Do you honestly believe all that? You think that 150g on your head is a small difference? You think that there is actually little difference between top quality helmets and these knock offs?
If you think 150g doesn’t matter, take half a roll of quarters and zip tie it to your helmet and go on a long ride. I think you will change your mind. Can you ride with a helmet that is 1/3 a pound heavier? Sure, will it make a comfort difference? YES.
Look at what Bell, Giro, Specialized, and other top helmet manufacturers are doing. They are not only creating helmets that pass every safety standard in the world, they are also doing it a very light weights, and with a TON of ventilation. It is easy to make a sub 200g helmet, like the Giro Prolight,easy to make a helmet that funnels more air across your head than not wearing a helmet, like the Ionos, and east to make a helmet that passes CPSC. What is difficult, is to do all three of those in one helmet.
That is what you pay $200 for. Getting light, safe helmets with good ventilation. If all you want is a CPSC sticker, got buy a helmet at Walmart, they have them for $19, maybe less.
To me, $200 for something I will use on every ride for a couple of years seems pretty cheap. That’s less than $1 per ride. I spend more than that on powerbars, and I doubt one of them will save my life.
Hey, if you wanna go down as the guy who got on the internet and pretty much screamed “Hey, ladies, I have a super-weak pencil neck and security issues with inexpensive goods”, that’s your right.
For my part, I’m the proud owner of a 16 1/2" flank-steak head-connector, chock-full of veins, rippling muscles, sinews and what have you. 5 ounces of extra helmet? Bring it on.
Oh, and by the way, I was talking about my neck.
Probably.