The C5 is the latest modular touring helmet from German helmet brand, Schuberth, replacing the outgoing C4 Pro.
Schuberth has a bit of a chequerered history when it comes to modular helmets in that the first version of the old C4 was a bit… how can I put it… pants.
Thankfully, Schuberth recognised this, improved it and released the C4 Pro which was a much better lid.
And now, here’s the C5.
Schuberth give it their usual marketing spiel to describe what the C5 offers and reckon more or less everything is better, lighter, quieter, more compact etc. etc. You know the score.
Looking past the rhetoric, there are one or two features that do look interesting. It’s got Sena 50S based integrated comms for a seamless bluetooth install. It’s also dual homologated to the new ECE 22.06 standards – so it’s designed to be used with the chin bar up or down.
So, if you’re thinking of buying a new modular helmet or a Schuberth C5 flip-up, then here’s all the info we’ve been able to find out about it.
- Fibreglass/carbon fibre modular helmet
- Touring focused
- Pinlock Max Vision included
- Micrometric strap
- Dual Homologated
- Integrated wiring for Schuberth SC2 Bluetooth
- Weighs 1.6-1.8 Kg (about average)
- Sizes XS-XXXL
- 5 year warranty
- Expect to pay £499-£599
Best places to buy a Schuberth C5?
Please click below to go straight through the Schuberth C5 helmets pages at our recommended stores. And if you buy from either, we get a small sum from the sale at no extra cost to you – a massive THANKS! (it’s how we finance the site).
Safety
(more about helmet safety)
The Schuberth C5 is the first modular helmet to be ECE 22.06 certified. Which means it’s been thoroughly tested by the European helmet testing bods – everything from shell to visor to chin strap to chin bar has been thoroughly hammered to make sure it’s up to standard.
You can read more about ECE22.06 helmet testing here.
The C5 has also been designed to be usable with the chin bar up or down – so it’s dual homologated – and has been safety tested in both configurations.
Inside the shell, there’s a dual density polystyrene liner and it’s made in two different shell sizes. I have to say, that’s a bit disappointing because it’s common practice these days that most premium helmets are made in more than two shell sizes to optimise looks, fitment and impact protection – and EPS liners with three densities or vari-densities are considered state of the art. So the C5’s behind the curve a little in these respects.
Obviously, there’s more to safety than just numbers though. Shell design comes into play along with shell materials. The Schuberth C5 has a fibreglass shell with a layer of carbon fibre over it for good measure.
Not sure if that layer of carbon is actually going to contribute much – full carbon fibre helmets are on average just 130g lighter than your typical fibreglass lid so a single layer probably ain’t gonna help much with weight reduction. So probably more for marketing purposes than anything?
It’s not until the C5’s been independently safety tested that we’ll know quite how well the Schuberth C5 performs in terms of protection. Until then, we can look back at how well previous Schuberths have done.
To date, none have ever scored the maximum SHARP 5 stars, with just 3 out of 12 tested lids scoring 4 stars and an average score of around 3.1 stars out of 5. So, based on past performance, we’d expect it to be 3 star rated but might manage 4 stars.
Chin bars usually do well on Schuberth helmets with all of their six tested modular helmets scoring an average 97%, meaning you’d only expect their chin bar locks to fail in a very small percentage of impacts.
Fabric of the helmet aside, other safety features of the C5 include a drop down sun visor; useful for when the sun’s low or blinding. The visor’s reasonably wide for improved peripheral vision and it comes with a Pinlock Max Vision antifog insert to stop it fogging up when it’s cold or wet.
Schuberth are one of the few manufacturers to enhance the strap on their helmets with what they call AROS or anti roll off system. It’s where each side of the strap is anchored in two points with the idea of stopping it moving about too much under stress – like when you hit the deck in an accident.
To be fair, ECE testing does include several strap tests to ensure a regular (i.e. non AROS) strap will stop the helmet simply rolling forwards off the head during an impact. So you shouldn’t really need a fancy strap – with the key point being that as long as you always ensure your strap is always fastened up tightly and correctly, it should stay on your head whatever happens.
Still, any innovation to try and keep a helmet securely fastened has to be welcome. It’s thought that helmets come off in somewhere around 6-10% of motorbike accidents (depending on which study you read) so I guess if it helps with a just a small proportion of cases, it’s a worthy innovation.
The strap’s fastened with a micrometric fastener – which are dead easy to use and safe as houses.
All in all, the Schuberth C5 seems to have most bases covered from a safety perspective. There’s a bit of a question mark about it’s potential for a good SHARP safety rating, and Schuberth should’ve stuck an EQRS quick release liner in there because… why not? They’re cheap to fit and could help prevent injury so it looks like an unnecessary cost cutting. But other than that, the C5 looks ok.
Helmet Noise
(more about helmet noise)
Schuberth do use windtunnels to help in the design of their helmets and they do make a concerted effort to make quiet helmets.
With the C5, they’ve reworked the neck roll to try and stop more noise getting in through the bottom of the helmet, plus there’s some small turbulators on the top edge of the visor that’re supposed to reduce noise around the visor. No idea if they actually work but Schuberth has stuck with them over the years so I guess they must have some impact.
Modular helmets are generally noisier than full face helmets – so if you want the quietest you should probably go full face (or check out our quiet helmets pages).
But in terms of modular helmet noise, Schuberth did OK in this respect with the C4 Pro, and Schuberth claims the C5 has been proven in the wind tunnel to keep sound down to around 85 dba at 60mph on a naked bike.
That’s quiet.
Helmet bluetooth specialists, Sena’s, own Momentum Inc Pro helmet that has active noise cancelling only gets down to 100db at that speed! And given Schuberth’s record of happily overstating the quietness of pretty well every helmet they’ve launched with gay abandon (at least in terms of customer feedback i’ve researched), you have to be dubious.
I did find one owner who said it was a nice quiet helmet but another who said it was noisy at anything above 50mph on their bike. If you check out the video below, they found that it’s in the ballpark of being the quietest of their recently tested modulars though, so that bodes well.
I guess it’s the usual story of one person’s noisy lid is another person’s whisper quiet helmet. It all depends on your bike, speed, expectations… how knackered your hearing already is… the list goes on.
Either way, stick in some quality ear plugs and you should be peachy.
Ventilation
(more about helmet ventilation)
Ideally, you want a breezy helmet when it’s hot outside and a sealed one when it’s freezing.
Up top on the Schuberth C5, there’s a single large vent with a nice big slider to open/close it. Given there’s a sun visor tucked away inside the shell around your forehead, the top vent’s mounted quite far back. But it does vent air through the helmet and does try to push it around the channels in the polystyrene liner; though there’s not much distance between that and the exhaust vent tucked away in that tiny blip of a rear spoiler, so don’t expect masses of circulation.
Things are a bit improved in the chin bar. Down there, there’s two vent switches – a toggle panel up top to direct air onto the back of the visor for defogging – and a bottom slider to let air through to your gob.
Interestingly, there’s also a small removable/washable sponge filter in there to help stop bits of dismembered flies and the like making it through. First time I’ve seen that outside of an adventure helmet and a welcome touch.
Word on the net is that the chin bar vents work better than the top vents which are about average.
Visor
(more about visors)
The visor on the C5 pretty well covers all bases.
It’s nice and wide for improved peripheral vision and there’s – unusually – opening tabs on both sides, which is very useful.
It’s also a Pinlock ready visor and comes with a Pinlock Max Vision antifog insert in the box – the 120 version too which is Pinlock’s most effective version. Hurrah… then again it probably should at this price.
A couple of useful links…
– All our modular helmet reviews –
– Safest tested modular helmets –
Interestingly, the visor has what Schuberth calls a memory function. What that means is if you open the chin bar when, say, your visor’s half open, the helmet remembers its position and if you close the chin bar again, the visor should still be half open.
Opinions differ as to whether that’s worth the bother – some folks find it useful while others don’t.
Either way, it’s another example of how Schuberth has tried to innovate with the C5, which is always great to see.
Sun Visor
(more about sun visors)
Usefully, there’s a drop down sun visor on the C5, operated by a slider on the bottom left edge of the helmet.
Whether you use them regularly or not, sun visors are handy to have there in case you find yourself riding into a low sun or if you don’t want to swap out for a tinted visor.
The sun visor slider is well placed, though it does mean the bluetooth mount has to be pushed further back and is a little awkward according to a couple of owners.
Chin Guard
(more about chin guards)
The chin bar on the Schuberth C5 is dual homologated which means you’re legally allowed to ride with the chin bar fully raised or lowered.
Raising the helmet is pretty straightforward and a one handed job – grab the chin bar, push in the red button and that unlocks it.
The chin bar raises to just above the eyeline where it stays firmly in place – and if you intend to ride with it in that open position, then there’s a small red lock button on the left to lock it in place.
As mentioned above, when opening the chin guard, the chin bar will collect the visor and push it fully closed before the chin bar reaches its maximum position. The C5 has a ‘memory’ mechanism that remembers the position the visor was in before you opened the helmet, so when you close the chin bar again, the visor position is reinstated. Nice.
Obviously, if you ride in a modular helmet with the chin bar in the closed position, you want to know you can trust the chin bar to be reliable and protective.
Thankfully, Schuberth’s flip front helmets generally are. SHARP notes whether the chin bar became unlocked during their impact testing and marks it down as a percentage.
Overall, Schuberth modulars tested across the years score an average of 97% with the lowest score being 93% and highest 100%. That’s a good average score and we’d expect the Schuberth C5 to score similarly well.
Comfort and Sizing
(more about comfort and sizing)
Pretty well all helmets go down to at least size XS but few go up to size XXXL like the C5. To find other helmets that go into larger helmet sizes, check out our Extreme Size Helmets page.
Schuberth have designed the comfort liner on the C5 to be seamless, so you don’t get a pesky uncomfortable seam pressing into your head.
That’s not usually a problem on all but the cheapest helmets of course, but it’s still a welcome feature.
They’ve also made the side/back/cheekpads replaceable so you can tailor the fit by adding in thicker or thinner sections. We see that on quite a few other premium helmets too; but unfortunately, with the C5 that’s only an option for sizes M, L or XL for some reason – so if you’re another size, tough!
Word is that the internal fitment on the C5 is medium oval but a tiny bit rounder than the average. It’s a comfortable helmet though, and that liner’s easy to whip out for washing or swapping if you’re so inclined.
Looks & Graphics
You can spot a Schuberth helmet a mile off – they’re always clean looking with minimal but striking graphics. And the C5 is no different.
There’s a couple of bold graphics in the form of the Eclipse and Master graphics, each available in several colour combinations.
If you’re after a plain helmet, there’s a gloss white, matt black, gloss grey, gloss silver and hi viz fluo yellow.
Scroll up and down the page to find photos of most of these. Or click the links below to find more options as they’re launched – if we’ve done it right, they should drop you straight onto their Schuberth C5 pages.
Best places to buy a Schuberth C5?
Please click below to go straight through the Schuberth C5 helmets pages at our recommended stores. And if you buy from either, we get a small sum from the sale at no extra cost to you – a massive THANKS! (it’s how we finance the site).
Schuberth C5 Video
This one’s probably the most comprehensive look around the Schuberth C5. It’s 20m long though so grab a cuppa first.
Other stuff – bluetooth, weight, warranty
Potentially very useful on the C5 is the fact that it’s designed to integrate their SC2 bluetooth headset. The SC2 is made by Sena and is equivalent to the Sena 50S in terms of functionality. That’s a Mesh 2.0 headset which is pretty much the latest tech at the time of writing.
All of that means is that there’s a panel at the rear of the helmet to plug the battery pack into, a panel on the side to put the control unit on, and a push-in connector to fit the boom microphone – and you should be good to go.
Integrated bluetooths are potentially a nice clutter free way to add bluetooth comms to your lid.
But they’re usually a more expensive way to go too. You can find helmets with integrated bluetooths here – or headset-ready helmets here.
Onto weight. Modular helmets are on average 200g heavier than full face helmets. The C5 is around 1.6Kg if you buy it in a smaller shell size with larger helmets weighing around 1.8Kg. That’s about average weight for a modular so you shouldn’t have any problems there.
Schuberth C5s – in fact all Schuberth helmets – come with a 5 year warranty.
Overall/Summary
The Schuberth C5 is a nice looking helmet with some interesting features. In fact Schuberth has obviously worked hard to make a few nice touches around the C5 that’ll make it that bit easier to live with. Things like dual opening tabs on the visor, separate chin bar vents and the memory visor will all be welcomed by some touring riders.
Schuberth has certainly got the basics about right too. It’s around average weight for a modular – so no problem there – has a decent visor system, comes with a Pinlock and has a nice quick micrometric fastener.
Venting to your face and visor should be good too and it’s always handy to have a drop down sun visor in there, especially on a touring focused helmet.
It’s only made in two shell sizes and the internal fitting can only be tailored in certain sizes of the helmet (see comfort section above), which seems a bit of a weird thing for what is perceived as a premium helmet at a premium price.
But if you’re searching for a modern looking and well thought out modular helmet with integrated wiring for a decent bluetooth helmet – one that we expect will be on the quieter side of all modulars – then it’s undoubtedly worth considering a Schuberth C5.
Good Alternatives to the Schuberth C5?
You’ll find plenty of ideas for alternative modulars on our Top 10 modular helmets page, and our safest modular helmets page. But here’s a few other hand picked great performers…
The AGV SportModular is a four star safety rated carbon fibre modular designed to work particularly well with sportsbikes – though it’s fine for sports tourers too. It can be found for around the same price as the Schuberth C5 and features an optically correct visor, sun visor and comes with a Pinlock in the box. It’s a good bit lighter than the C5 too.
The Nolan N100-5 is another SHARP 4 star rated modular (chin bar 100%) with P/J dual homologation, sun visor, Pinlock pre-installed and ready to rock the Nolan N-Com bluetooth.
For a cheaper option, the AGV Compact ST has been around for a while though it still looks pretty fresh. It’s half the price of the C5 (it has a thermoplastic shell) but it’s still 4 star safety rated, has a micrometric fastener and comes with Pinlock in the box.
Finally, the Caberg Duke II is a rare beast. It’s cheap but it’s one of the few SHARP 5 star rated modular helmets. It’s lighter than the C5 too, it’s dual homologated, has a micrometric fastener and drop down sun visor. It even comes with a Pinlock in the box. Great value helmet that.
Other ways to find the Best Modular Helmet
If you're after a new modular/flip-up helmet, they've never been more popular and there's a ton of choice out there. You can find our latest top 10 modular helmets list here or check out all our modular helmet reviews here. You can also visit our Safest Modular Helmets page or our smart filters page where you can click the flip-up/modular check box then choose a few other features to find the best flip-up helmet for you.
Best places to buy a Schuberth C5?
Please click below to go straight through the Schuberth C5 helmets pages at our recommended stores. And if you buy from either, we get a small sum from the sale at no extra cost to you – a massive THANKS! (it’s how we finance the site).
Star Ratings
MCN Rating: Quality 4/5, Value 4/5
