mstateglfr 

Inventory is low online and in stores due to months of slow manufacturing plus everyone and their gramma buying helmets to ride.
Also, I've only ever found helmets that are the least worst option. Never had one I like.

I recently bought a special order Kali Maraka RD helmet from a small shop because I liked the fit and design/tech. Once home, I saw the helmet was made in 2014(whatever, I guess) and I didnt think to try my glasses before buying...the glasses don't fit. Also, the helmet straps are located in the oddest of places both in back and on the side. The front side strap connection to the helmet is why my glasses don't work(glasses over straps is an odd must). Basically, this is my worst cycling buy in years.

- I want to try POC, but it isnt carried anywhere within 100mi of me.
- I want to try Kask, but who knows where the closest retailer is since the website doesn't show retailers.
- Lazer doesn't fit well and the straps are unimpressive.
- I can buy a Bontrager wavecel that fits and makes my head look like Toad from Mario Bros. The strap connections are quality though.
- I can buy a $250 giro helmet.
- I can buy online and hope a Kask or POC fits then go thru return shipping if needed.
- I can look at a single Smith helmet at REI.

Helmets, man. Brutal to find one that is the shape of my head, is safe, vents well, holds my glasses, and has straps that arent stupidly designed.

znomit

Rule #37 .

Sy Reene

hmm... buy a few altogether at once online and ship back what doesn't fit. If you call the online seller (eg. the respectable US ones like Excel or Competitive) they can likely get you setup for this.

Does Giro fit you? If so, they do have helmets at price points other than $250. If the LBS only has a $250 model in stock, then buy online.

GlennR

Maybe this has something to do with it.

MoAlpha

Don’t forget you’ll have to settle for a heinous color.

Gconan

I always wanted to try a POC myself. Go for it!

August West

This is exactly what I do. Living in a smaller town trying on helmets locally is hit or miss and durning COVID-19 pretty much impossible.

Right now I'm in the process of buying mtn bike helmet. I ordered 4 from different vendors. Two were returned immediately because they didn't fit right, the third fit OK but the forth was a perfect fit. I try to buy from someplace with free or cheap returns like Amazon (free on some items) or Competitive Cyclist ($6.95 flat rate returns). But even if I have to pay full shipping for the returns it is better than ending up with a helmet that isn't comfortable. Plus being able to evaluate them side by side in the comfort of my home is much better than a 2 minute fitting in several different stores.

Sy Reene

As to free returns, as I somewhat suggested, if you bargain a bit in advance with the online sellers, you can probably negotiate free returns on the helmets you didn't keep (presuming you keep one of them)..

The bike manufacturers themselves have pretty decent free return policies these days. Eg. if you buy a Bontrager helmet online from Trekbikes.com, you can return for up to 30 days .. and can even opt to take it back to any authorized bike shop. Canyon curiously offers a few brands of helmets on their site - Giro, Bells and Abus (the Abus Airbreaker is nice lightweight option fyi).. and with the 30-day guaranteed return.

canklecat

If you think the Bontrager WaveCel looks like a mushroom head, you'll hate the POCs. Seriously, be sure to check photos of the POC Octal and Ventral from all angles, especially the rear, before buying. Yeah, they're unique, maybe better protection than some, definitely great venting. I have a POC Omne Air Spin, which I intended to be only for my upright hybrid. But it's so well vented I often wear it in summer on the road bike. But they look like Lego mushroom noggins.

On the plus side, POCs are dorky-cool. Several friends wear 'em and they do have an odd hipster chic. My women friends look totes adorb in their pink and brightly colored POCs. The guys usually go for the serious black or darker colors, but the weird looking rear vents on the Octal and Ventral ... it's an acquired taste. Mostly the POCs are popular in Texas because of the exceptional ventilation. And the pro chic thing.

The Omne Air Spin has a more conventional rounded rear shape. But it's their bargain helmet, more of a commuter helmet with great ventilation. It's very similar in overall configuration but the more conventional vent design and rear shape makes it seem less... eccentric.

If you prefer a more sleek helmet, check out the Abus as well. That's on my list. The Abus appears to cover lower on the forehead, temples and occipital region, but tapers inward to avoid that mushroom noggin appearance.

My usual road bike helmet is a Bell Formula MIPS. I compared it alongside the Bell Z20 and Stratus. There was hardly any difference in style, weight, features or quality. The Formula MIPS is an outstanding value. Terrific attention to detail, including the hard polycarbonate shell that protects the soft EPS foam under the edges where we'd set the helmet down on a picnic table. The POC Omne Air Spin lacks that, and the harness is a bit crude compared with the Bell.

But the Bell venting isn't quite a good as the POC - partly due to vent design, partly due to the busier clutter of the MIPS harness vs POC's "SPIN" system. On the plus side, Bell's sweat management is very clever. There's a drip channel molded into the helmet and the padding design over the forehead redirects sweat where it drips in front of the face rather than down the forehead into the eyes. Feels a bit weird when a fat drop of sweat is blown back into my face -- like rain on a clear summer day -- but I got used to it. I usually wear a bandanna anyway so that rarely happens.

I see several local fellows wearing the Specialized Ballista. Looks like a good aero/road helmet. Conventional looking from the front. Odd looking profile and rear. I'd need to be much stronger and faster to justify wearing that helmet.

sced

I buy helmets on Amazon for me and my family and never had a problem with fit. Maybe you are over-thinking it.

WorldIRC

Bought a Ventral Air SPIN in the summer. So expensive, but so comfy!

RiceAWay

Bell originally designed helmets for motorcycle racing. They made some basic assumptions - that the greatest danger to a rider was having his head fractured. As soon as racers started using them the buying public did as well. But the dangers to the riding public is NOT a fractured skull because motorcycle accidents on the street are not well controlled like they are a track. Most track accidents are "slide outs." where you could conceivably be thrown in the air and fall on your head. This is RARE. Most of the accidents is the loss of traction and sliding down the road with your head bouncing up and down on the road and the hard shell of the helmet protects your head from your nose or ears being ground off.

On the road, on the other hand, fatalities come from being hit by cars. Helmets are not effective in protecting you from your ribs being broken against a car impact and being shoved into your internal organs. So the actual protection from a motorcycle helmet isn't particularly good.

So one might assume that bicycle helmets would protect you more since the speeds are so much lower. Well, while bike speeds may be lower, the cars that hit a cyclist aren't remarkably slower and so helmets offer no protection against car collisions.

But that isn't what causes most bicycle accidents. Most bicycle accidents are "fall offs" where you come to a stop and can't get your foot out of the pedal and fall over. Or you are negotiating a corner and lose traction and go down at under 10 mph or you are flying down a descent at 30 mph and pick up a flat tire and manage to slow it down to 15 or less before you lose control..

The problems with this is that the Styrofoam is STILL engineered to prevent you from getting a fractured skull and the International Standards prevents this from being changed if you use Styrofoam as a cushioning material. A helmet is pretty much fixed in size since you have to be able to carry it on your head and be able to see around it. Therefore, in order to slow your head at a rate for which skulls do not usually fracture, the density of the Styrofoam is pretty much fixed. And this density has pretty poor deceleration properties.

In these "fall-offs" the greatest danger to a rider is concussion. This is the forcible deceleration of the skull at so rapid a rate that the membrane which holds your brain in place in the skull is torn and the brain is slammed against the opposing side of the skull. This can cause direct or indirect damage to the brain.

Decades after Bell's research in 1955(??) several entities finally started actual medical research into the causes and mediation of concussive injuries. I believe that it was the Swedish who assumed that the concussions were caused by the helmet "sticking" to the ground in a crash in which the head hit the ground and they invented the MIPS system which stands for "Multiple Impact Protection System". I do not believe that there was ever any proof or statistics that this system improved anything but it is offered in many helmet brands in the form of the rack in the helmet has a limited range of motion that allowed the helmet to rotate somewhat on the had in case of collision. I see this a bad science since you do not say that something works if there is no means of testing the system. Using headforms and acceleration measuring instruments have the problem of being designed to prove a point and not to emulate real life conditions since these conditions are actually unknown but only assumed.

Trek's subsidiary, Bontrager, concluded using actual medical data that the danger was from excessive deceleration and after playing with the idea they came up with the idea of replacing the deceleration pads or Styrofoam with a 3D printed material they call Q-cell or other names. This collapses in a far more controlled manner Whereas Styrofoam has an almost linear collapse and hence deceleration, the Q-cell has an initially much less deceleration that has non-linear increase as the cells collapse inwards on themselves. I have not seen the test figures myself but I expect that with the lower deceleration the brain moves in the skull cavity to the end of the head being impacted and so avoids the tearing forces and because of the collapse of the cells it also passes the international standard meant to prevent skull fractures. Bontrager makes the claim that this helmet will prevent somewhere around 48 times or more of the forces without injuries.

Since there are many people who believe that MIPS is a marvelous improvement despite no statistical evidence to support that, Bontrager also offers the helmet with a MIPS system installed. They say that they haven't shown any improvements during their testing procedures using MIPS but as I said, a lot of testing is highly biased to support ideas rather than to actually demonstrate any improvements.

Now, to be sure, the statistical evidence for the Q-cell system will take many years to build any statistical evidence as well since it isn't a case of fewer lives lost but a case of less debilitating injuries which are harder to record and report. Bicycling is one of the safest forms of transport on the planet and so statistical evidence on the whole is hard to gather. But as an engineer who has spent his life working in medical science for the most part, I can say that this appears to be a great deal more likely an answer than the MIPS system. But if you believe in either one you can go to your nearest Trek dealer and purchase a helmet for a rather reasonable price that will probably improve your chances of being less likely to be injured in the most common of bicycle accidents.

BFisher

Yeah, it's a lot like trying to buy shoes online.

I rolled the dice on a Kask, purchased online, and got lucky. Not much I can add that would help other than to say it fits my big, round head, straps are fine, comes in plenty of colors. I don't notice it much at all when riding.

Gods lonely man

Also when buying a new helmet, check out how easy is to find replacement pads, it can be a pain I the ass.

mstateglfr 

I was in the Chicago metro this weekend.

After emailing with Kask, they mentioned waiting on corporate in Italy to build a dealer locator page and then suggested 4 retailers in the city and suburbs. I called all 4 and they none have the 2 helmets I'm considering in the sizes I would try.

POC's website showed 10 dealers within 30mi of me. 7 don't have the 2 models I am considering in the sizes i would try. 3 never picked up the phone after multiple calls.


Sure, its the area I live, but the end result isnt any different when in the 3rd largest metro in the country.
Funny enough- we were in a equestrian tack shop today and they had about 3 dozen Kask helmets. So close, yet so very far.

Time to order and return online. Was hoping it wouldn't come to that.