it ends up at the top along with the Scorpion ADX-2.

The MX-9 Adventure and the Commander finish at the bottom with 1.5 stars, and the Icon Variant Pro finishes in the middle of the list with 2 stars.

This brings us almost to the end of the review. When we add it all up and calculate the stars, the Nolan N70-2X gets a score of 6.5

If we look at the Champion Helmets Ranking, we see that in 5th place comes the Bell MX-9 Adventure with a final score of 5.6.

In 4th place comes the Airoh Commander with a final score of 6.5. Then in third place is the Nolan N70-2X with a final score of 6.5.

In second and first places are the Icon Variant Pro and the Scorpion ADX-2, both ended with a final score of 6.9, but the Scorpion ADX-2 has a better price/quality ratio making it finish in the first place.

So we can conclude that Nolan has made a good helmet where the focus is on the visor, comfort, and features.

The ventilation, weight, and material could have been better. Still, we must not forget that it is a helmet developed for different riding styles with a Removable peak, integrated sun visor, and Removable chin bar making it a lot harder to score great on every part.

So do you want the best adventure helmet, or do you want a multifunctional helmet? Or do you want to learn more about its competitors?

In Conclusion

The Nolan N70-2 X Helmet is a new and improved version of the Nolan N70 helmet. This is a lightweight, comfortable and affordable helmet perfect for all types of riding.

The Nolan N70-2 X helmet is available in two shell sizes (XS-MD and LG-3XL) and has a Pinlock fog-resistant face shield. This helmet is designed to provide a high level of protection for your head, face, and eyes.

The Nolan N70-2 X helmet is also P/J homologated, which means that it can be used with either the chin guard open (J) or closed (P). This helmet is also DOT approved and meets the requirements of ANSI Z87.1-2004.