How much should you spend on a cycling helmet?
There are helmets costing ₹500, all the way to ₹25000. How much one should spend and what are the parameters to look for in a helmet to justify a higher price?
Helmets are priced on these parameters:
- Safety – The protection layers and the quality of protection layers a helmet comes with. For example, Mips based helmets are safer and in general cost more.
- Comfort – Helmets can directly affect the comfort when cycling long distances.
- Weight and Ventilation are the 2 primary reasons. Expensive helmets are half the weight of a regular run of the mill ones. While it may seem light in your hands, the same when worn for a few hours feels heavy on the head and neck. A 100 gram saving on helmet weight is easily noticeable in a 2-3 hours ride btw.
- Ventilation: Well ventilated helmets go a long way to keep the air flow going and the head cool. The openings in the helmet are a good way to judge the potential ventilation. Some of the more performance (speed) oriented helmets don’t have ventilation but they are suited for short distance time trials only.
- Aerodynamics – Aerodynamics matters more to riders who go on a fast road ride. Normally they already have an aero bike and deep section carbon wheels. Some helmets are designed specifically to cut through air better. Again they are primarily aimed at speed-enthusiasts and competitive cyclists. The gains are marginal but it is still there. Such helmets are positioned at premium buyers.
Findbetter has a large collection of helmets from brands like Giro, Rudy Projects, MET, ABUS, Bell, Van Rysel & Indian brands like Zakpro, B+ve. Many of them are available with good discounts as well. Here are a few.
There are all kinds of helmets for sale on Findbetter (the social media of shoppers) from brands like Giro, Bell, ABUS, MET, Rudy Projects, Zakpro and more. They are being sold by various stores and brand distributors. You can can also buy a pre-owned helmet on findbetter if you want to start with a small investment.
To view & buy the entire collection of helmets you can download Findbetter app from https://findbetter.ai
Overall, safety is still the most important reason to spend on a good helmet. A good starting budget is ₹5k (give or take). A helmet with Mips protection begins at 8k and we believe it is worth investing. One hardly needs to change a helmet. The only reason one will change it is if there is a crash in which the helmet is damaged. In such situation you would wish to have the best helmet on your head. Isn’t it?
Here is a must-watch video of cyclist who invested in a helmet and met with a consequence, he least expected