Yes, I am also follicularly impaired.

Fit is definitely important! Amazon has a try before you buy program, although you can't cut the tags to return it so I'm not sure how well this works with helmets.

I just bought a Giro Aether helmet to replace an old Bontrager entry level helmet and I really like it. Plenty of ventilation, pretty light and very comfortable. I paid $90 on Amazon. Looked in some other sites and apparently it was a $350 helmet when. It first came out!

Big vents are great but ensure they are lined with a mess to prevent stinging bugs from getting sucked in....

Safety first! Then cooling and neato colors.

Virginia Tech does helmet impact ratings, check out https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicyc...t-ratings.html

I live just down the road from you, and have been battling hot head for a number of years and have tried a lot of helmets. I’ve boiled it down to the Lazer G1 and Trek Velocis (not Wavecell), both with MIPS. Spec has some that are well ventilated, but they do not fit me as well. The unfortunate thing is that a well ventilated helmet is costly.

Your Portland “hot” is our winter chill. :roflmao:

What is hot for Portland?😎

No they don't, they just offer returns and sell your used helmets to some other schmuck who might not even be the wiser that someone else wore it or crashed in it.


Fit is 100% important and have a good helmet regardless of cost is important. The actual construction of the helmet is going to matter more than just vent holes as channeling that airflow is key. My ABUS Gamechanger was not heavily ventilated yet felt very cool because they designed basically forced air cooling and channels in it so at the right angles it would really do the trick. However venting is good and a lighter weight helmet will help as well. Not noticing you are wearing a helmet as much will help greatly in overall feel which will help on the sweating end as well.

In terms of MIPS or no MIPS all my helmets are currently MIPS-less not because it is a bad just because I don't think it is as crucial the right helmet that fits and is comfortable that you have actually tried on like a normal person not some return based stuff. If the right helmet that fits has a MIPS option great if not go for the helmet.

80 in July.

That’s our low in July. 😄

That's ridiculous. I put it on my head and wore it for about ten minutes to adjust it to see if it fit. If I didn't like it, I would have returned it. No sweat in it. No crashes. What do you think happens to helmets at your LBS? I'm guessing you are anti-Amazon. That's ok. You are entitled to your own opinion, I guess.

Yeah, I’ve observed that “hot” and “cold” mean different things to different people. Over the years when looking for clothing and helmet info, I’ve learned to disregard posters in colder climates. When it’s 60 here, I’m putting on a jacket. When it’s 60 in North Dakota, they are donning swim suits and jumping into icy lakes. 😜

No right or wrong, just different.

Yeah, I get cold under about 65*.

How is that ridiculous? You may have done that maybe but you don't know what someone else has done. In terms of my local shop and all the shops I have worked at in the past (and pretty much all the shops I have ever asked in my travels) we don't take returns on helmets for the very reason that someone could do as I have described and then I have a dead helmet on my hands that would go in the trash and I am out money or I have the option to do something unethical and sell your used helmet which nobody but some very expensive equipment not worth time or money could really determine. Helmets are a safety item not a pair of slacks from the Gap. I cannot just wash out a crash.

People do stupid things and return stuff all the time to places like Amazon and Amazon takes those items and resells them why wouldn't they, it is more profit for them and a way to get rid of stuff they would otherwise throw away now they are making a buck on it and you might not know or if you find out you will probably still spend money with them over and over because they will have you hooked.

I am against companies that knowingly and willingly sell fake and knockoff products, that treat their workers like garbage (or don't consider them workers to get out of caring for them) and make billions upon billions of dollars off the backs of others if you are for that by all means you are entitled to your opinion just know where your money goes and who it supports.

Sorry to say then you are against most if not all corporations especially here in the good ole US of A. All the top folks & shareholders really care about is the bottom line & how many millions of dollars they get.

As for amazon selling used gear like helmets, not too sure if they have a try & buy program or not. I know when I was looking at helmets the ones I was looking at did not offer that option. But they sell so many different types & styles I didnt look at them all obviously & I didnt go to my LBS because they didnt have the price point or color I wanted. Yup, old school here, never wore a helmet as a kid or while I was stationed overseas in the 90s, I'm only going to wear one when I have to for bike tours. My state doesnt require it as I'm well over the age of 16.

My choice, but considering I've been physically hit by a town car, have been in a accident that had 50-75 lb boxes slam me in the back, neck & head while I was driving due to an idiot running my work minivan off the road, & then another car accident I was lucky to walk away from.. heaven doesnt want me & hades is afraid I'd take over. When its my time its my time.

I personally would never knowingly buy a used helmet for a number of reasons, but I have noticed how many are sold through 2nd hand stores, thrift shops, and others, just to name a few. While I've donated bikes and parts, I never donate helmets.

This grows tiresome, Helmets do NOTHING at protecting your life because they were not designed to protect your life,.And a helmet so designed would be something like 6' in diameter. That would make the helmet a greater threat to the rider than the danger from cars.

As for saving lives here is a study showing that helmets do NOTHNG to protect you from cars https://www.vehicularcyclist.com/kunich.html

I have gone back and checked to see if anything has changed and it has not.

But this is NOT the problem. If a car hits you at just 35 mph you are DEAD. Cars commonly exceed 35 mph even in school zones. So pretending that your body can withstand that sort of shock is simply ridiculous.

But I nevertheless recommend helmets because helmets were not designed to save you if you were hit by a car. They were designed to save you for the other 95% of accidents - the fall overs. The ones like I had - a funny noise coming from the front wheel and I bent over while riding to see what it was - it was the carbon fiber fork failing and as I bent over with my head only 24 inches above the ground, the fork exploded and dumped me directly on my forehead. I was wearing a helmet and if I were not my skull would have fractured. that would not likely have killed me but the ER doctors would have taken my injury as a serious injury rather than simply being knocked out for 5 minutes.

Instead because helmets are designed to prevent skull fractures rather than moderate concussions, I had no external signs of serious injury.

The injury from the concussion was so bad that I was having a type of seizure which diabetics often have - I could not remember having the seizure and so was unaware of them., My brothers were totally ignorant of what a seizure is and one thought that I was simply getting very mad and the other thought I was going crazy. Finally a cop friend got me to Stanford Medical Center because I could not even remember to eat and had lost 42% of my body weight, My cop friend thought it must be cancer but the doctors ruled that out and recommended one of the professors of neurology who had a small local practice as well as teaching.

He had never seen a concussion that bad and the only way to treat it was with drugs. So I will spend the rest of my life taking maximum doses of two medications twice a day for about $8,000 a year to control it and these are the CHEAP medications. After 10 years, I am more or less normal except for the side effects of those drugs.

Now, in the meantime, Trek under the auspices of the Bontrager brand name has invented the 3D printed Wavecell helmet which is designed specifically to decelerate the head below the concussion rate. I have fallen off once with it and indeed it appeared to work. The shock didn't even make me dizzy.

Also other idiots have claimed that the injuries from the neck being twisted and replied with the MIPS helmets which have a mounting that will twist in a collision. I am extremely doubtful of this and indeed the Wavecell doesn't need these sorts of mountings since of the controlled deceleration.

The take home from the study and analysis of the study, and the personal experience is that you should wear a helmet of your own volition and it appears without further proof that the Bontrager Wavecell helmet is more intelligently designed than the old foam helmets. Helmets should not be mandatory since the manner in which many people ride simply doesn't require a helmet. Head injuries are rare and mandatory helmet laws are made in the belief that helmets can protect you in an automobile collision.

Also I would like you to know that neurologists are not the same. Most of them treat various dementias and soon forget anything they ever knew about concussions. I had gone to several neurologists on the recommendation of my private doctor and most of them were useless. Dementias, in general, can only be slowed and not stopped and these neurologists get pretty fixated on the idea that they can in the end do nothing. So there are good and bad neurologists to treat a concussion vs.dementia and you have to be aware of that and find the proper one. I was lucky to be near Stanford Medical Center where some of the very best doctors are.

Pretending that all cars will hit a cyclist at 35 mph or more is also tiresome.
Pretending that a helmet will not help protect a cyclist from some of the accidents they have is also tiresome.

I'd most certainly be dead if I hadn't had a helmet on back in July of 2019. I didn't get hit by a car. I was all alone... except for the doe that jumped out of the brush and knocked me off my bike when I was doing more than 20mph.

If you get hit at 35mph and don't go under the car then I'd say that helmet will probably do something to reduce your injury.

Putting your opinions on a page with flags at the top and then posting it on a website somewhere does not magically turn it into a "study."

The skull on the sides is thin enough that you can fracture your skull if you fall over while stopped and hit a curb.
Helmets don’t make you invulnerable but they greatly increase your chances of surving.

Bummer. It's surprising your Doc is supportive of you continuing to ride.:foo:

That is not a study...and even if it were, it doesn't even pretend to reach that conclusion.

If I wasn't wearing a helmet in 1977, I wouldn't have been alive over the years of that study. And that crash was from a bike failure, not risky riding.

And yes, tight better helmets, risks are taken that weren't before. We see this in ice hockey. When I was growing up, none of the pros wore helmets, let alone masks. Everyone knew the risk of death was real every time they stepped onto the ice. Players kept their sticks down, much more so than today. But a safer game? (OEM teeth were a rare commodity, much more common now.)

That explains why helmetless brakeless fixie ninjas are invariably the most cautious cyclists of all.