Review of the Kali Invader

[Austin Baez]

So I've had my Invader for about a year and a half now. I figured I've learned it inside and out well enough to give it a good review. I'll break it out into categories and speak to each aspect of the helmet and my experience with wearing it. 

• Fitment: So I have a pretty big head. I was apprehensive to buy online, but I couldn't find a suitable style of helmet in stores around me. I went with their 2xl helmet. Much to my relief, this thing fit perfectly. They include a number of different sized pads to adjust to your required head dimensions. I've never had any issues with it applying excessive pressure anywhere and giving any headaches.
• Weight: This helmet is incredibly light. Along with the fitment, I'll literally forget I'm wearing it. I'll get home, get distracted, and then realize 10 minutes later that im wearing the helmet still like one might do with a pair of sunglasses.
• Ventilation: I live in Florida. During the summer, the weather is a good 90 degrees and 70% humidity. This is to say, ventilation is of the highest priority in order to prevent excessive dehydration. This helmet is basically a minimalists helmet in that regard. I have no doubt that it would protect me adequately should it come to that, but there's almost more gap than helmet. I like this a lot. I've rarely had any issues with heat that i felt the helmet made worse. The wind noise is noticeably louder with all of the ventilation though, but never enough that i cant hear the beeps from my wheels. 
• Visibility: The visibility is good. I'll rarely be unable to see anything I need to. The wireframe style helps with this, as the chin bar never really gets in the way. 
• The Visor: This is the one pain point for me with this helmet. The visor kinda sucks. It's cheap, flexible plastic. It's tightened with a couple of fat screws on the side of the helmet. These screws often come loose enough that catching any wind from looking up will send the visor to the highest position. The guideline thing that keeps the helmet indexed to a certain range of up and down are the same plastic as the rest of the visor, and so will generally fail to stay in the groove. This can cause the flexible plastic to have two different heights on either side and make the visor crooked. 

Overall, this is a very good helmet. Aside from the visor, I like just about every aspect of it. I would very much recommend it to anyone who needs a helmet for hot weather. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Austin Baez

[Planemo]

37 minutes ago, Austin Baez said:

 

• The Visor: This is the one pain point for me with this helmet. The visor kinda sucks. It's cheap, flexible plastic. It's tightened with a couple of fat screws on the side of the helmet. These screws often come loose enough that catching any wind from looking up will send the visor to the highest position.

I think this is the issue of using a helmet that was primarily designed for use on a say 20mph downhill mountain bike and expecting it to cope with 40mph EUC speeds.

Although the Fox Proframe is also mainly a DH lid, at least the fact the visor is fixed means it won't move anywhere on an EUC at any speed. That said, I've never had the (moveable) visor on my 661 Reset come loose either so maybe Kali just didn't think of higher speeds or other lids just went overboard on making sure they don't move.

Either way, great review and thanks for taking the time to write it