I Visited Nexx Helmets in Portugal for a Factory Tour and an EPIC Bike Ride

I already had high expectations for this trip but they were exceeded!! Including the part where I got stung..

Earlier last month, I was given the opportunity to visit the Nexx factory in Portugal to receive an exclusive behind the scenes tour into their helmet making process. It’s all been depicted in this video with the exception of two rooms which were top secret!

The following day was equally as fantastic where we went on a bike tour through the beautiful Portuguese roads. I almost forgot just how beautiful my home country is!

A massive thank you to Nexx and Motohaus who made this happen, it was such a privilege to go on this trip and I am grateful for this memorable experience.

Obrigada!

We are here at the next factory in Portugal and we’re going to show you how one of these bad boys is produced. [Music] [Music] Right. Since um Fona and Joey are not here, we can record everyone. Everyone say hi. I’m out of my element. You’re doing You’re doing okay. Bring me. Hi. I’m not used to vlogging. Vlogging is really hard. It is. Vlogging is so hard. See, even the angle is Currently in Stanford. It’s 6:00 a.m. and we’re going to catch our flight to Portugal. Uh we’re all very excited. It’s a very early start of the day, but um we’ve got a lot planned. Soon as we land, we’re going straight to the factory and um going to get media produced and then obviously then we’re going to receive the tour, have dinner, and then next day we’re going to wake up early again and spend literally the whole day riding the bikes, which I’m so excited about. And uh it’s gonna be interesting riding in Portugal for the second time independently because surprisingly I’ve only read my dad in Portugal. So so excited. The last time I say that. Yeah. Never trust puppy with directions. That is not true. I think girls are back here. Are you filming? Yeah. Sorry. Don’t leave. Sorry. Sorry. So we’re nearly in Portugal. Are you excited? I am. Bing. It’s going to be exciting, but it’s going to be bloody hot. You brought the panoto stuff here, didn’t you? Yes. I think this is the only thing that I could actually justify wearing because Oh my god. But also, I am thinking because it is hilly, isn’t it? North of Portugal is from what I remember is really hilly. Yeah, it’s going to be good being back and eating good Portuguese foods. I’m really excited. I’m I’m really excited about the the factory tour. This is going to be so good. actually never seen like helmet crash testing done yet. I think I really I’m really excited to see that part. So you mate you were did you were you did really well pretending you were sleeping. We are about to receive our vehicle and head towards the factory where we will receive Oh, we got the keys. Got the keys. We’re going into the van. That’s that thing that’s touching your legs. My camera. Hello. We’ve arrived at Nex. And as you can see, the hospitality has come through with this massive display of food. I mean, come on. They even have Leong, which is Piglet, and these sweets here. I have not seen these sweets in ages. And then we have their helmets on display. That’s my Is that my helmet? No, it’s not actually. This is so amazing. Oh my god. There you go. It’s so beautiful. Where’s mine? That’s my one. I feel like this is Christmas. I’ve been a good boy. Santa, where’s my helmet? How excited are you? I’m so excited. On a scale of 1 to 10, I don’t even know what I’m getting, but like Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. You get Oh, you get a really nice color. You get a really nice color. Everything is set up. Ready to go. Okay. They’ve given me a helmet that none of you have ever seen. I can’t wait. Apparently, this needed to be filmed. It’s so beautiful. This is nice. No. Oh my god. We are about to start the tour. We’re going to see how the helmets are produced as well as um how they are tested, etc. I’m really excited to show you the process and I think it’s going to be a great day. It’s going to be a long one. We’re all exhausted cuz I’ve only slept two hours, but it’s going to be a good day. Very insightful and I can’t wait to show you guys. The first gap is already there. We are visiting the first building. Apparently, this is where it all starts and the building that we were eating in and everything. That’s the final building where you see the end products. But we had to start from the beginning. So, in here, we’re going to the first room where you see how the carbon shells are pre-roduced. This is the area where I would like you to not film. Um, after this you can just keep filming. Oh. And here you can see we have the form the negative one. Those are the ones that we talked about the molds. So now we will have to bring in the balloon which is on the end. And this balloon will then be pumped and inflated and deflated in a special rhythm with special pressure and special temperature. So this shell will now go to the to the scale and if the weight is within the range he tells he tells the system which helmet it is and he says yes and then the helmet is born. This is how it looks now. And you see this middle stripe, right? And people often think this is because it’s too too halves glued together. But basically, this is where the raisin, which is too much in the boat, goes out somewhere. It needs to go out. So, it’s here. This is a fiberglass shell. You see, it looks very different. The weight is a little bit more heavy than the carbon fiber shell. First thing is we pass the whole building to the very end on the right side. And over there we have the water jet which is a a cutting machine which cuts with water. It’s 1,500 bar. It’s a stream and it can do like very detailed cutings. currently in the noisiest section of the factory. And this is where they’re sanding down all the helmets. And oh, what’s happening here? [Music] This is why a carbon or a fiberglass helmet is more expensive than a plastic helmet because all this you don’t need for plastic helmets. For plastic helmets, you have a machine injecting plastic and the shell is ready. So all this work is only for fiber and carbon. So it’s not only because the raw material is more expensive, but the workload is much higher. I underestimated how hot this country would be. I’m dying and I need sunscreen and I haven’t got any right now. So, I’m trying to hide from the sun. We’ve entered the painting area. That’s my helmet. Carbon fiber helmet like the one that he has on his head. We’re doing with a little airbrush. We’re doing all the design lines with a black airbrush. This is a manual process which we can see on the very back on the left side. Before this is an automatic painting machine which paints black, blue, white, whatever color we put in, it’s automated. Takes around 1 hour from the cleaning to the final painted product. It’s like a roller coaster. All these lines, all the black lines, they’re manually applied in there. This is this is our guy who does all the airbrush paint work. We have the water decal which will be applied by hand as you can see here. So currently she is placing the decals manually which is actually insane that they do this all in house and manually. [Music] This area here is the is the quality gauge for painting. It’s insane the amount of work that goes into this. The fact that they do pretty much everything in house and they do the decals themselves. They paint it manually. And I’m just surprised that they’ve done all this and the prices of the helmets are pretty reasonable. I mean, you could be comparing the next helmets to a lot of helmets out there and they do not match the price of a next helmet. So, considering how much they cost and the quality you’re getting, it’s actually insane. And the work that goes into this, yeah, just mad. So, where we are right now is the final shells. And then they would obviously be fitted with the paddings, inner foams, etc. And for them to reach this shell, it takes between 3 to 6 weeks. But then from here where they are right now to actually becoming a fully functional helmet, it could take just 30 minutes. I don’t know if you can see over there, but there’s a helmet saying policeia. This is X-ray machine that makes sure that the padding has no needles stuck in them. By not using the glue, there is a dis there are two different advantage. One is that the inner shell can micro move without the outer shell which has a little bit of an impact on the first impact but it also creates a nice chamber in between the two lines where we can actually flow the air and you know get out the old air. This here is the last checkpoint where they finally fully install it. And then these here are the final products. Everybody’s healthy. Yes. Right. This helmet is going to be smashed for the second time. [Applause] [Music] Jesus. This one testing how long we can open the visor till it finally grays. So, right now it’s 6,239 times. Here’s the same for the sunrise, but we also have a machine over there to test the lining. So, we’ll have a metal head going into the helmet, out of the helmet. We also take them out. [Music] No review of all the production. [Music] And this is what it makes. Yes. There’s something wrong on my 360. It keep switching off. It’s probably overheating. Cannot park here. Oh, that’s You cannot park here. You can’t park here. [Music] Day two of our trip here in Portugal. I had to stick the sunglasses on because my blue eyes can’t cope with this with this sun. This is the first stop. It was a sick road to ride on. Unfortunately, my Insta 360, one of the batteries is acting up, but fortunately enough, Will was able to shoot a bunch of really sick content on the his camera. Okay, I think it’s the other battery that is fooched, hence why it kept bloody turning off. Hopefully, this one is what I can find. Getting a bit sticky. It’s all right. I do need to pee. I should probably take this opportunity to pee since there’s no one here. I’m going to go up cuz there are people over there. We’re in location number two. We have an amazing view. As you can see, everyone is having a pit stop. We’re going to be here for like 5 10 minutes and then we’re going to shoot off. This helmet is staying here in Portugal. Well, listen, you know, Portugal [Music] [Music] [Music] Why you leave? Why you leave? [Music] My baby and you Ow. The [Music] So, some people have left to go ride down the twisties. And it’s so peaceful up here. Oh, and also look at look at this. Look at the view up there. They said that we could walk up there, which I’m not cuz I’m hot and sweaty and I don’t want to. But I bet the view from up there is stunning. I need you on my right side as far as close to the edge as you can. Yeah. Just in case I need to go. Okay. Heat. Heat. N. [Music] [Music] [Music] I’ve not really been filming anything on the camera because it’s just been riding, riding, riding, riding. But I got lots of footage on the Insta 360. Had the opportunity to ride the M1000RR and that was sick coming up on the twisties. This is the helmet that I requested uh which is the Hagabus red and obviously as you’ve seen I had the blue one which I can’t announce what the name is. We’ve got a closeup of the helmet. Both this one and the blue one are just absolutely amazing in the sun for different reasons. Obviously, this is more that deep red like sunset vibes and the other one just matches so well with this bike. And then I’m going to I don’t even know. I’m so tired. My brain hurts. I’ve never been to the side of Portugal and having the privilege to ride here is just insane. I mean, just look at that. It’s so lovely. Will got a picture of me down this road here. So lovely. [Music] I love I know. [Music] Just take a picture of me wearing that. [Music] Okay, you look I think we’re not. If I look tired, it’s because I am. Um, it’s currently not even 5:30 a.m. and we’re awake. I went to bed at 1:30 cuz last night we got home late and then I stay chatting with everyone downstairs and then by the time I packed it was 1:30 a.m. and I was like, “Oh, brilliant.” Um, and William woke up at 4:30 to pack his bag cuz he was too tired to pack his last night. So, I’ve only slept um 2 and 1 half hours again and we’re going to head to the airport, drop off the car, and then head to back to the UK. And I think I’m going to take a nap when I get back home. Okay, so it’s been two weeks since my trip visiting Nex in Portugal and that’s given me plenty of time to absorb all the information, the memories, just reflect on the trip itself, which was just phenomenal. It was such an amazing experience and I’m so so so grateful to have received this opportunity to see how these helmets are produced up close as well as having the privilege to ride through Portugal which is something I’ve done before in the past obviously uh I lived in Portugal for 18 years but this was different. This was special given the circumstances. The reason why I’m filming this video at the end is to thank a bunch of people. Starting off with you, the people who are watching this video and those who have been supporting my social media pages uh over the past 12 months. I just can’t begin to describe how grateful I am for your support. I also need to thank those who are directly responsible for this trip. Starting off with Addison who works for Motor House and Motorouse is Nex’s official distributor here in the UK. He was the one who approached me the very first time about working with them and representing Nex. He’s been brilliant throughout the whole thing and he made the process here on the UK side as stressfree as possible. Then moving on to the next team in Portugal. Starting off with MO who led the factory tour and did a phenomenal job doing so. It was extremely insightful and gave us a lot of detail from the entire process from start to finish. He was also with us during the uh bike rides. He was phenomenal throughout the whole trip. Also, I want to give a shout out to the head of marketing, Andre, who’s someone I spent a lot of time talking to throughout the whole trip. I think I took advantage of the fact that I could finally speak Portuguese, which is something that I unfortunately don’t get to do as often as I wish since I’ve moved here to the UK. Then also Phipe and Jan who were with us uh throughout the whole trip as well particularly on the uh bike tour. They were in the car and they brought all the snacks and supplies, drinks and making sure that we were all alive and hydrated. For the bike tour, I really want to thank our two tour guides, Miguel and Beu. They did an excellent job in making sure we all stayed together as well as the routes they selected were just outstanding. It was amazing views throughout the entirety of the journey and I want to give a special special thank you to Bedru and Andre. I spent a lot of the journey at the back of the group for multiple reasons. One of them being when I got stung by what I can only assume was an Asian hornet. And then when my Insta 360 was giving out and had to stop multiple times and then when my hands were um going numb or giving me pins and needles from grabbing the handlebars so hard. I don’t know why I was doing that. I think it’s because obviously if you guys know in Portugal there’s a lot of twisties on uh the country roads and I wasn’t used to so many twisties so I was a bit um uneasy. Anyways, they were always there at the back making sure I was okay and wasn’t going to get lost. So I really want to thank them for you know reassuring me and not leaving me behind. I’m also very grateful for William who took some amazing footage of all of us throughout the entire trip. Um, amazing rollers, amazing photos. A lot of the stuff that you would have seen a lot of the clips were actually clips he films. So, I’m very very grateful for him as well as Ingo and Allison who were um helping him getting the rollers either on the motorbikes or in the van. So, to all three of you once again, thank you very much. It was also great to connect with all these content creators, all the people that came along on the journey. Obviously, you know, I will thank BMW and Yamaha because those were the bikes we were riding throughout the entire trip, even though I didn’t jump on any Yamahas. I was on three BMWs and it was a fantastic experience as well. And then I think finally, I will say thank you to the founder of Nex. Um, I didn’t realize he was tagging along during the bike tour, but I had a lovely chat with him um at the end when we were having dinner. I think they were mostly surprised by the fact that I look like a Brit and speak fluent Portuguese. So, yeah, that’s my thank yous all done. Hopefully, I haven’t missed anyone. I really had quite a soft spot for next mostly because, you know, when I found out the company is actually Portuguese, I delved more into it. But then going on this trip was even more special because like I said, Portugal is where I lived for the first 18 almost 20 years of my life. So being able to go on this trip and represent a brand that also represents part of me was a big privilege. You see, what many people don’t realize is that even though Portugal is a small country, the products that it produces are usually very high quality and Nex is no exception. So being able to confirm that Portugal does indeed produce good quality stuff and Nyx being no exception was very special. Once again thank you for watching. I also want to just highlight that I am fully aware that there is a lot of rookie mistakes throughout this whole vlog particularly you know using the camera etc. This trip and this the editing everything has been a massive learning curve. So um I will be taking uh notes for next time. So thank you for watching and I’ll see you soon.