Arai TX-5 Long-Term Ownership Review: Two Years, Thousands of Kilometres, Every Condition

I’ve been riding with the Arai TX5 for just over two years now. Not weekend coffee runs or the odd launch ride, but almost daily use across road bikes, superbikes, adventure bikes, commuters and the occasional commercial hack. Tar, dirt, highways, goat paths, summer heat and Highveld winter mornings, this helmet has seen all of it.

That makes this less of a “first impressions” piece and more of a proper longterm ownership review, warts and all.

The Riding It’s Done

Mid-2025 I put the TX5 through a proper endurance test: a 2,500 km, five day overland ride from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Two days carving around the Cape Peninsula and surrounding mountain roads, then north through the Klein Karoo, Southern Cape, the vast nothingness of the Great Karoo, swarms of miggies, a brief Gariep stop for a classic hobo’s breakfast (a piss and a look around), and then the long haul home via Bloemfontein and the N1. For that trip the helmet ran in full road mode, peak removed.

Outside of that, it’s been used on multiple offroad adventure rides in deep summer heat and bone chilling Gauteng winter mornings. Terrain has ranged from long, dusty gravel highways to steep, rock strewn climbs out of gullies, narrow mountain goat paths and game trails through the bush. Add weeks of commuting in sunshine and pelting rain, and the TX5 has genuinely lived the life.

First Adjustment: The Chin Bar

My very first reaction to the TX5 was surprise. The chin bar sits noticeably closer to the face than on my old TX4 and TX3. Initially, it felt almost claustrophobic, and it took some time to adapt. Today, I’m completely comfortable with it, until things get very physical.

When you’re muscling a heavy adventure bike through technical sections, breathing hard, that closer chin bar means your hot, garlic laden breath has nowhere to go but straight back into your face. That amplifies the huffing and puffing and sends your core temperature climbing fast. This is where the TX5’s ventilation philosophy becomes obvious.

Ventilation: Less Aggressive, More Refined

Compared to the TX3 and TX4, the TX5 is not as aggressively vented. The two forward top vents have been reduced to a single centre vent. The eyebrow vents in the visor are gone entirely, however they have been replaced with one massive slide vent above the high impact line, thus not affecting the structural integrity of the TX%. On the plus side, the chin vent is larger and flows significantly more air, and the rear exhaust vent has been redesigned into a single, larger unit with better extraction aerodynamics.

What Arai has effectively done is take a road helmet approach and adapt it for dual purpose use. The result? Less raw airflow at low speeds offroad, but noticeably improved stability, airflow management and comfort at sustained road speeds.

Noise and Comfort: A Big Step Forward

The biggest improvement over the TX3 and TX4 is comfort. The TX5 is quieter, significantly so. Wind noise is reduced, especially at highway speeds, and the interior is far more plush.

The liner materials manage sweat better, soaking it away quicker and staying comfortable across a wider temperature range. Long days in the saddle are simply easier. Going back to a TX4 now, it feels comparatively hard and utilitarian – still good, but not in the same league.

Visor, Seal and Fog Control

The visor has been subtly but importantly redesigned. It’s contoured around the Pinlock insert, giving a better seal and more consistent contact. In real world riding, it works extremely well. Fogging has been a non issue for me in both rain and cold conditions.

Peak Design and Practicality

The TX5 peak isn’t pretty. It’s clearly designed to be functional rather than fashionable. That’s fine by me.

More importantly, Arai has finally fixed one of my biggest frustrations with the TX3 and TX4. Those helmets worked well, but switching between road, adventure and MX configurations was a chore. Worse still, the plastic screws held both the visor and the peak.

I learned this lesson the hard way on a 3,500 km trip to Victoria Falls. Losing a single screw meant both visor and peak flapping uselessly in the wind. A memorable Sunday ride from Palapye to Kasane, aptly 666 km's of pure misery followed, held together with duct tape and desperation, speed limited to under 100 km/h.

The TX5’s simplified mounting system is a massive improvement. You can remove the peak entirely, lose the bolts, and the visor stays firmly in place. It’s quicker, easier and far more practical. For TX3 and TX4 owners: carry spare bolts. Trust me.

Safety and Build

The TX5 uses Arai’s PBcLc² shell construction, multi density EPS liner, emergency release cheek pads, and meets ECE R22-06 certification. As always with Arai, build quality is excellent, and the helmet feels solid, protective and well finished.

Interestingly, after nearly double the mileage I did in my TX 4, the TX5 still looks almost new. It stays cleaner, fresher and shows less wear.

Final Thoughts

Yes, the TX5 looks like what it is: a modified road helmet. It’s not particularly pretty. But I don’t have to look at it while I’m wearing it.

For the kind of riding I do, it feels safer, more cocooning and far more comfortable than its predecessors. My days of trying to look cool are long gone. I care about comfort, practicality, usability and safety.

I won’t fit oversized rims to a Ranger Raptor just to impress strangers. I’ll take something that works properly every time. That’s exactly what the Arai TX5 does.

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