Sidewinder Discontinued

I jumped my friend's Sidewider about 8 times to practice video and I'd have to say that it's not the helmet for me. I wear glasses and it is pretty much physically impossible to get the helmet on with my glasses on. In order for me to get the helmet on, I took out the lens, put my goggles on without my glasses and put on the helmet. Once I had the helmet on, I put my glasses on through the open visor area. Now, I may just not know the proper way to get this helmet on without bending my glasses up, but it sure wasn't obvious to me.

My other complaint about the helmet is the latching system for the the camera. The Sidewinder I tried is a couple of years old and they may have fixed it, but the one I used had an unreliable latch that protruded pretty far out of the helmet. It ends up that it got ripped off when my friend jumped it a while back. Since the latch is at the base of the camera and the hinge is at the top, it flew open in freefall. I think it would be nice if the hinge was at the bottom instead so that if the latch fails, the wind just holds up the cover.

Now I don't think the helmet is completely bad. It is very lightweight, and I like its compactness. I wish the camera didn't need to be side-mounted, but until the cameras come along that can be mounted flat onto the top of the helmet, this helmet does the job pretty well. While the Sidewinder is not for everyone, I would recommend it to people without glasses that are doing video for fun and don't want the bulk of a large camera setup.