Fitting A Cardo Pactalk Slim To An Airoh Commander Helmet

 As the title suggests, thanks to four days of wet weather, I finally had a crack at fitting the Pactalk Slim to the new Airoh that I purchased waaay back in January. It has been sitting patiently in the box and I have been slack with fitting it up because I haven’t really done much adv riding this year - well, apart from the trip to Nundle and the 20 creek crossings of Barry station back in April and for that ride I just used my old Airoh Commander sans comms. The rest of the time I just use my Shoei Neotec no matter which road bike I ride and it has a Pactalk fitted. So, yeah, slack.

Anyway, enough excuses! If I can’t ride I should get some maintenance tasks completed, right? 

One thing I had heard with the Airoh and comms systems is that the pre moulded speaker cups in the helmet are nowhere near your ear canal. Maybe Italians have higher and more rearward set ears…..? 😁 

To do the job right I needed to pull the cheek pads out of the helmet which are integral with the speaker holding foam side panels.

Being careful not to tear this little hook tab at the rear of the cheek pad.

The inside of the bare shell.

I needed to move the speaker cutouts forward and down to get them within a bull’s roar of my ear holes. I took a bit of an educated guess on where the speakers needed to be and marked around them.

I noted Steve said he took about four hours to complete the task on his Airoh. I have a knock-off Dremel type tool I reckon it took me longer to walk to the shed and back than it did to relocate the speaker cutouts! 

I started with a small cutting bit and roughed the hole out.

Needs more meat taken out.

Next I tried a sanding drum which basically just melted the foam out but still, it worked and left a slightly smoother finish.

Speakers in, it was time to refit the cheek pads and run some wires.

The cabling fit nicely under the side skirts of the cheek pads and the control head mount slid between the liner and the shell. The Airoh has a comms port/cutout on the left side of the helmet so a different model of Cardo might have been a better choice for this particular helmet but in the interests of helmet interchangeablity, we went with the Pactalk Slim as it will fit any helmet that you can slip the mounting between the liner and the shell.

The microphone is held in place by a patch of Velvro. The Velcro wouldn't adhere very well to the chin piece despite wiping with an alcohol wipe so I think I will be revisiting this area. Maybe the boom mike that comes with the Cardo kit will work better....but we will see how it goes for now.

When snapping the liner back in around the edge take care to get the rear hook properly engaged and don't rip it off in frustration! (like I was tempted to do)

The final job is to stick the battery pack to the rear of the helmet with some double sided tape. The regular Cardo mounts will not work here as the back of the Commander is steeply angled forward near the collar.

You can see the angle here as well as the comms port that is built into the helmet. The Pactalk Slim mounts by sliding a thin strip between the liner and the shell, It is very snug.

In any case, the tape works well and I don't anticipate any problems, especially if I handle the helmet with care (which I do with all of my helmets -  and you should too!)

Lounge room testing indicates that I have the speakers in the correct position but I will have to wait until it stops raining to give it an on road test.

The old and the new. Yes, clearly I like the Airoh Commander! 

Why?

Well, it is a light helmet at ~1500 grams (3.3lbs) (and it feels light to wear) while still featuring a peak, an internal drop down visor(sunnies), a Pinlock included in the box, an intergrated action camera mounting point, a comms port that will accept a variety of different systems, it is compatible with moto X goggles and is quite a comfortable fit on my head with good, mid level plushness. It is no Arai or Shoei on the plushness scale but then again, it is $400 to 500 Australian dollars cheaper than those two brands adv helmet offerings - both of which do not have the internal visor which is a must-have for me these days. Airoh seems to have changed their sizing though. My first Commander was a Large size. This time I needed an XL to get a proper fit, the new L was simply far too small. Not sure what gives there?

And the colour? 

Yeah, I went high visibilty this time. I must be getting old (or developing common sense) as I see the need to be more visible on our increasingly busy roads. Plus it sort of matches the new RST jacket I bought last year for summer riding, which is a shell jacket that I plan on wearing over either my Tech Air 5 or my motocross pressure suit - it gets hot here in Queensland - but I still want to be able to ride in comfort AND safety. 

Now, if it will just stop raining.....

Cheers.

New Gear !

 

Looking at my tired old riding gear I decided it was time err...stuff falling apart made it clear that it was time for some replacements. 

Starting with my Sidi Vertigo II boots which were only about 11 years young and hadn't had much use. Strangely the left heel protector was perished and disintegrating. Of course I discovered this the afternoon before a ride so it was a mad rush to find some replacements.

I had also noticed in the last year or two that the boots were pressing down uncomfortably on my toes. I am not sure if this is because of my expanding girth spreading my feet more or if there was a change in the shape of the boot over time. Either way, I decided to go up a size to alleviate the problem as it was excruciatingly painful hobbling around with crushed toes. 

Luckily the local AMX Superstore has new Sidi vertigo IIs in stock AND in the larger size. of course they were much more expensive than 11 years ago. If I get another 11 years out of these, well then that will be fine. They are a good boot that incorporate air ducts on the side of the boot and calf adjustment for the perfect fit around any person's calf.

Calf adjuster.

Next item on the agenda was my helmet. The Bell Carbon Star I have been using is actually in decent condition however commuting to work as I have been doing this year means I am very often riding in during the day and coming home in the dark. Clearly, one visor will not work for both situations and having a clear visor during the day is blindingly dazzling on the way in to work and the tinted visor is no good for the trip home at night! I had tried on a Shoei Neotec II last November when Lucy was sizing helmets and balked at the price at the time. Fast forward eight months or so and I was kicking myself that I hadn't got one in the colourway that I liked as now I couldn't find that colour anywhere in my size!

On another visit to a local bike shop I decided to ask if they had one in stock and to my surprise (and slight shock as they called my bluff) they had one in one of their Sydney stores. I decided "screw it" and got them to have it sent up to Brisbane. It only took almost 3 weeks to come the 1000km from Sydney. (this is relevant further down in my spending spree).

The build quality is fantastic as you would expect on a helmet in this price range. I have never found Shoei helmets to be the right shape for me (well in the '90s and early 2000s) and my melon head but these new Shoei seem to fit perfectly and it is comfortable still, now that I have done a few thousand kilometres with it on. It is brilliant to be able to pull up at lights/intersections and flip the front up as it gets very hot, very quickly here in Queensland. Having that fresh air on one's face makes a huge difference. The helmet is P/J certified in other countries to ride with the face open but I am not sure about Australia. Either way, I bought a full face helmet to ride with it covering my full face....

The last bit of kit I bought was the last bit of kit I thought I would ever need or want on my motorcycle - a comms system. 

Some background on what brought me around - not having a car for two and a half years now means I have to ride to anywhere I need to be. Being on call with work some days creates a problem as if work needs me and hence, calls me, they expect me to answer immediately. That is not going to happen if I am on the bike!

So, despite saying NO to helmet comms as recently as my Flinders Trip with Andy, I decided to bite the bullet and grab one. Doing some research pretty quickly discounted the Sena SRL unit that neatly fits into all the pre moulded cut outs in my new $1200 helmet  - seriously, why the fcuk would Shoei mould proprietary comms recesses into their helmets for a very second rate comms system?! I couldn't find one decent review of the Sena SRL unit online or in the local motorcycle forums. The Cardo Paktalk Slim gets rave reviews though and checking the excellent Cardo website I could see that the Slim would fit my helmet. Albeit not as neatly as the rubbish SRL though.

To say I scoured the globe to find a reasonably priced Paktalk Slim is no understatement! They are $580 everywhere here in Australia and I finally found a unit for sale from Chromeburner for just $270AU or $300AU delivered. Done! The icing on the cake was that it only took 7 days to come all the way from The Netherlands to Brisbane. Contrast that to the 3 weeks my "in stock" helmet took to come from Sydney to Brisbane! We get rubbish service here in Australia and people put up with it because most don't know any better.

Anyway, I procrastinated on fitting the Paktalk to my helmet as I didn't want to rip my new helmet apart. I finally got around to installing it last night - about 2 weeks later - and after a quick Google to see how others had done it, I had it fitted in no time. There was no need to remove any lining, so I didn't, I just worked the wires to where they needed to be.

Not as neat as it could be but not as bad when viewed in real life.

Charged up, I took it for a ride today. I set up voice control on my phone via "Hey Google" (something I said I would never do but was very easy and necessary to make full use of the comms). I made several phone calls to Rebecca, Will, Steve (Chiller), some random workmate (whoops, sorry Al!😂) and Dad to see if they would complain about the audio.

 None of them suspected I was on the bike as they said it was as clear as if I was sitting in a room at home. The music was easy to play and I could hear it very plainly at 110km/h on the highway whilst wearing ear plugs. 

I even chatted to Steve for half an hour as I carved up a set of twisty bends, took some roadside photos then rode various roads all the way home! 

And when I hung up from him the music picked up from where it left off. I even paired it simply and seamlessly to the Zumo 595 once I arrived back home. A quick check route and I could hear the turn by turn directions perfectly. This would have been bloody handy in Adelaide a few months back.

I never thought I would say this but the Paktalk Slim is awesome and I wish I had it for the trip I did earlier this year. 🙄 If I only had some mates to try the mesh intercom system with....

Cheers.