I was reading some race rules and saw that all helmets must be CSA (Canadian Standards Association) approved for the race. Has anyone ever been disqualified from a race for not having a certified helmet? ie Catlike Whisper Plus?
From a USAT standpoint, one of the easy & major two things that refs look for in transition pre-race is the sticker on aero helmets and bar ends being plugged. I know I did last year when I was referring, and I’ve seen every single ref in this region doing the same thing. Though, if you found a non-compliant helmet pre-race it wasn’t a DQ, but rather an ‘opportunity’ to find a compliant helmet, be it aero or otherwise.
The reason aero-helmets were checked and regular ones weren’t is that it’s pretty much impossible to find a non-compliant regular helmet these days, whereas there were a number of non-compliant aero helmets that made it onto the market that would be as much good as a paper bag in a crash.
I haven’t, but the dude that finished in front of me at St Anthony’s in 2007 did…he was from Europe or something…those Europeans and their crazy illegal helmets. I snuck into the top 10 in the elite AG field b/c of it!
Well, I just bought a Catlike Whisper Plus off eBay and am now wondering if I am running the risk of being DQ’d. I threw out my old helmet (which was certified) as it was 10 years old and I considered it un-safe as the hard plastic shell was developing micro cracks in it and becoming brittle.
Wouldn’t that be funny if the officials considered my old helmet “safe” and my new one “un-safe”?
I am going to e-mail the RD and see what he says.
Well, I just bought a Catlike Whisper Plus off eBay and am now wondering if I am running the risk of being DQ’d. I threw out my old helmet (which was certified) as it was 10 years old and I considered it un-safe as the hard plastic shell was developing micro cracks in it and becoming brittle.
Wouldn’t that be funny if the officials considered my old helmet “safe” and my new one “un-safe”?
I am going to e-mail the RD and see what he says.
Does it have a sticker? From all the training we received, it was pretty simple: No sticker, no go. Sticker, go. There was no gray area.
I won’t race I’m the US again because of the frankly anal and one dimensional USAT rules.
I have a Specialized TT2 helmet bought in the UK which has European safety stickers. I was told I couldn’t wear it at a US race because it didn’t have a US sticker - even though the helmet is identical to one I could buy in the US.
I’m not prepared to buy exactly the same lid just with a different sticker to race in the US.
In Europe as long as the helmet is certified you can race in it.
I’d worry about the EBAY ones, I bought the catlike whisper and chrono from competitive cyclist and they are US certified. You’ll know if its certified there are like three stickers in the helmet saying it is.
I was reading some race rules and saw that all helmets must be CSA (Canadian Standards Association) approved for the race. Has anyone ever been disqualified from a race for not having a certified helmet? ie Catlike Whisper Plus?
I was at a race last year where a guy had a helmet without the sticker and he was forced to find a different helmet. T1 was far away from the parking area for this race and the guy missed the start of the race by a long ways, or maybe he started the race, did the swim, then ran to go find a helmet. In either case, it ruined his race.
Maybe I will just use the sticker from my old helmet. LOL
Maybe I will just use the sticker from my old helmet. LOL
Well you better hurry and get it before they pick up the trash. (Since you said in your earlier post that you had already thrown it out.)
Or he can just go get a 10 dollar helmet and pull that one off it.
As you are obviously racing in Canada:
E.3.2 Helmets
Cycling helmets are compulsory and must be approved by an officially testing authority, such as:
• CSA (Canadian Standards Association)
• American National Standard Institute (ANSI Z-90.4)
• Snell Memorial Foundation
• The National Swedish Board of Consumer Policy
• Others to be announced
As I work in the Federal Gov’t for Canada, we need our items to be CSA approved, but will accept certain other standard testing groups as well. So if it is tested and approved for the European Union, then I would suggest it is safe.
I understand the need to verify that an aero helmet is certified by whatever safety agency is appropriate, but why do they need to check well known models that they already know are compliant? If the sticker has come off of someone’s aero helmet of a very well known brand - say the Spiuk Kronos, or Giro Advantage, why would an official then need to check an individuals helmet of that model for the sticker? Is there really sort of big black market of fake aero helmets floating around?
As you are obviously racing in Canada:
E.3.2 Helmets
Cycling helmets are compulsory and must be approved by an officially testing authority, such as:
• CSA (Canadian Standards Association)
• American National Standard Institute (ANSI Z-90.4)
• Snell Memorial Foundation
• The National Swedish Board of Consumer Policy
• Others to be announced
As I work in the Federal Gov’t for Canada, we need our items to be CSA approved, but will accept certain other standard testing groups as well. So if it is tested and approved for the European Union, then I would suggest it is safe.
You may be onto something here. Here is a link to the event Rules and Regulations. http://somersault.ca/rulestri.htm
The section that covers helmets is quoted below.
“a) Bicycle helmets are compulsory for all cyclists. The helmet must be CSA, or equivalent to CSA, approved,”
Now I just need to e-mail the RD and ask what they consider “equivalent”.
I understand the need to verify that an aero helmet is certified by whatever safety agency is appropriate, but why do they need to check well known models that they already know are compliant? If the sticker has come off of someone’s aero helmet of a very well known brand - say the Spiuk Kronos, or Giro Advantage, why would an official then need to check an individuals helmet of that model for the sticker? Is there really sort of big black market of fake aero helmets floating around?
At least for the US races, I don’t think every official is necessarily versed in every one of the well known brands. Also, just because a helmet has the same name around the world doesn’t mean that it meets the same standards.
From Catlike’s Facebook page, talking about the Whisper Plus:
“Our distributor in the USA is Serotta company (www.serotta.com) You can contact them for more info, and they will tell you where is the nearest shop where you can buy a Catlike helmet, also Competitive Cyclist carry the USA CPSC approved Whisper Plus. If you buy them by our distributor you wont have any problem, but if you buy it from Europe the helmet wont be certified for USA. Only CPSC Catlike helmets are selled in USA throught our distributor.”
And for the Giro Advantage 2, Lava mag was talking to Bell’s (Giro’s owner) Advanced Concept manager about a new helmet being developed:
“But Lance and Alberto said it was faster than the Advantage 2, and that was our goal: to be sure it was better than the American or European version of the Advantage 2”.
So, it’s not an issue of fake aero helmets. It’s the companies themselves releasing different versions for different countries.
I get it’s about safety, but to me and reading the story about the guy doing the race and then getting DQ’d, just seems like a cruel mistress. I’d venture to say, it’s kinda like holding in football. If you dont get called for it during the play, you basically got away with it.
So if they want to check every helmet, by all means check every helmet before the event to make it safe. To basically “allow” someone to race with a helmet that they later DQ’d someone for, seems kinda tongue in cheek to me.
Photocopy the sticker cutmout and glue onto your helmet. Make a few extras incase it peels off. What was it like 15-20 years ago helmets were optional ? Only reason I wear one is it makes my huge noggin more aero ;0)
Well, great news. I e-mailed the RD and here is what I got back from him.
Hi Dan!
No worries, as your new helmet meets our requirements. Just use it.
Cheers and thanks for entering!
Terry
Now I just need to print this out and remember to pack it just in case. 
If you’re at a big race like USAT nats, Charlie Crawford will be there and he has memorized every helmet and exactly which ones are compliant.
I had a Giro Advantage 2 which was made to be USA compliant but looked pretty old so an official flagged it anyway. Charlie came over to discuss the couple of issues:
- it had the right stickers but that was semi-irrelevant because I could have just took them off another helmet
- Advantage 2’s made for the USA before July 2006 (or something like that) are non-compliant because they failed the tests but some snuck onto market anyway
- There should be a manufacture date sticker but I was missing one
- He ended up using the serial number which was stamped into the foam to back-trace the manufacture date and confirm that it was OK
For different races there are different risks
Small - No one is checking or will care
Medium - USAT will check for stickers so you better have them (but won’t allow you to race without them)
Large - USAT will check for stickers and will look out for fakes/non-comliant models. They will also allow those where stickers have fallen off to race