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Review Uvex i-vo helmet

joewein

Maximum Pace
Oct 25, 2011
3,532
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After six years and two accidents in which my old helmet (Trek Interval) did a great job, I treated myself to a new one (I think I definitely got my money's worth out of the old one). The Trek Interval is no longer in production, so I needed to pick a new model. I was looking for something that combined good fit (which is very individual) with a robust looking visor, to offer a bit more margin in a face-first impact.

I'd been looking for a while but finally found it in an Uvex i-vo MTB helmet for about 8,000 yen at Y's Road in Shinjuku. At 250 g it feels fairly light -- not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, probably depends on the situation.

In a test of 7 touring helmets by German cycling magazine RADtouren (4/2012) it was one of two helmets to score 5/5 stars. Hopefully I won't be able to confirm that from direct experience for a long, long time!

uvex-I-vo-helmet-hrs-2013.jpg
 
Just for the record Joe, frontal impact on helmets with a visor actually increase the chance of breaking your neck. Those are more for keeping the sun, mud and rain out of your eyes than to actually protect you.
 
I had assumed the primary reason most bike helmets don't have visors was Rule 35, i.e. religion ;)

On the two frontal impact accidents with my Trek helmet, the visor popped out of the holes that hold it in place, absorbing some energy before the helmet itself (or my nose) had to do it. Afterwards I just popped it back in again. My thinking was that the larger the crumple zone, the less abrupt the impact.

I had never heard about visors increasing the risk of a broken neck, but I'd be interested in further reading.

I did read something about the effect of helmet weight in accidents. On an impact in which the body of the cyclist is laterally accelerated (e.g. impact by a moving car bonnet), the heavier the helmet the stronger the sideways force on the neck due to the larger momentum. As a visor adds some weight, that would be bad, but so would be thicker Styrofoam or any other details that may improve protection in direct impacts. There's always a bit of a trade-off.
 
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