Heavy? Yes. Off ice, anyway.
During a game with the Eagles last week, a guy on the opposing team got his stick all up in my grill, breaking my Bauer Straight Cut visor at the attachment points on the right side of the helmet. While I was initially pissed at the errant twig, and was summarily sent off to the hockey shop to remove the jagged lexan from my bucket, I was happy that the visor did its job and that I didn’t lose an eye or have to go to BBYGEN to get repairs.
So, thanks to the Twitter operators at www.thehockeyshop.com, I got the whole catalogue of visors sent to me in a link.
After much deliberation and a discussion about the (lack of) durability of the pro visors, I opted for the Bauer X100. You may have noticed that there is also a Bauer DX100, the only difference – other than $10 – is that DX100 frame is “mirrored” versus the D100 which is “smoked”. Ya, I’ll spend less to not look like a 2007-era Ovechkin.
My previous visor came in a plastic bag with a couple of screws. The X100 comes IN A CARDBOARD BOX. I should have known it was going to be heavy. Anyway, I attached it to my lid without much issue. The attachment points are far sturdier than the 4 bolt-and-spacer attachments from my previous visor. In effect, there is a frame that attaches at the sides and to the front with a total of 8 bolts – 2 each on the side holding the mounting plates to the temples, 1 on each side to attach the frame to the mounting plates, 2 to attach the frame to the front of the helmet. This is literally double the amount of hardware keeping in stuck to my bucket compared with my previous visor.
When I popped the assembled visor and helmet on my head, it was noticeably front heavy. The optics are great. The nose clearance is great. The facial coverage is great. The weight is really bothersome.
I’ll be trying it out on the ice this weekend and I’ll update it from there.