I want what everyone wants from a motorcycle helmet: A comfortable fit, phenomenal visibility and plenty of ventilation. It should be as light and quiet as possible. And, of course, it’s got to keep my grey matter where it belongs if I ever go down.

I found exactly what I’m looking for. It’s the Schuberth C3 Pro. And it is magnificent.

Now, good gear is expensive. At $769, the C3 Pro sits squarely at the high end of the cost curve, but if there’s anything I’m not going to skimp on, it’s my head. Schuberth has the quality, the technology, and the experience to justify that kind of scratch. Allow me to explain.

The German helmet manufacturer has been around since the 1950s, and it produced one of the first composite helmets in the 1970s. These days its clients include the entire Scuderia Ferrari racing team and former F1 ace Michael Schumacher. Bona fides? Schuberth has them.

The C3 Pro is the company’s do-everything middle child, slotting in between lesser cruising models and the full-on race rigs. At just under four pounds, it’s the lightest flip-top helmet on the market, undercutting the Neotec Borealis TC-3 from Shoei ($750) by a few ounces. It’s not just lighter, but it

offers better balance, thanks to a little extra heft in the flip-top mechanism.

Now, some people can’t stand flip-up helmets. But my big schnoz and a thin head make getting into and out of full-face helmets painfully awkward. A flip-top eliminates those issues and provides plenty of room when I want to chug some water or say, “No, officer, I had no idea I was going that fast” without slipping off my lid.

Like most high-end helmets, the C3-Pro’s shell is a multi-layer concoction of carbon fiber and vacuum compressed, resin-supported glass fiber, while the inside is stuffed full of EPS foam. It’s safe, it’s light, and it exceeds U.S. DOT helmet safety guidelines and the more modern, stringent European ECE R22-05 regs that even MotoGP helmets must meet.

And then there’s the wind noise. Or rather, the lack of it.

Schuberth is the only helmet manufacturer that has its own wind tunnel. It shows. The combination of the C3 Pro’s slick aerodynamics, wind deflector, and snug seal at the neck make this thing whisper quiet. Schuberth claims a rider zipping along at 62 mph on an unfaired motorcycle hears just 82 decibels. According to a study out of the U.K., most riders traveling at 70 mph are assaulted with over 100 decibels of noise, or the aural equivalent of a chainsaw running next to your skull.