As I wandered around the display arena of Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem '05, a little stand with a few helmets caught my eye. One helmet in particular drew me in, I know it's tarty, but what struck me first about this helmet was it's looks, a helmet with an aerofoil!? Then I noticed the lovely rounded shape, the translucent (eh?) rubber edged visor and.... back again to the twin aerofoil.... what the....? An aerofoil? ..... On a cycle helmet? How fast do these people think I can ride?
But it had definitely caught my interest.
I was told by the man (turns out his name is Steve) that the twin aerofoil type blades help suck air out of the back of the helmet, so keeping your head, and hence your brain, cooler. And we all know that brains don't work too well once they've been cooked.
How does it all work? Well, I don't know yet, I haven't got one.
Oh... wait a mo... the postie just delivered one. How serendipitous! I'm just out for a ride, see you later.
......... Well, actually it was several rides later, especially as the first helmet delivered decided to 'have problems' on the first ride. The occipital yoke at the rear is tensioned with a plastic wire, the wire pulled through a few of the retaining hoops causing the helmet to become too loose. A few clicks tightened it up again but the fit was now uncomfortable.
An email to Steve at distributors Fine-ADC and there was a new helmet being delivered by courier the following day, they even picked up the old one. I was impressed with the service, but a tad annoyed with the helmet.
Anyway, the new helmet was soon on my head, there has been no repeat of the problem so I'll continue with my review.
First the technical points. As well as the spoilers, there are a few other features of the helmet that attracted me, mostly to do with fit and function.
The main safety function that appealed to me was the polycarbonate inner frame. The helmet is designed to spread the load of impact throughout the whole helmet via the polycarbonate ring. You can't see this ring, it's hidden away beneath the compressed polystyrene foam of the main shell, but I'm assured it's there. This ring helps keep the helmet together in the event of a destructive impact, so even the broken bits will continue protecting the head instead of flying apart. While I have no intention of testing this, it is good to know.
There are two bands of polycarbonate struts that connect the ribs of the helmet together, they also spread the load from the impact site to the other side of the helmet, which is also 'a good thing!' (Douglas Adams has a lot to answer for).
The ribs themselves are 'V' shaped, thinner on the inside close to the head and thicker on the outside. Apparently this helps to spread impact load and also aid airflow inside the helmet by creating low pressure. The rear spoiler is designed to assist this effect but I haven't tried riding without it yet.
The idea of a translucent visor seems... well worse than useless to me. The whole point of a visor is to keep the sun out of your eyes, if a visor lets light through then it's not a visor, it's a window, and not a very clear one at that. However, there is a 'cunning plan' with this visor and it doesn't involve potatoes.
I was told this actually aids vision out on the trail. With a solid peak blocking the sun, the iris can open wider, all well and good, but when you look up further you can get a blast of light into your unprepared eyes. The idea behind a translucent peak is that it helps keep the iris closed up tighter, so a sudden increase in light into the eye is not so uncomfortable as the eye is much more prepared.
The visor is rubber edged, a bit of a minus to those who like to embed their visors in their noses when they have an 'off', but on the plus side it can help to erase your sums when you get them wrong.
The 'popper' type attachment points at the sides of the visor allow it to be removed (so you can look like a roadie) but also allow it to swivel up and down! (Wahey! I love gadgets!).
This means it has an adjustable angle so your helmet can be customised on the go. You can have it tilted down, giving you a look behind which your steely eyes glint in disdain. Or you can have it tilted up somewhat, making you look like Norman Wisdom. I have a natural steely glint to my eyes so I have my visor looking mean and disdainful. The choice, however, is yours.
The front strap anchor points are quite wide, this is to provide a more stable fit and allow the helmet to be put on and taken off without having to remove glasses, whether prescription or the 'do I look cool in my megabucks shades or what?' variety. I'm told I look like Ali G in my prescription cycling glasses, he is still cool isn't he?
Right, all the tech stuff out of the way, what do I think of the lid?
Well, I like the rounded look, especially to the occipital area at back of the helmet, that's what I like about the Giro Havoc, it looks as if it will protect you in a fall. This helmet looks like it will protect you if an 'ACME' safe falls on you! (well, not quite, but you may have noticed I like to inject a bit of humour now and then). It definitely looks strong, the outer plastic mould feels thicker than other helmets I've had, it comes down the sides and back and so leaves little polystyrene to be marked or rubbed away.
It's a little heavier than some of my other helmets but it feels cooler, especially during the recent hot weather (July 05).
Fit can be adjusted by a ratchet on the inner rear of the helmet which raises or lowers the occipital yoke. This, along with the tension winder of the yoke, allows a comfortable fit, (for me anyway, I am aware that helmets are a bit like saddles in the 'comfortable fit' department).
One reason I chose this lid was for the tension winder ratchet 'thingy' at the back, (you turn the dial, it clicks and winds in a plastic wire to tighten things up, you can reverse the process to loosen it off again, clever eh!).
Other helmets I've had use a two plastic buttons at the rear to adjust tension. Unfortunately when my backpack shifts up suddenly it hits these buttons and loosens them. With a dial this won't happen, no sir! Fixed that problem! However, now my pack slides up and nudges the inner ratchet up, which, while disconcerting at first, serves to tighten the helmet to the head, instead of loosening it, which is nice.
Which brings me to the window, er.. visor. This is a translucent plastic bordered by soft grey rubber to prevent visor cuts when you have a fall. As said above, the visor is movable up and down so you can change the angle, it is also removable if you don't want a visor at all.
I haven't needed to move the visor in use, thus far anyway, but I've not done my Norman Wisdom impression for a while so it may come in useful at some time.
As for 'seeing the light', it really hasn't bothered me. I'm aware that the visor is brighter than others I've used but it doesn't irritate, I've not found problems with changing from light to shade when riding in and out of tree cover so all I can say about it is 'it looks different'.
At the moment most of the riding I've done has been when the sun is high overhead so the visor has not been really called upon to block anything. However, a ride this evening, going uphill towards the setting sun allowed me to observe how it works. The visor is bright but not painfully so, there is no stark contrast between shielding the sun and catching it in the eyes. A translucent visor seems to work well!
Can't think of anything else to say, I like the helmet, it's cool and comfortable, more adjustable than other helmets I've bought, but then I've never bought a helmet costing more than £50 before. The 'made in Germany' safety features impress me but, I have to be honest here, I bought this helmet because it has spoilers, that has to be cool!
You've been a great audience, I thank you.
aj
review written Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Casco no longer make the Passion Sport, and none of their current models have a translucent 'window'. Bummer!
| 2Danger Enduro 3 MTB | IRD Teflon Chain | Fusion Raid MTB | |
| Deuter Cross Air backpack | Casco Passion Sport helmet | Howies NBL |