[Closed] A helmet that looks like it has actually been designed for cycling

Looks like a horse riding helmet to me. Think i'll stick with a regular bike helmet.

genuine innovation

This is genuine innovation?

Why make it look like a baseball hat I wonder? Now if it looked like a pith helmet......

I take issue with the eps damage assumptions. I think it was trrl who found that old battered helmets were still pretty effective.

Here's the pic the OP didn't post -

Hahaha! I'll stick to looking like an MTB dork ta.

A helmet aimed at commuters isn't "designed for cycling", it's designed for driving. "Designed for cycling" looks like this.

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">A helmet aimed at commuters isn’t “designed for cycling”, it’s designed for driving. “Designed for cycling” looks like this.</span>

Unfortunately that's a "helmet" suitable for infrastructure designed for cycling and I don't have that where I ride.

I take issue with the eps damage assumptions. I think it was trrl who found that old battered helmets were still pretty effective.

Who is trrl?

Do they quantify exactly how battered a helmet has to be before it becomes ineffective?

A helmet aimed at commuters isn’t “designed for cycling”, it’s designed for driving. “Designed for cycling” looks like this.

I did say I wanted to use it for mountain biking.  I probably wouldn't use it for commuting, not as long as I'm not wearing one for walking and driving.

My point was more that they haven't started with an existing solution and fudged it for cycling. They've looked at what a cycling helmet actually has to do and designed it from the ground up.

Saying that, their marketing is cringeworthy and incredibly counter-productive for cycling.

A helmet aimed at commuters isn’t “designed for cycling”, it’s designed for driving. “Designed for cycling” looks like this.

Till the **** at the back who is too busy looking at his phone rides into the back of the woman in front of him which makes her fall off and bang her head

Till the **** at the back who is too busy looking at his phone rides into the back of the woman in front of him which makes her fall off and bang her head

Does that happen a lot?

Nope, that appears to be a fashion-driven attempt at a solution. Nothing about that suggests suitability, it has been designed to blend in with 'the kid's and hopefully sell more. It looks far worse than any helmet and I seriously doubt it will be as successful as a 'normal' bike helmet.

...and out come the haters!

It's.got practical benefits, I don't get the hate, but fabric outer = rotational injuries.

Hmm, might be OK to avoid a scraped scalp hitting tarmac, but I'm not so sure of the energy dissipation properties, having landed head first on tarmac and trails.

I see there is very little shown of the construction.

Another lifestyle product for the fauxie riding asshats.

Note the mudguardless fauxie in the marketing shots, and as above, little or no illustration of the actual construction.

There are much better options, and much better bikes, for urban transport use.

It increases the size of your head far too much

Why do you think that might be?  A helmet is just a crumple zone.  It has to be big enough to absorb a useful amount of energy mainly, but also it has to stand off your head to get air flowing underneath it.

You're saying it was designed for something else and then adapted to cycling?  I think that's ridiculous - what on earth was a helmet designed for if not cycling?  Hanging flowers in?

Re the Amsterdam picture - about 75% of these commuters are looking at their phones, generally, and they do bump into each other all the time.  But they are going pretty slowly and the upright position and slack seat angle means they are stable and can simply put a foot down when they do bump.

What people also don't tell you about cycling in the Netherlands is that (as I've been told at least) you have to use the cycle lanes where they exist, which is nearly everywhere.  When you're on a recreational or training ride this is a pain in the balls.  In the suburbs the cycle paths are segregated, but the roads have priority in design.  So you have to stop, cross via the lights, weave your way around the pedestrian paths which also have to cross your path etc.  You're not a first-class citizen, that's still the car in most of the road network.

Also, there are a fair few roadies, all charging about at double the speed of the normal cyclists, and they are all wearing helmets and lycra.

Yes ransos, it does. My son who commutes in that London was taken out by a yoof on a bike who was busy on his phone. My son was off work for 6 weeks and had to have an op to rebuild his shoulder

Baseball cap? Maybe in America and if you want to look like a cock.

As for helmet impact absorption, radiologist told me I likely bust my vertebrae due to the helmet sending shock wave down the spine.

I spotted that from a road.cc (or something similar) news feed. The Kickstarter page stated that it was compliant to various safety standards, including European, (which now probably starts a different debate about how good those standards are.)

The cover on that is removable/replaceable, so surely they could produce a nice deerstalker or bowler for the UK market.

“Does that happen a lot?” is not the same question as “Has that ever happened?”

Besides, if an anecdote about someone on a bicycle being hit by someone cycling with a phone is an argument for people to wear cycling helmets, any anecdote about someone on foot being hit by someone cycling on a phone (which is likely to be similarly or even more frequent) is an argument to wear walking helmets, so you’re implicitly arguing for that.

PS apologies for the derailing of the thread. But it’s a helmet thread: it’s inevitable 😉

Quite unsurprisingly, manufacturers will err on the side of telling you to replace the helmet. This protects both their profits and them from liability.

Any damage that's actually going to compromise the helmet will be fairly obvious on a bike helmet. Besides, the helmet is your last resort.

Also does that actually stick out any less than a typical helmet? I would guess a piss pot would be your best bet to avoid excessive head enlargement. And it doesn't look like you ride horses 😛

The bigger the helmet, the more impact absorbed by your head since your shoulders don’t have as much chance to absorb the energy

I don't understand this bit at all.

It looks f all like a baseball cap anyway. Baseball caps don't have straps around your ears and under your chin. It's kind of a fundamental part of their design and why they don't look (that) stupid on the yoof dat wear them.

As for helmet impact absorption, radiologist told me I likely bust my vertebrae due to the helmet sending shock wave down the spine.

How the hell does that work?  There would have been more shock had the helmet not absorbed some of it.  Although maybe he's saying that your vertebrae would have been fine because your skull would have cracked absorbing some impact.

Your radiologist may not be a physicist or engineer.

AND ANYWAY, the helmets we wear for cycling ARE designed for cycling.

They've evolved from (one of those leather strappy things)
[img] [/img]
to
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
all specifically designed for cycling.
now we have, more streamlined, more coverage, well vented, on road/offroad... and ... jeez this is all so obvious 🙁
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

As opposed to one designed for disco.

What about the lack of vents? That's going to be well toasty. So not only will you look like a dork, you'll look like a sweaty dork...

Also that massive peak if you look up it's just going to act as a sail... but at least the chin strap will keep it on... unlike my baseball cap when I used to do a paper round.

None of the alternatives to EPS have better energy absorption characteristics than EPS, some materials are useful in combination with EPS but there is nothing else that touches the stuff. What is this propriety bollocks that they have failed to give details about?

Also, why is a helmet that is soft - therefore more likely to hang up in sliding falls and less protective against penetrating brain injuries vs a conventional hard shell - a genuine innovation?

I’ll just leave this here...

Thanks but I don't have an issue with my MTB or road helmets and I don't like baseball caps.

The gif really shouldn't annoy as much as it does for not doing a full rotation.

all specifically designed for cycling.
now we have, more streamlined, more coverage, well vented, on road/offroad… and … jeez this is all so obvious

What you have there are motorcycle helmets that have had all the inner padding removed (thus making it much more difficult to find one that actually fits) and had the hard shell removed. Everything after that was turd polishing.

None of the alternatives to EPS have better energy absorption characteristics than EPS, some materials are useful in combination with EPS but there is nothing else that touches the stuff.

Where are you getting that from? I thought there were plenty materials that had better energy absorption. EPS's main advantage is that it's the easiest to manufacture so, up until now, it's given the best protection per dollar.

It looks f all like a baseball cap anyway. Baseball caps don’t have straps around your ears and under your chin

I'm not sure why people are getting so hung up on the looks.  As far as I can tell you can just take the fabric off and use it without.  The main thing about it is that it will let us get away from EPS which works acceptably well but is definitely not the optimum material for a cycling helmet.

I have about 7 different helmets in my garage for motorcycling, kayaking, windsurfing/surfing, snowboarding etc and by far the most comfortable is my mtb helmet. I don't get why the OP would exchange a decent mtb helmet for that hideous object.

I have also been wearing helmets for various sports for 4 decades and so I'm pretty used to them - however that helmet is not designed for most of us. Its designed for my wife who hates wearing them, thinks they look way too sporty and would rather cycle without one or my teenage daughter who doesn't want to look like a mamil.

What you have there are motorcycle helmets that have had all the inner padding removed

You're dreaming 😆

[i]not sure why people are getting so hung up on the looks[/i]

Cos er, we would have to wear it on our heads??

Are you actually reading anything that gets written?  Are you trying to speed read and only picking up every fifth word?

Anyway, how are cycling helmets not just the EPS layer of a motorcycle helmet?

that helmet is not designed for most of us. Its designed for my wife who hates wearing them, thinks they look way too sporty and would rather cycle without one or my teenage daughter who doesn’t want to look like a mamil.

To me that says rather more about your definition of “us” than it says about the design of the helmet.

I don’t get why the OP would exchange a decent mtb helmet for that hideous object.

Again, it doesn't have to look like that.  You can take the fabric off.

However, the main reason I want one is because if you can get the same level of protection from a flexible helmet as you can from a rigid one then going with the flexible option is always going to be the best option.  It's going to be much more comfortable and, more importantly, it's got more chance of staying in place when you have a crash.

Helmet manufacturers are like shoe manufacturers, they aim for the centre of the bell curve when it comes to the shape they design.  Unless you fall close to the middle of the curve a rigid helmet is always going to be uncomfortable and not particularly effective compared to a flexible one.

Good to see someone with their thinking caps on 😐, or rather creating  a discussion at least, although not convinced it's not entirely a solution looking for a problem.

I got a Lidl 'commuter' helmet for general use, which seems OK and no one points and laughs AFAIK.  Maybe you lot might 😉

If you really want to boil your loaf it comes with a detachable rain-cover

Anyway it has a smaller form factor than a lot of helmets I've bought, is really lightweight, and has plenty of vents.

Who is trrl?

Transport and Road Research Laboratory

It looks like one of those old 1970s hairnet helmets with a hat over the top.

What people also don’t tell you about cycling in the Netherlands is that (as I’ve been told at least) you have to use the cycle lanes where they exist, which is nearly everywhere.

Don't think that's true, it's just that the cycle infrastructure is fit for purpose so why wouldn't you use it?

I have certainly seen pro teams training videos from the flat countries (possibly not Netherlands) using the road rather than a cycle path - which is pretty reasonable considering the pace they'll be going at.

Anyway, if they could make one that looked like a skull cap, I'd have one.

And as for brain piercing injuries, I would expect my (foam and thin plastic) helmet is far less effective at stopping things poking into my brain than my (thick 🙂 bone) skull.

I fail to see why some people are so unthinking in their objections.

Objection to the looks is pointless as we all like different things. I loath black on bikes for example, although tyres are ok. Usual STW irrelevance.

Protection. Why argue as it appears no one here really knows so opinions are pointless.

Who is it aimed for? See above.

Helmet fans would argue that its better than a woolly hat therefore why object?

No helmet fans including me, have no useful opinion as we think they are mostly daft anyway.

Comfort? So subjective so irrelevant.

Come on STW you can do better.

Maybe it’s you who is unthinking in your objection to how this topic is being discussed on the internet.

Gut feelings, opinions, the general dislike of black...

Come on mattsccm, you can do better.

@bez - not sure I understand your comment?  Surely as this is a MTB forum, 'us' are a group of mountainbikers who may or may not ride other bikes as well. Hence we are all used to wearing helmets off road and are fairly happy with that situation. Whether we wear them on road for commuting etc is not so clear cut. 'Them' conversely will be people like my wife and most of the population who don't ride mountainbikes offroad and are therefore not used to wearing helmets. My comment was that in my opinion the helmet was designed for the latter group and not for us and therefore I was suprised when one of 'us' stated they would rather wear it rather than a specific MTB helmet......

For those commenting on the Dutch situation, there are quite a few roads where its forbidden to cycle (like motorways obvs and normally ringroads, bypasses etc) these are clearly signposted and there are always good quality cycle infrastructure around them. In general however these are not the roads you would use for training rides though i did get pulled over on one once by the cops when I first went there because I was on one not having understood the sign and I would have got fined if I'd been Dutch. Its a small price to pay for having such amazing cycle paths though!

Your radiologist may not be a physicist or engineer.

Exactly, and same goes for doctors. A whole load of "helmet saved your life" stuff from doctors (yeah, I had that as well). They don't know that or whether the helmet reduced injuries or was a factor in them. They've just seen the result.

Radiologist was suggesting from having seen fractures like this before that spine fractures from head on impacts seemed to occur more with helmets. Than without though? Pure conjecture.

Though maybe there's something in it. Helmets soften the blow to the head but they don't prevent the shock going through the rest of the body, and maybe without a helmet the head takes the majority of the shock. So less likely to damage the spine, but you may have a big hole in your head.

 maybe without a helmet the head takes the majority of the shock. So less likely to damage the spine, but you may have a big hole in your head

Definitely - I cracked vertebrae in my neck when I went OTB and head first into a tree - I can say for certain that I'd rather have had a bit of a stiff neck for a few weeks than whatever damage that tree would've done without the helmet between us. And who's to say I wouldn't have had neck damage as well as a smacked in skull/brain.

Bruce, you're talking bollocks - it has time and time again been shown that the safest helmets are those that allow the head to slide along the ground more easily.

On the topic of liners, EPS is still the best for single impact attenuation...

https://helmets.org/liners.htm

However, the main reason I want one is because if you can get the same level of protection from a flexible helmet as you can from a rigid one then going with the flexible option is always going to be the best option.  It’s going to be much more comfortable and, more importantly, it’s got more chance of staying in place when you have a crash.

But you can't, for example - whilst your helmet may have just passed the standards - most companies try to exceed them. Leatt for example - posts the laboratory data to prove the exceed the various standards. So no, not all helmets that pass the same certificate are created equally.

Bruce, you’re talking bollocks – it has time and time again been shown that the safest helmets are those that allow the head to slide along the ground more easily.

I agree (mostly about the head sliding part but I'll admit I do have my moments).  I don't have any data handy on the friction coefficient of conventional helmets but I'd imagine the cloth makes it a good bit higher.  However, if they were to use a thin plastic shell instead of the cloth cover, or to just use it without a cover, then that should bring the friction coefficient right down.

Also, with the form being smaller than a conventional helmet, the rotation forces on the head should be smaller given the fact the lever arm is shorter.  Overall I think this type of design will result in far lower rotational forces compared to EPS.

On the topic of liners, EPS is still the best for single impact attenuation…

https://helmets.org/liners.htm
/a>

You do realise that the claim you made and the link you posted don't say the same thing.  Maybe it would be best if you quoted the particular bit you think backs up what your saying.  Here's the bit from your link that I think backs up my thinking:

Although there are many types of foams available, EPS remains the choice for most bike helmets because it performs well in hard impacts and it is light, cheap, durable in use, reliable to manufacture and easy to ventilate. A rate-sensitive foam would probably permit better protection against the mild concussions that today's bike helmets just have to accept to provide protection against catastrophic brain injury in very hard impacts, but has other drawbacks. Research continues, and new foams appear from time to time, but for the present they all have disadvantages that keep them from replacing EPS. The use of collapsing plastic constructs seems to offer the most potential for progress in liners in the short run, but heirarchical material research is the promise for the future. 

Feel free to quote the bit where it says EPS is the best for single impact attenuation because I couldn't find it.

whilst your helmet may have just passed the standards – most companies try to exceed them.

Which companies exceed them?  Leatt apparently do but if I was a helmet manufacturer and I made helmets that exceeded specifications I'd make damn sure I mentioned it somewhere.  Funnily enough, I don't see as much about exceeding specifications as I do about how light/aerodynamic/cool-looking a helmet is.  This suggests to me that the vast majority of helmets meet the specification rather than exceed them (and even if all helmet manufacturers out there do exceed specifications already, how do you know this helmet doesn't as well?)

I do talk bollocks.  My imagination tends to run wild and I take ideas from several different sources to find solutions to problems.  This often makes it difficult for me to get my points across.

In this case though, you're just too lazy to read what people are actually saying so you're just spouting random knee-jerk nonsense and posting links that don't mean anything.

Take a breath, go do some reading, think about what you want to say, and then you can come back and start tapping away on the keyboard.

& there’s little old me getting my head round the idea that mips in cycling helmets actually makes a difference.

tbc...

@bez – not sure I understand your comment?  Surely as this is a MTB forum, ‘us’ are a group of mountainbikers who may or may not ride other bikes as well. Hence we are all used to wearing helmets off road and are fairly happy with that situation.

Yes, that was clear from your earlier post, which is why I remarked that it said a lot about your definition of “us” 😉

Whether we wear them on road for commuting etc is not so clear cut. ‘Them’ conversely will be people like my wife and most of the population who don’t ride mountainbikes offroad and are therefore not used to wearing helmets. My comment was that in my opinion the helmet was designed for the latter group and not for us and therefore I was suprised when one of ‘us’ stated they would rather wear it rather than a specific MTB helmet……

And that’s my point: you’re surprised solely because of your narrow definition of “us”. I’m one of “us” by your definition, yet I relate very much to the views you cite for your wife and daughter.

People like “us” do all sorts of riding. I used to ride mountain bikes hell for leather all the time, but nowadays not so much. I do a lot more riding to the shops/school/the station, country lanes and bridleways. If I was one of the “us” who felt that sort of stuff warranted a helmet I’d perhaps be interested in this one rather than an MTB helmet for that purpose… despite still being one of the “us” that throw ourselves off hills every so often and hang out on MTB forums.

Regarding 'them' and 'us' and this helmet being for 'them' rather than 'us', I'm not sure why 'we' couldn't use this helmet.  As I said earlier, helmet manufacturers are like shoe manufacturers, they aim for the middle of the bell curve of head shapes when they design a helmet.  If you have a head shape that falls outside their target you're always going to struggle to find a rigid helmet that fits properly.

For me and my long narrow head, I get bad headaches if I tighten the webbing up enough to make me feel that it's secure enough to not fall off in a crash.  I've taken to loosening it off for climbs and then hoping I remember to tighten it up for descents.  If it's a long descent I have to just leave it loose and hope for the best.

This isn't so much of a problem when I wear a motorcycle helmet because they have much more padding meaning that my funny shaped head isn't so much of an issue.  Not really practical for a cycling helmet and why I think that a flexible helmet design, whether it rolls up in a bottle and looks like a baseball cap or not, makes sense for both 'them and 'us.

That nice picture of all the people on bicycles smiling and having a nice commute up there.  Most dutch people using bikes don't really consider themselves as 'Cyclists', just people using a bike to get from A to B.  It's easier and quicker than walking, cheaper and more convenient than a Bus/tram, better than using a car.

Oh, how we could live!

 The use of collapsing plastic constructs seems to offer the most potential for progress in liners in the short run, but heirarchical material research is the promise for the future. 

But they don't exist yet, the only thing that comes close is the Smith helmets system and that has been shown to have poorer performance than EPS.

Feel free to quote the bit where it says EPS is the best for single impact attenuation because I couldn’t find it.

You can gain that insight by reading about the properties of the other materials, for example - EPP causes the head to rebound more in a crash. Meaning that it doesn't crumple and stop the head still - instead the brain will end up getting bounced around more.

For me and my long narrow head, I get bad headaches if I tighten the webbing up enough to make me feel that it’s secure enough to not fall off in a crash.  I’ve taken to loosening it off for climbs and then hoping I remember to tighten it up for descents.  If it’s a long descent I have to just leave it loose and hope for the best.

I have the same problem - the thing to do is to try on a lot of different manufacturers - for me Troy Lee and 6D fit the best.

Bell are 3d printing motorcycle helmets to fit your head, I don't think it will be too long before we see this tech in bicycle helmets btw.

@Bez fair enuff but I still think current mtb helmets are far and away better than most other helmets I wear.

@seadog101 you are spot on there. My (Dutch) mother in law recently won a gift voucher in a raffle for a local cycle shop. I asked her what she was going to buy with it and she said " oh I'm giving it to Walter (her son) he's a cyclist" but you're a cyclist too! I said and she replied "oh no I just cycle to work or to the shops..or to meet my friends...."

I reckon she does 100 miles a week! Probably more than most on here!

I sometimes use my road bike to run errands and go places and use a road helmet and I still wouldn't wear that for commuting.

I've got a full face helmet with a large break away peak and I for one wouldn't want to ride that helmet with that peak which is fixed.