Five of the best commuter helmets under £200

You’ll need to buy this in a plain colour to duck under our £200 threshold, but feedback from Sportsbikeshop customers suggests it's worth it. Now entering its third year, this lid has an impressive average review rating of 4.81 from 63 reviews. The K3 has a thermoplastic shell, internal sun visor, spectacle cut-outs, a quick-release strap fastener and leaves room for a wide choice of intercoms. It’s a genuine all-rounder that meets the latest ECE 22.06 safety standard and earns plenty of praise from owners. If there’s one common complaint it surrounds wind noise, so a pair of decent earplugs would be a wise complementary purchase.

Caberg's Duke-X boasts a lot of features for its relatively low price, with an internal sun visor, Pinlock anti-mist insert (on most versions) and a chin curtain to reduce draughts and noise. An average review score of 4.8 from the first 17 customer reviews indicates high owner satisfaction too. A five-star safety rating from the UK Government’s SHARP scheme boosted confidence in the Duke II and there’s nothing to suggest the replacement would perform any differently, though we're still waiting for the Duke X result from SHARP. One note: The Smart Black colourscheme looks like a bargain, but you won’t get a Pinlock included, and running without one would hinder its performance on the daily commute when the weather is bad.

This helmet’s spec sheet must be one of the longest for a lid of this price, offering pretty much everything a daily rider would need to get through the whole year. As with most sub-£200 helmets, the shell is made from thermoplastic and the N60-6 was one of the first entry-level lids to be approved to the new ECE 22.06 safety standard. It has a comfy foam liner, Pinlock-protected visor, sun visor with anti-fog coating and a micrometric strap fastener. Two downsides for commuting: 1) no recesses for intercom speakers means hoping there’s space between your ears and the lid. 2) a lack of chin curtain makes it chillier and noisier. The first 11 customers to leave a review gave the N60-6 an average rating of 4.70.

The cheapest helmet in this list is one that punches above its price in the quality stakes. Go for a plain colour and this flipfront helmet costs a penny under a hundred quid at list price, and even graphic colourschemes come in at £119.99. Our commuting essentials - sun visor and Pinlock provision - are in place, though it'll cost you a £34.99 surplus to get the insert itself. Still, that could mean £135 for a comfortable, Pinlock-equipped flipfront that meets the latest safety standard. It's also achieved a 4.7 average rating from the first 22 riders to leave a review, and near universal praise from the people who've spent their money on one.

Customer review feedback for the C70N is a little thin on the ground, but it's essentially the same as the C70 it replaces in the HJC range, although with the latest safety approval in place. In terms of value for money, this helmet is a bit of a gem. It has a plastic shell, as you'd expect for a helmet in the price bracket, and the overall build quality is decent. There's also the trust that comes with a longstanding name such as HJC. It's another lid where you'll need to pay extra for a Pinlock to alleviate visor misting on commutes in bad weather, but there's room in our sub-£200 budget to do that. A C70N in plain colours is £119.99, and it's £149.99 for graphics, with a £30 top-up to get the Pinlock insert if you want the extra protection that we'd always recommend for commuters.