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The "What's the Best Aerohelmet" Thread

I was wearing aerohelmets back before they were cool and everyone had one. Mines the original LG Rocket, my blue "Kazoo the Martian" helmet with all of three vents, Star Wars blast shield visor, etc. I'm sure technology has improved since then so I'm in the market. What's the best?

I wants:

  • Fast
  • Light
  • Venting but not at the expense of aero
  • Fast

Any help?

Comments

  • I think the short tailed helmets are going to start being preferred, especially for long course, when your head position isn't always optimal. I really like the Lazer Tardiz I got on bonk town recently. The other shorter tailed helmets I can think of are the new LG and the Rudy. Rudy wasn't big enough for my melon though.
  • if you are worried about over heating the Lazer seems to be the best bet.

    The new LG seems really nice and has the visor and huge vent built in, but I think the price is steep at $250.

    I personally think my old LG Rocket is just fine and I'm sticking with it. I highly doubt you will gain any speed by upgrading an LG rocket. If you have to replace it for other reasons, thats a different story.
  • Thanks. Just figured there had to be something better out there than what I already have.
  • Rudy Wingspan, without a doubt. 

    I've tried a ton, this one wins big time.

    Giro is a pain to get on & ears rip.  Spiuk is a weird long flat shape that fits nobody's back & it's build like crap.  Specialized tt2 is killer looking & might be good if you can keep it flat on your back 100% of the time.  It's long & you need to have a flat back. 

    In reality, alot of us spend a good deal of time looking down.  Tests show that a short-tailed Rudy is better than alot of others even when looking down.  Good venting options, good fit, well made.  Etc etc etc.  Plus you can find some handy Rudy codes if you spend 5 minutes on google. 

    The new Vortice looks intriguing too, but it's too spendy for me.

  • Rudy won't fit my big fat noggin.

    The Giro Advantage 2 is the one I roll with, with an LG visor on it (so much better than using sunglasses).
  • I have a Spiuk and a Lazer Tardiz. The Spiuk is big and long, but fits well if one has an aggressively low aero position. It also has the tail fully covered art the bottom, reducing flow disruption there. I was 2-3% faster at all distances sprint to IM year on year when I got it (e.g, - 11 min for the IM, - 3 min for Oly, etc). On a hot or windy day, it is dangerous. The long tail gets buffeted easily, and there is NO ventilation. I got cooked in Kona. Also, some sunglasses (e.g. Oakleys) don't fit under the earpieces.

    The Lazer has great ventilation (for an aero helmet), as well as their special roller ball adjustment for head size, and a hole at the top to pour water thru. And, it has dimples, which make for great conversations with golfers, but I doubt it makes it faster. It seems just as fast as the Spiuk on me. It has more space for sunglass temples.

  • As far as fast, I started a thread last year about some data extracted from Rudy's materials, which suggested that, at most, the difference between good and great helmets is about 15s over 40k. To achieve that, you need to plug the vent in the Rudy, which nobody is doing in an IM. So, they're all similarly fast in testing environment.

    Buy one that looks cool and makes you feel good about yourself, that's why I bought the fluorescent yellow Rudy Wingspan!
  • I saw that the Tri-Talk podcast did a wind tunnel test of various aero helmets, and found massive time differences -- on the order of minutes over an 40K bike course and about 10 minutes over an IM bike, finding that at least a couple were actually worse than a road helmet. But since the results were incomplete -- they did everything at a 15 degree yaw angle -- they resfued to identify which helmets they tested or which ones were better. Thus, the report was totally useless. Just enough to infruriate everyone.
  • I have one of the new LG Vorttice aero helmets for sale in the Classifieds. It's a size M, which was a tad too big for me so I had to buy a size S.

    Rich, I'll give you a coach discount.
  • Last week I passed on a new LG Vorttice lid on sale at $200 simply because the visor is clear. It would just bug me if tinted visors come out in a few monhts and I have to pay another $40. A clear visor in Florida is useless. When they come complete with a tinted visor and I can get another 20% sale, then I'll probably pick one up.
  • Rich, thought I'd add a few thoughts as I just played around with some new helmets at the shop.

    The Catlike is a bulbous one-size-fits-all mess, I'd advise against it.

    Short tail is the way to go.  The LG Vortice is badass, as is the very new (probably not even out yet) Giro Selector.  The Selector might be a little bit lacking in the ventilation department, but it looks cool & fits nicely.  As somebody said though, aero helmet > road helmet, and they all probably buy you about the same time.  Decide on short or long tail based on position, then just go with cost vs cool factor.  

  • Posted By Paul Hough on 16 Apr 2011 03:51 PM

    Last week I passed on a new LG Vorttice lid on sale at $200 simply because the visor is clear. It would just bug me if tinted visors come out in a few monhts and I have to pay another $40. A clear visor in Florida is useless. When they come complete with a tinted visor and I can get another 20% sale, then I'll probably pick one up.



    The lack of a tinted visor is the one con to the Vorttice right now.  You know one is coming soon enough.  I'm in Texas and it's very sunny as well.  I wore the clear visor during the Oly I did two weeks ago.  It wasn't ideal.  I took the visor off and wore sunglasses for the Texas 70.3 last weekend.

  • I put a clear LG visor into my Giro Advantage 2 last year. You can buy two other darker shades of visors from LG as well; they were about $30 from my LBS. Now that I have my Giro outfitted with a visor, I will prob never go back to racing a tri/TT with glasses - just change the visor for various conditions.
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