According to Velonews, Giro has developed a US and Euro legal TT helmet that is as fast as the Rev 5 that Armstrong used at the Tour. I guess we have to wait until the Tour to see it. I am making two other guesses, one that it will be available for sale sometime next year, and the second is that I wont be able to afford it.
I wonder how they managed to make it aerodynamic with the increased width required for it to actually provide protection.
I’m guessing it’s gonna cost 200+ dollars. Either that or it’s not gonna be up for sale.
It’s probably not gonna be as light as The Rev IV though.
I will take a good guess. The helmet will look quite large from the side; i.e., there will be a big, smooth ‘wing’ protuding from the back of the rider’s head. This will compensate for and smooth the airflow that will have to go around a wider helmet. Wider, because some space will be needed for the energy-absorbing crash material that will likely have to go into the helmet somewhere.
I would be amazed if they sold it in the $200 range, given that the Atmos is about $180. I was thinking over $300, and that there will be people who would run out and buy it for that price.
Mad aussie,
I’d be hopeful they don’t get too carried away with out of sight prices. Their Prologue helmet was $100-$120 depending on whether it had a visor or not. Pretty affordable. I’m sure they have an indication based on sales of this helmet of what potential there is for sales of this new helmet. I’m also convinced that they are smart enough to know that raising the price into the stratosphere will limit sales considerably. Again, they could look at sales of their Eclipse helmet vs their Pneumo helmet vs their Atmos helmet. This should give a pretty good indication of how pricing affects helmet sales and how many cyclists (market potential) are willing to spend at each price level.
I’m a little more hopeful than you seem to be, as well as hoping that at least in part you are misjudging Giro’s pricing intentions. I’m sure it will be more expensive than the Prologue though.
All this being said, I could be as wrong as, I’m hoping, you turn out to be on this helmet pricing issue.
Realistically, that new helmet would cost them a lot of money to develop. Wind tunnel testing is expensive, and development of new technologies doesnt come cheap. I am not accusing them of overpricing, as they probably wont sell a bunch of these helmets. There arent a lot of triathletes who would use one (no ventilation), and not a lot of TT’ers out there. That is why I believe that the helmet will have sell for a lot of money.
I’d agree. The cost of the Pneumo helmet in the box is probably about $5. If you factor in the testing and so forth, I think that goes up.
Consider a TT helmet that gets a ground up design, not a revamp of last years model, also fewer will be sold due to the specific nature of its design intent, what do you get?
$300 helmet. And I’d bet that it’ll be spring '05 before you can get one and $300 will be on the low side.
-SD
Prologue was Louis Garneau I think. Whole different pricing strategy / market.
Deke
LG is canadian…we make sense.
I’d argue that at $300 Giro would have a very interesting experiment, but not a product. I can’t see why anyone would spend that kind of money when LG would have a competitive product in the market for half of that. Sure, it will cost money to develop a TT helmet from the ground up but I have to believe that the folks at Giro are bright enough to do their homework and understand their pricepoint before they set out to develop anything. That’s product development 101. Now, if it had a differentiating technology (say ventilation as good as a pneumo with the aeroness of an LG prologue) then they could justify charging a premium.
Just an FYI,
I contacted customer service back in February after I saw an article on bike.com–>
Halfway down the page–>“Giro will introduce a new time trial faring that will pass UCI’s recent helmet safety standard. Former farings were just plastic.”
This was the reply from Giro (Bell) “Thank you again for your comments and sharing the article. The article is referring to our production of time trail helmets still for professional riders and no plans on having one for the public yet. The fist fairings were made just for aerodynamic purposes and even the racing standards are changing and we are trying to get new technology to make the riders (pro athletes) safer. It still all comes down to what can be suitable for elite racing may not yet be suitable for public sale yet. It still has to do with standards”
I again contacted them after seeing the post from mad aussie** **and this was the response,“thank you for your inquiry on the tt helmets. No I am sorry we will not be selling any time trail helmets here in the U.S.”
Wishful thinking here but perhaps competition will bring the prices down under $200. I would think that if a company is going to invest in building a mold for a new TT helmet then they will want to earn money on there investment and sell their product to the masses. If all the sudden we have Giro, Bell, Catlike, LAS, Laser, Rudy Project, Limar, L.G., ect. on the market then maybe, just maybe the prices will be somewhat reasonable.
PS It seems like Catlike and Met are just producing solid versions of existing helmets (MET helmets are not available in the US) check this link… http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2004/mar04/critint/index.php?id=stage3/CH7450
Dave from VA
Now that is an ugly helmet. Can you say Dunce?
-The coolness manifesto, it’s close
Will an aero really save that much time? 2 seconds over 40k?
An aero helmet, and we are talking the LG Prologue not a fairing, over a standard helmet, according to Cobb (via Time Trial.org) states 30 seconds over 40K.
“according to Cobb (via Time Trial.org) states 30 seconds over 40K.”
Which is about the same as covering over the holes on your regular helmet. I use that clear window insulation stuff that you blow on with a hair dryer. Has about a much prestige at the transition area as does my CH Aero disc cover, but they both work just as good as anything else for a heck of a lot less $$$.
what about sticking a full face shield similair to what matt brick use to use? unlike the LG which covers to the nose this would cover down to the chin. Does anyone see any possible benefits to this?
I see benefits for the local hospital’s fiscal bottom line when Mr. average Joe triathlete puts himself into heat exhaustion/heat stroke using a full face shield, nearly ventless helmet.
Man you kill me.
"Man you kill me. "
Sometimes I’d like to!! Do you feel the love?