This 12 months’s version of the Tour de France has been a hotbed for brand new tech and nowhere is that extra true than the helmets getting used.
Scanning across the heads of the peloton, three groups look to be debuting new helmets, EF Education-Easy Post, Intermaché-Wanty and Bahrain Victorious. 2024 appears to be the 12 months of the helmet with EF Education-Easy Post already inflicting a stir with the POC Procen Air that blended time trial helmet design with street helmet consolation.
Visma-Lease a Bike had been additionally at it when the workforce got here near breaking the web with its new Giro TT helmet that flipped the script on helmet design as we knew it.
Fortunately for the biking trend neighborhood, there was nothing fairly as radical noticed at this 12 months’s Tour. Both POC and Rudy Project have showcased new vented helmets while Uvex has gone down the route of a vented helmet with an non-obligatory aero cowl.
EF Education-EasyPost’s new POC helmet
When POC revealed the Procen Air on the early season races, it garnered plenty of media consideration blurring the strains between a street and TT helmet. With the mud now settled and the Procen Air now an ordinary sight throughout the professional peloton POC has been at it once more.
The new helmet doesn’t look to have any labels on it however going by its closely vented design it’s secure to imagine it’s both an replace to the prevailing Ventral or a brand new mannequin that might substitute it.
On first inspection, the blunt entrance face of the helmet is what grabs your eye with an virtually 90-degree edge separating the entrance face to the highest of the helmet.
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Although uncommon this design does current the 5 massive entrance vents instantly into the airflow. These huge intakes will possible permit riders to maintain a cooler head in hotter situations just by their place and dimension.
Looking previous the big entrance vents, the highest of the helmet is a far smoother affair with solely two small vents in direction of the rear of the helmet breaking apart the in any other case coated prime part. It shouldn’t be a very clean prime with the pink ridges sitting extra pronounced than the darker sections nevertheless this portion of the helmet has actually been designed with aerodynamics in thoughts.
The rear of the helmet sports activities a reasonably blunt profile with a sequence of enormous exhaust vents all coming collectively to kind a big hot-air outlet. We have seen blunt helmet profiles up to now permitting riders to undertake an aero place with out compromising the efficiency of the exhaust vents.
Intermaché-Wanty’s dual-purpose Uvex helmet
The workforce of stage three winner Biniam Girmay, Intermaché-Wanty have been sporting a reasonably putting new helmet throughout the opening stage of the Tour. The razzle dazzle camouflaged helmet appears to be a dual-purpose providing with the helmet making use of an exterior shell masking to cover the vents and improve its aerodynamic properties.
In its stripped-back, vented guise, the unnamed helmet makes use of 5 channels that look to run virtually your entire size of the helmet to information cooling air over the rider’s head. There are just a few carbon fibre struts that be a part of the channels of the helmet collectively that break up the vents.
With the detachable aero shell fitted the helmet takes on a noticeably extra aero kind. The outer two channels are utterly coated with the central three decreased to smaller vents extending just a few centimetres from the forehead.
The removable aero cowl has already gotten the workforce right into a little bit of sizzling water ensuing within the workforce superglueing the shells on to adjust to UCI gear laws. This is as a result of removable aero coverings on helmets are banned to be used in competitors.
With or with out the aero cowl fitted the exhaust vents on the rear stay the identical. Four massive central vents handle carrying passing airflow away from the rider.
Bahrain Victorious’ new vented Rudy Project
Much like Giro, Rudy Project has already launched a brand new helmet this 12 months within the form of the Wingdream TT helmet. Since then the model has gone on to launch the Rebel, a vented helmet that the model claims, “units new requirements in security, sustainability, and efficiency.”
The new helmet makes use of carbon fibre inside its development permitting much less polystyrene for use. This has the good thing about decreasing the general footprint of the helmet in addition to growing the scale of the vents.
Aesthetically the Rebel appears extra conventional in type than the opposite new helmets with a sequence of vents positioned throughout the entrance and prime of the helmet. In distinction to the Uvex helmet design utilizing 5 important steady channels for cooling the Rebel makes use of 22 separate vents throughout the helmet.
The helmet can also be mentioned to make use of recycled polycarbonate in its development with the padding and straps additionally being constructed from recycled supplies emphasising Rudy Project’s dedication to sustainable product design.
The Rebel sits alongside the aero-focused Nytron with workforce Bahrain Victorious in a position to decide on between the 2 relying on the stage profile and climate situations.