Klim Krios Pro

This Klim Krios Pro Helmet review gives riders the scoop on one of the most talked-about adventure lids in the market. I want to help you cut through the hype and see if this carbon fiber marvel really lives up to its reputation. Klim’s flagship ADV helmet has sparked debates among seasoned travelers and weekend warriors alike.

Klim’s reputation for innovation and premium gear sets high expectations for any new release. Adventure riders face tough choices with so many helmets vying for attention. Does the Krios Pro deliver the real-world value and protection you need for your next journey?

I'm very excited to introduce the Klim Krios Pro 2206 variant. This is the version that's been released from late 2023 onwards, according to the latest 22.06 standards.

22.06 is worth noting because it marked a big change in the way helmets have to be certified, compared to the predecessor, the 22.05 level of ECE certification, which was relatively easy for manufacturers to game. 

There was a large disparity between the ones that just about passed and the ones that did so comfortably. So, 22.06 aims to bring everything up to a higher standard, leading to a narrowing of the gap in terms of protective qualities—more reassurance for customers.

Density and Thickness:

The Klim 22.05 Krios was a very, very popular motorcycle helmet. It was notable for being extremely lightweight, and people who have had one rave about it. So, the question is: did it have to make many concessions in order to achieve 22.06 approval? Well, the short answer is no, it didn't. It still has all the same wonderful features, which I'll take you through in a moment.

So, people upgrading from a 22.05, there's no immediate need to do so. In all honesty, this helmet hasn't had to change substantially, which shows how good it was even when it didn't need to be. 

But if anything, I think the argument for this helmet has improved even further, towards saying this is definitely one of the best helmets, and one of the best value helmets, despite being one of the most pricey helmets in the dual sports segment. It has maintained this extremely lightweight nature without having to sacrifice that at all to achieve 22.06. 

By comparison, some of its competitors at a similar price point are significantly heavier—we're talking 500g heavier. This one comes with a lot of features and a lot of extras included that they don't, either. So, it's a really compelling argument.

Safety & Protection:

This is the first item from Klim we're going to be featuring in our reviews, and we have many more to come, so stay tuned. For me, this is a great example of where to start with this brand because it's a brand that everyone knows and everyone has strongly polarized opinions on. 

Some people, especially people who have used it, tend to be massive supporters of the brand, and some people just say that it's overpriced stuff. But for me, here's a great argument as to why, yes, it's expensive, but yes, you are qualitatively getting more for your money when you consider everything this comes with and how well it does it.

Chin Strap:

This is a carbon fiber shell. This is hand-interlaced carbon fiber throughout, so this is very, very solid, but yet very, very lightweight. This 22.06 variant comes in at just over 1,200g, which is absolutely staggeringly lightweight. It's lightweight for any helmet, let alone a dual sport helmet, which are generally around 1,700g to 1,800g because they've got a lot going on. 

They're full face, clearly, in composition, and the extra peak usually adds a little bit of weight as well. There are lots of ventilation options needed, and they usually have other features beside that. So, accounting for all this, coming in at such a lightweight helmet is very impressive, and this has real-world benefits.

It doesn't need to be pointed out, really, the benefits of being lightweight, but if you're on the bike all day, it's clearly less strain on the neck. It's great when you have this in hotter weather; you get a large degree of ventilation coming through this helmet as well, partly as a result of the lightweight composition, which I'll explain a little bit more.

Adjustability:

The key thing that makes the helmet overall only 1,200g is because of the Koroyd lining. This is something that we haven't seen too much of before in any of our sister companies either, and when you really experience the benefits of Koroyd, you wonder why many more manufacturers aren't adopting it.

It's more expensive, which is probably one of the answers there, but the benefits of it are so massive. When you consider the end result, this is so lightweight, you get so much breathability.

Koroyd is essentially thermally welded plastic tubes, all neatly packed together, which look like a bunch of straws stood upright, creating a shell around the head instead of an EPS, which is expanded polystyrene liner that you get in most other helmets. 

If nothing else, this has definitely passed the same levels of certification—we can say that with confidence—and it clearly, clearly has massive benefits with regards to weight and also air circulation, because this is mostly air. There is relatively little of the actual compound of the plastic compared to the actual air that you will see inside the liner.

Material and Construction:

The downside to those features I've just mentioned is that it's quite a noisy helmet, truth be told. But, in truth again, all dual sport helmets do tend to be noisier because you have things like a very large aperture, which is going to mean there's less insulation than you'd have, say, compared to a road helmet or sports bike helmet, where you've got a narrow aperture and more shell that's going to help keep noise down slightly. 

So that's one concession, and you've just got loads of vents on this. So, it's really focused on lightweight, good ventilation; the trade-off is going to be noise.

I've used this, and I don't find it excessively noisy—I'm not too sensitive to noise; some people are more so. I just accept that most of these kinds of helmets are going to be fairly noisy. 

As dual sport riders, as adventure riders, I'm doing not huge amounts of high-speed motorway riding—that's the riding I try and avoid. If you're going to do lots of that, then you'd be best placed probably to look at something like the Shoei, which has far more technical features and is much, much quieter as a helmet. But the trade-off to that is, if you come to want to do much off-road with a helmet like the Shoei, it's far, far heavier, it's far hotter, and frankly, I don't think it's as nice overall.

ECE 22.06

The good thing about dual sport helmets generally, to give this context, is that really they give you all the benefits of a full-face helmet, and you get this huge field of vision, which, once you've started using, you really won't want to use any other kind of helmet on the bike. 

But you can mod it, so you can take the peak off and have it just as a regular, normal full-face helmet with far less drag resistance and therefore good at high speeds.

The one thing I'll say on that is this peak is really, really aerodynamic in comparison to a lot of other peaks that stick out and are usually one solid piece that does create quite a notable drag, particularly if you have a higher touring screen or, worse still, a mid-height touring screen where it deflects the air straight to the peak. That can create quite a lot of drag. 

This one, I didn't nearly notice a huge difference in reality between having it on and off, which is quite impressive, and that also means it's going to kind of keep weight down slightly, I suppose, too.

The Krios Pro comes in at £660, which sounds like a lot at first glance, but actually, I would argue it represents one of the best value helmets that there is on the market. 

Take its rival, which would be something like the ubiquitous Arai Tour-X5, which I'm going to do a review of very shortly as well. That's the sort of go-to helmet; it's the one everyone imagines when they imagine Ewan and Charley going around the world. 

That's a helmet that comes in at a price point—it's $599 in plain colors and it's $699 in graphics. Klim is £660 regardless of whether you go plain or graphic, and I personally think that the graphics are very nice in the Klim range. 

They're sort of tailored to go to some of the bike brands out there with sort of hints of orange for KTM and so on, but I think they all look really good. Here, we have the Rally Bronze, and I think this is a really, really nice tone, split up quite nicely. It's not too fussy, it's not too boring—it's just the sweet spot for me.

But this one comes with so many features. You've got the Pinlock included as well, but so do you on the Arai, but that's really where the features that you get with it stop. 

The Klim Krios comes as well with a Transitions visor, which is really great because Transitions visors are very, very expensive—usually they're kind of £100 plus. So, the fact that you're getting that included in the price is definitely a benefit. The Transitions visor is wonderful, and I use it in spite of the flaws on my other helmet that I use every day, which also has one.

The benefits of them are clear: you don't need to switch out depending on the sun or the lack of, or the fact that it's day or night, because it will simply transition according to the ambient light around you.

 It does have some foibles, such as every time you put the visor up, you're going to notice that you're going to get these sort of cutouts that mirror the cutouts on the peak because the sun's here coming straight down, so you're going to have comparatively dark spots where there's a gap through the peak and then slightly lighter spots, and then you put it down as you pull away from the lights and it's just a little bit strange and disorientating. 

I can live with it—it's not a deal breaker for me. The benefit of having the Transitions still means I prefer to keep that one in place, but some people, again, will be more put off and more fussy about that. But it's still great to have that as an option.

Of course, the solution to the Transitions issue is you take this peak off. That's another great point—it's really, really simple to take the peak off, the visor off, and everything. 

I will do it in a moment, but you simply have these two twist points, which you can do with your thumbs, with your gloves on if you want. You orientate into a downward position and you pull these parts out—it's that simple. Actually, the Klim Krios Pro is one of the few that makes it really, really easy, tool-free, and done so in a neat and concise way. So that's also got to be commended highly for usability day to day.

As well as the Transitions visor, you also get the caps which go over the side pods if you wanted to remove the peak and have it with goggles. That just acts as a blanking plate, and that's quite a useful thing to get as well. 

It also has other little systems like the Fidlock system, which is the mechanism for doing up the chin, and that's something that people really rave about. People that have used it say you're never going to go back to the standard double D thing. 

I'm not as bowled over by it—it doesn't really bother me either way—but it's certainly not a bad thing. Funnily enough, it actually adds weight back into the equation because it's heavier than just a standard double D strap would be.

So, in spite of that, obviously, this is 1,200g, as they say. It's somewhat 500g lighter than, I think, anything else in its class. The Arai is 1,750g, so there's just a huge gulf between it.

One slight detraction point for me for the helmet, which is only personal, is it is quite a big shell. There's no getting away from that—dual sport helmets, again, traditionally are. 

I always want things to be as slim and small in profile as possible. This one's not enormous, but it's not small either, and I think the reason it stands out so much is these exit vents on the back. 

For me, I'd prefer it without them—I think they just give it a little bit too much edge. Some people will love that, and that's very subjective, but just to say, shell sizes are relatively on the big size, and in spite of that, though, as I said before, still incredibly lightweight.

Lining:

 The lining is removable, washable, antimicrobial, and it's very, very comfortable as well. So, it's easy to just get on with this helmet straight away. The chin curtain is included as well, which is always useful, and that can be removed and just pulled out in a nice and simple fashion.

The vents are all relatively easy to orientate. You have this big thumb piece here, which means you can do it easily with gloves on. You can also screw this little point on the top of the peak so you can have it backwards and forwards, depending on the orientation that you want to have it in. 

You've also got vents up here as well. You will definitely need the Pinlock fitted if you're going to be using it in remotely cool weather, because the standard visor will mist up very, very quickly without it. So, if you're in the UK, that's a dead giveaway that you're going to need that.

Material:

Interestingly, the Transitions visor that comes with it has a note on it saying it's not 22.06 approved because the transition time is not quick enough to meet the regulations for that. 

That's not something I've seen anyone pick up—it's a relatively minor point, but just to say, technically speaking, once you have that on, the helmet will no longer be 22.06. 22.06 visors also have to be far more substantial than the old versions did, so that's one of the differences between the predecessor to this. This visor now feels solid and dependable and not cheap and plasticky, which I think it did on the previous one.

Everything, though, is fundamentally really well put together, and this is a helmet that, with the Koroyd and everything, will last a long time. It's supposed to last longer than traditional EPS liners, but that said, other parts of the shell are likely to degrade, so the recommendation is to change it every five years, which is in conjunction with a carbon fiber shell, a top-quality helmet from any other brand. So, nothing conceded there from Klim.

Padding:

In terms of the actual fit of the helmet, I would say it's pretty accurate to the sizes given and indicated by the Klim manufacturer. I did find that it was a little bit more of a lean towards people with a rounded and an intermediate head than those with an oval head shape.

The 22.06 version is likely to be every bit as good as the predecessor. Anyone who had one isn't going to find huge significant changes. I don't believe there have been too many. It's more a context case of now that 22.06 has come into effect, this one stands out even more for me, and I think, therefore, it's one of the best helmets in the adventure dual sports segment, and one of the best helmets, full stop, frankly, in any category at all.

So, if you've got this helmet and you've got user real-world experience with it, please leave that in the comments section below. We'd love to hear from people that have ridden with it and can either support or come to a different conclusion to the ones I've reached in this review. You can also ask any questions you may have—we'll always try and get back to you as quickly as possible.