Expensive XC helmets?

What are you paying for?

They’re all fairly ugly so it can’t be looks, a £6.60 Tesco helmet has 19 vents, a pretty decent adjustable retention system and passes the relevant safety standards so it can’t be manufacturing cost. why do people spend £100+ on them?

*have only bought 2 XC helmets in my life and spent less than £40 for the two

Mostly looks/vanity, comfort second, perhaps weight in some cases – I’ve used a Giro Prolight on the road bike and it’s certainly a lot more pleasant – it’s up to individual if it’s worth it.

I’ve bought a £40 Hex and an £80 Met UL Kaos in the past 5 years and I think the MET was worth the money. If your happy with a £8 Tesco job then fair enough but personally I’d put more faith in a bigger brand with more money for R&D. Above about £40 I guess you pay for less weight & features.

No regrets about spending money on such an important bit of kit.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/catlike-whisper-plus-cycling-helmets

Giro Ionos here, on and off road. Super light and well ventilated. Not as light as their newer one, but I would be swear to use that off-road due to lack of protection towards the back of the head.

Wore a £30 helmet for a race last year where I forgot mine; heavy, sweaty, and I could see too much of it in my vision.

Happy to drop £100+ on something I wear nearly every day. If you only ride once or twice a week, then maybe you can justify the cheaper helmet.

Lighter, more comfy, better ventilation (not necessarily the same as more holes!).

I’ve got a Giro Atmos, 3 S-Works 2Ds and an S-Works Prevail. The Atmos weighs a ton, in fact I plan to throw it out when I move house tomorrow, as I’ve not worn it for about a year! The Prevail is the lightest, but I find the 2Ds more comfy.

A few years ago I needed a new helmet, but couldn’t get hold of a nice one at short notice. As it was winter, and I wasn’t fussed by ventilation I bought a Giro Skyline (or something, £30 job). It was horrible, my head ended up hot and sweaty, despite it being winter, and it was uncomfy.

Only got one head, I’ll protect it with a nice helmet! YMMV.

If your happy with a £8 Tesco job then fair enough but personally I’d put more faith in a bigger brand with more money for R&D.

Uh? why?
I don’t actually have a Tesco helmet, Tesco didn’t even sell helmets when I bought my last one. I recently bought one for someone else (who was shopping with me but knows little about cycling or helmet fit)..

Above about £40 I guess you pay for less weight & features.

The Tesco helmet weighs 208g (XS size) and what extra features could it have?

<EDIT> just googled “S-Works Prevail” claimed weight is 185g (bearing in mind “claimed weights” accuracy it’s the same as the Tesco one (you’d never notice the weight difference that’s for sure)

My Prevail is 181g IIRC (small), so claimed weight is accurate. The Tesco one is light certainly.

No one’s making you buy an expensive helmet, so don’t…

I can tell you with certainty that the Prevail is the best vented helmet I’ve ever used – and actually the least noisy (which is quite useful for those of us that ride on roads a lot). This is compared to other helmets like 2D/ Volt/ Atmos etc.

Tesco helmet is 208g, that’s better than the S-Works Prevail which weighs 228g for a medium apparently, see here:

2011 Specialized Prevail Helmet – Unboxed and Weighed

I am going to weigh my medium Atmos tonight – it has a claimed weight of 240 for 2011. How many grammes in a ton?

Size XS? So you’re saying a babies helmet weighs the same as a large XC helmet?

FWIW cycling Weekly tested the new Giro, it comes in 10g under the claimed weight.

And there’s a difference between meeting the minimum standards for cycling helmets and exceeding them, the giro may well offer several times more protection, afterall a sponsored rider dying from a head injury would be a very bad thing for your brand, the tesco one just needs to earn it’s CE sticker.

Uh? why?

Tesco food is average, can’t see their cycling helmets been all that.

If I’d started this thread, I’m sure many here would simply say..

GW has a good point.

One of the advantages of more expensive helmets is better fit – mutiple size shells give you better fit which is shown to give better results that one size fits all with cradles to take up the slack

I bought an expensive one as it fitted like a glove compared to cheap ones that did not

However if you get a good fit from a cheap one it will do 99% of teh job of an expensive one. As helmets are basically very simple ther is no way of getting significantly more protection from the same tech.

And there’s a difference between meeting the minimum standards for cycling helmets and exceeding them, the giro may well offer several times more protection

Unlikely. There’s no incentive for any manufacturer to exceed the standards by more than a little bit. Meeting them while filling the thing full of massive holes is the trick – any manufacturer who finds themselves exceeding the minimum standard by a substantial amount will make the vents bigger or the helmet lighter, because that’s what people notice.

Why? Because I can afford to.

Deminishing returns…

I’ve got a Giro Havoc and a Bell something or other which was twice the price.

The Bell is much better vented, really noticeable on hot days. It does actually feel noticeably lighter but then as I have a light almost permanently attached to the other that probably skews it a little 😉

Fit is about the same, both comfy both have decent strap and adjustment systems. The Bell looks much nice IMO. The main reason I bought a second one was that I wanted a nicer looking helmet and one which was better vented.

Surely you don’t purchase a helmet based purely on price though? You go for what fits and which provides the best ventilation which you can afford. If a cheap one does all what you then fine.
Not seen the tescos item, so cannot comment, but I have had a cheap helmet in the past and it was very hot and not as comfy as my current more expensive one.

better ventilation (not necessarily the same as more holes!).

This.

I spend £100 on helmets. It’s peanuts compared to the rest of my bikes and kit, and makes a big difference. Excellent comfort/cost ratio.

I also spend whatever it takes to get a fully comfortable saddle, and I’ll buy as many stems as I need to find the right one too. No point in having a lovely bling bike and being uncomfortable riding it.

You go for what fits and which provides the best ventilation which you can afford.

Exactly. And lets face it £100 isn’t much considering they last a few years unless your unlucky.

I got the top of the range [before it change to s-works] specialized but got it on sale. I don’t usually pay a fortune for lids as they will get damaged but I do want it to be light and comfy as I suffer from headaches on the wrong lid.

for the same reason I bought a tld back in the day for my dh although now there are others which would rival it quite well.

1freezingpenguin – Member

You go for what fits and which provides the best ventilation which you can afford.

Exactly. And lets face it £100 isn’t much considering they last a few years unless your unlucky.

And don’t forget, the more expensive ones have crash replacement policies, so crash, and you get a new one at a greater reduced price.

Down to head size / shape maybe. I try to wear met helmets as they fit me better than Giro or 661. Last one I bought was £25 from CRC, comfy for me and not noticed it being heavy.

This.

I spend £100 on helmets. It’s peanuts compared to the rest of my bikes and kit, and makes a big difference. Excellent comfort/cost ratio.
how do you know? exactly how many cheap helmets have you worn while riding your mega expensive bikes while wearing the expensive ( branded I presume) cycling kit? or are you just being a dumb snob who has to have an expensive helmet to go with the rest of your kit?

GW, how much have you spent on full face lids?

FWIW I have typically spent £40-70 on both types.

In answer to the original question,
-Fit
-Comfort (most of us will have much fewer helmets than we do shorts, gloves or even cycling shoes.)
-exceeding minimum protection standards
-looks

So pretty much the same bar the protection bits as we would for shorts, gloves, jerseys, shoes and so on.

in 15+ years DHing I’ve spent £200 on full face helmets, Why do you ask?
Do Tesco do one of them too? I wasn’t aware of that. 😉

I tend to buy at the cheaper end of the scale I use a ~£25 Giro transfer for the road and a MET something or other for XC (~£30 I think)…

I find them adequate, however when I do go into shops and try on pricier lids I can see the benefits, noticeably lighter, Often much better fitting: I am constantly tempted to buy a much posher lid than the bank balance would really allow…

I think the thing is the price jumps; 30-40 notes will get you a perfectly good, functional helmet, if you’re after a serious marked improvement though you are going to have to spend a good chunk more £75-80+, unless you have a freakishly big or small noggin in which case just wait for the odd sizes to go on sale at CRC and co…

The filter down of features is slower with helmets than with other bike kit as there is only so much you can really do with moulded EPS, the COGs probably don’t vary massively between a £30 Giro and a £100 Giro, you are paying primarily for features (Less weight, better ventilation, better fit)…

Until the big brands start flogging a really well ventilated, super light, comfy fitting helmet for under £30 I guess we’re stuck with the current state of play, there’s not really any incentive for them to lower prices, or filter down features…

GW, I ask because a top-end full face bike helmet is maybe 3 times as much as a top end xc/road one. And a top-end motocross one (I understand some wealthy/strong-necked/also ride a crosser riders use these) is goodness knows how much. I wondered if you were more or less thrifty for a full face helmet. It looks as though you might be the same: how many did you get for your £200?

Very inexpensive poorly ventilated, aesthetically non-pleasing, oddly-fitting but nevertheless ‘meeting safety standards’ full face bike and motorbike helmets are available too, but not in tesco.

I’ve used MX lids for DH before, it’s a false economy, Heavy, hot and bulky wrong tool for the job, they ain’t designed for pedaling in…

My current basic 661 MTB jobbie cost £45 or so (so you’d maybe get 4 of those for your £200), it’s cheap, comfy, far lighter than an MX lid and definitely does the job. Having tried mates D2s and THEs on in the past, again I can see the extra money buys you a bit more comfort, and yet more weight loss which is good, but unless I was racing quite seriously (Which won’t happen within this lifetime now) I couldn’t justify it…

It’s not quite the same issue relating the prices of DH lids to XC/Road lids; I think the material costs have a greater effect, £200+ for a Carbon FF Vs £50 for a fibreglass shelled FF lid I can understand.
But top end XC lids have very similar construction and materials to their cheaper cousins, the cost difference is mostly in the features for these, not the materials…

DH helmets is place I won’t scrimp on. Having crashed on a rather wet Plenny a few years ago the chinguard on a cheap DH helmet I was wearing broke up gashing my chin.

Now I always squeeze the chinguard towards the back of the helmet when buying a new one and if it flexes to easy I wont buy it and cheap ones always seem like the chinguards are made of jelly.

how do you know? exactly how many cheap helmets have you worn while riding your mega expensive bikes while wearing the expensive ( branded I presume) cycling kit? or are you just being a dumb snob who has to have an expensive helmet to go with the rest of your kit?

Whoah, easy there!

1) I’ve worn many helmets over the years, some cheap and some expensive
2) Almost all my kit is bargain bin from races or outlet shops
3) No need to be so agressive, just stating my point of view and justification for my choices – with no aggro intended at all.

I buy stuff that fits and works, no matter where its come from. More than half the cycling clothing I have bought recently has come from Lidl! Some of it from Aldi… But then there has also been an expensive pair of Endura 3/4 baggies and 3/4 liners in there too…

Same goes for my bike. If it works, does exactly what I want it to, and looks ok, doesn’t matter how much it costs. It doesn’t need to Say Thomson, or XTR on it if it just does its job.

Sadly when going down the Helmet route, due to a fairly large and odd shaped head, pretty much nothing out there fits very well. Anything Giro in a Large seems to be made for people whose head is wider than it is long, Specialized lids poked me in all directions etc. The only lid I could find that fitted me well was the Met Kaos, a £100+ lid… Still didn’t stop me from shopping around and finding one for £50 on ebay though!

Your money, your choice. Personally I don’t consider £100 expensive for a helmet when compared to other cycling gear. But that said, I will always be savvy and shop around for the best price I can get. No point in paying over the odds, but there’s also F All point in being a reverse snob and buying the cheapest of everything if it causes you to be uncomfortable or it is not fit for purpose!

I always find end of year sales is a good time to get things like helmets as half the time it’s only the colours have altered.

Why are you asking GW, as you appear to know it all already?

What are you paying for? brand snobbery, i can’t for the life of me see the point of paying £100 for a giro Zen when you can get a Hex for £40, one is less streamlined, either way you look like a duffus!

GW trying out his ‘racer’ look in the mirror at Aldi. 😀

Comfort and safety for me. Find it hard to trust the lower end versions with the blown / injected polystyrene, with a semi hard shell that sits loosely over the top of it.

Going up the price line means I can get it to fit, it adjust easily, and in some cases has a crash replacement policy to incentivise the replacement should anything untoward happen.

Most recently had a Giro Xen, fitted well in the shop but it but it made me look like someone had stuck a water tower on my head, and when riding felt like it as well. Was forever tipping forward and for some strange reason every time I looked down a load of sweat would pour out..

More recently went with the 661 recon, and love it. Deeper cut at the back kept me warmer in winter, and it sits far more comfortably than the Xen (on my pin head anyways). Surprisingly have found it very well ventilated as well (summer only just kicking in but did 30 miles on Wednesday without complaint)

Why are you asking GW, as you appear to know it all already?

Was it one of those ‘why on earth..?’ questions that is actually a rhetorical question used to convey scorn?

how many did you get for your £200?

5, motocross helmet first, 2x budget bictcle helmets, 661 launch and a D2.

I’ve used MX lids for DH before, it’s a false economy, Heavy, hot and bulky wrong tool for the job, they ain’t designed for pedaling in…

Barel, Beaumont and Gwinn seem to do alright in them 😉 (but I agree)

molgrips –

1) have you worn even one cheap helmet recently? (or anyone else that’s commented for that matter)
2) no need to justify it, doesn’t bother me if you to Tesco in a TLD D3 and full race PJs.
3) No agression from me at all, don’t be so touchy, I was simply using your quote as an example.

Why are you asking GW, as you appear to know it all already?

genuinly interested, that’s all 😉

Was it one of those ‘why on earth..?’ questions that is actually a rhetorical question used to convey scorn?

the first part, yeah, partly the second, not so much. but well done for trying to get a dig in 😀

1) have you worn even one cheap helmet recently?

Define cheap. £40 yes.

No agression from me at all

What’s this then?

or are you just being a dumb snob