When you park your motorcycle at your local cafe or service station and don’t want to carry your helmet, you are faced with a wide choice of locations to hang your helmet on your bike.

But which is the safest?

The answer may depend on your motorcycle.

There is only one place you should NOT put your helmet and that is on the ground.

Ants or other bugs could crawl in and create some havoc several kilometres down the road when they suddenly start to bite or get in your eyes or ears!

So which is the safest and best place to store your helmet on your motorbike?

Panniers and top box

The best place to secure your helmet is in big, lockable panniers or a top box if you are lucky enough to have them.

These keep your helmet in the shade, away from the elements and away from prying, thieving eyes.

It also cannot be damaged by someone bumping into or even knocking over your bike.

Helmet lock

If your bike has a helmet lock, they are quite secure.

Unfortunately, some modern bikes don’t seem to have them.

There are also some problems with hanging it here.

First, a thief can easily cut the strap and take your helmet. Yes, it destroys the helmet but thieves could just be using your helmet to steal your bike and make their getaway!

On some, your helmet may also be able to rock back and forth in the wind which could scratch its nicely painted surface, or worse, your visor.

Also, people squeezing past your parked bike might scratch your helmet or visor.

Your helmet is also exposed to the elements.

And because it is either upside down or on its side, you could come back to a helmet filled with rain, dust or even someone’s litter or cigarette butt!

Seat

This is perhaps the easiest and most common method of temporarily storing a helmet on a bike.

Depending on the seat this can be safe or very precarious.

A passerby’s knock or even strong wind could send it tumbling and a drop from that height could write off the helmet.

It’s also very noticeable and easy for someone to steal.

Your helmet is also open to the elements, although by being the right way up, at least it won’t collect rain like it does when on a helmet lock. Just remember to close the visor!

If you do store it on the seat, the most secure way so it won’t roll off is to have the visor facing the side with the sidestand.

Tank

Like the seat, it depends on the bike and is open to the same problems of security.

Hang it on the handlebars

The quickest and easiest place to hang a helmet is on the handlebars.

This can be secure, especially if you can get it over bar-end mirrors to stop it slipping off.

However, this can still be a precarious position where the helmet can easily fall if the bike is bumped.

It could also compresses the interior foam liner if you hang it with the helmet facing down. Compressing the liner can make your helmet fit more loosely and decreases its ability to protect your head in a crash.

However, it may be ok if your helmet allows you to rest it on the chin bar as in the photo above.

You can buy special helmet hooks or use a carabiner to hang it off the bars via the Double-D clasp (if it has one).

But again, you have the problem of the helmet filing with rain and dust and being stolen.

If you do hang your helmet on the bars, make sure it’s the right bar as this is safer than the left bar which slopes down when the bike is on its sidestand.

Footpegs

The same goes for hanging your helmet on the footpegs.

It may seem more “secure” because it is not in plain sight, but I saw a pedestrian walk past a bike and accidentally kick the helmet because it wasn’t easy to see.

The helmet, rolled about 50m down the road. A write-off!

If you do hang it off the footpegs, make sure it’s on the right side, opposite the side stand, as they can slide off the down side because of the bike’s lean.

Cables and alarms

If you choose to hang or store your helmet on your bike, it may pay to secure it with a wire locking cable.

Some are made of tough titanium and some even have alarms if moved.

Check out this robust helmet lock!

Strap

If your bike doesn’t have a secure place for storage, you can always carry your helmet in the bag it came in or buy one of these convenient EZ-GO shoulder straps.

• Where do you store your helmet? Leave your comments below.

Source: MotorbikeWriter.com