Chris516

I am not surprised by that remark coming from you.

Dchiefransom

I would think that a ball cap, or any cap with an air pocket under it, would be hotter without a mesh section for air flow. My bald head would be baking in the sun without a helmet and skull cap. I believe the coolest head cover would be a skull cap that absorbs sweat that then evaporates.

electrik

Keeps my head warm in the winter and insulates from some of the sun's heat in the summer. I also doubt airflow through the helmet vents and hair would be classified laminar, if that was what you're speaking about.

cellery

If you want to maximize airflow over the noggin you should just shave it all off - helmet or not. Hair covering the entire dome is going to insulate far more than a helmet with its numerous vent holes. That's what humans evolved hair for, amongst a couple other things. Put a cap under the helmet and wet it in hot weather if you're worried about sunburn and/or overheating.

closetbiker

feel free to.

I think the comparison fits. Devoted group following the moral guidance supplied by leadership

CB HI

And I thought that modern humans had less hair than h o m o erectus.


Sorry for the spaces in the h word, seems this scientific wording is not allowed by the PC filter.

meanwhile

This is silly. It takes a lot of hair to equal the insulation of the foam in a helmet, and hair has excellent venting - you have noticed that it is made up of strands, and not a solid mass?

BarracksSi

Remember that just because a helmet looks like it's got vents doesn't mean they work very well.

Badly-vented:




Well-vented:

noisebeam

The top one has few poorly designed vents, the bottom a lot and therefore it looks like the bottom one would provide better cooling, but no?

electrik

These flowing locks? Forget about it!

BarracksSi

Yup, the bottom two helmets both provide good cooling. The ventilation of the one in the top three pics is marginal despite its exterior appearance. None of its vents are connected with air passages. It has rear quarter vents (not pictured) that are basically conical, as much as two or three inches across at the surface but narrow down to those little oval holes you see that are smaller than my thumbnail.

In contrast, the bottom two helmets, a Specialized Prevail and a Catlike Whisper, both have multiple air passages that are raised above the scalp by longitudinal ribs. The front vents are all connected to rear vents to let wind exit.

noisebeam

So the hats that look like they offer lots of vents in fact do work well for airflow. That top helmet looks like those lower cost ones which are usually a bit heavier and don't offer much cooling. They are terrible in the Arizona summer.

BarracksSi

Yup, exactly. I won't reveal the brand of the green n' white one, but suffice to say that it rhymes with "Schwinn".

I'm just annoyed at blanket statements about all helmets feeling hot & sweaty when that just isn't the case. Some are just designed better than others; all the manufacturer has to do is do it right.

That Specialized Prevail is pricey, but a lower-cost example would be their Align helmet. It took some more searching, but I finally found a decent pic of its interior. It looks pretty decent for its price range:
https://gowes-ah.blogspot.com/2010/02...zed-align.html

mjoekingz28

Ok, so I got this awesome looking silver/white helmet by Trek at the LBS. Didn't even know Trek made a helmet but it is great. They charged me $75 for it, I love it. First of all, the fit is so great I sometimes forget I have it on and when I tried it on in the store I got a chill in my spine because it acted like some sort of heatsink.

Today they said it was 90F outside and I didn't believe it since I was pretty cool the whole ride, plus 90F in April is pretty odd.

The first helmet I tried on at the LBS was a good looking Bell and I wore it around the shop for a while and my head eventually started getting hot and the fit was not comfortable and the forehead pad was lackluster compared to the Trek...it was a $45-50 helmet.

I won't even ride down the street without the helmet because I like it so much, and well, the safety is good too, but you wouldn't think so with all the debates on BF.

Just goes to show that the right helmet makes all the difference. Now if only I could find some shorts or bibs that are on the same level as my Trek helmet.


So,not only does a good helmet shield you from the sun and increase airflow via the use of vents it can also be made of a special plastic that absorbs the heat from your body.

/thread

closetbiker

Yeah, and monkeys fly out of my butt!

Hippiebrian

Has anyone considered that the cooler a helmet is (i.e. more vents) the less protection it actually provides? Just a thought, but if keeping your head cool is first and foremost, wear a cycling cap and keep it wet. If protecting your head is first and foremost, well, deal with the hot noggin. Sorry, can't have it both ways...you are giving up protection for comfort which is what I hear from helmet enthusiasts that I'm doing by using the cycling cap method...funny how they can negate that arguement when some manufacturer, in order to sell more helmets, dumps a lie on us. Anything that makes wearing a helmet look like a better option, right? Not buying it...

njkayaker

Who says that they do?

They cut down wind flow, so I don't see how they could be "cooler". I don't think the shading effect overcomes convective/evaporative cooling.

njkayaker

"Laminar flow"?? Maybe, that would be possible for bald people!

Is "laminar flow" anywhere near what it going on within a helmet??

===============

Sounds like "laminar flow" is much more controversial than the helmet/non-helmet debate!

njkayaker

It doesn't seem likely that better (practical) ways of cooling the helmet are going to do a lot for making your head cooler.

njkayaker

Airflow at 15mph though hair is good enough. You are optimizing beyond any value by shaving it off.

Also, the hair shades your head, which means it it might be cooler with it than without it (especially, with air flow).

It might be that hair (somehow) works better for evaporative cooling than being bald (maybe, because it can hold a higher water load).

njkayaker

No, no one has ever considered this. You are the first! Congratulations!

What manufacturer has made the claim that helmets are cooler?

Hippiebrian

"Do helmets really keep you (your head) COOLER?
Is this a marketing strategy or does it work?

I can see it adding shade, but not much else."

Sorry, I thought he was talking about a REAL marketing strategy that someone was using, and didn't just think this up. No, I didn't reasearch further.

The only reason I brought up the loss of protection is that no one had addressed it, and I thought it was prudent. Sorry again.

electrik

What is odd, why don't we ask - Do hat's really keep your head cooler? After all a helmet is a type of hat and people seem to have a strange habit of wearing them in hot climates - perhaps the answer is TOO obvious.

noisebeam

Bu, but more people seem to wear them in cold climates

electrik

but but, do i have to explain that also? People wear shirts in both hot and cold climates, are we to assume those shirts are functioning in the same subjective role on both occasions?

I will give you the benefit of the doubt here.