After last years collision that left me with soft tissue and nerve damage (that is still not resolved..) I’ve started doing short rides to try and acclimatize to the outside world after being on a Kurt Kinetic Rock & Roll since last October.
Now, helmets are very much a black/white.. but for me it’s a world of grey. One thing that I do care about is whether stuff works. I’d done a lot of reading into various damage profiles of some helmets and frankly been quite shocked. When I found this product it really made me think – there has been so much research done in so many other areas but the foam helmet.. not a lot other than aero improvements…
Then I came over this. Developed by Anirudha Surabhi, an industrial designer who had been involved in a crash and been shocked at the performance of his own ‘top end’ helmet he set about designing something better…
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absorbs far more impact ‘When tested against the British Standards (EN 1078) at the Imperial College, Kranium absorbs more than 3 times the amount of impact energy when compared to regular cycling helmets.’
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can be reused after an impact – ‘5 times’ is quoted by them.
‘Kranium has also proven to last more than one impact. During the testing phase the same helmet has been tested 5 times consecutively and it still proved to pass the standard. Polystyrene helmets however are rendered useless after a single impact. It has also been impregnated with a compound to make the cardboard water-proof.’
All interesting stuff.
What’s even more interesting is that the German manufacturer Abus, has licensed it.
How did this come about?
Popped out to Velorution and had a good chat with Jonathan Cole who runs Bikerepublic. Distribution is via Cycotic.
There are 2 in the range – a clear one that shows the internals very nicely and a racy looking black version called the ‘Ecolution’ http://www.velorution.com/abus-ecolution-aks2-helmet-with-kranium-d2-liner/
There’s little doubt that this isn’t going to challenge the supremecy of the roadie classic helmets – the Catlike whisper plus etc as they are much much lighter. But when testing it in the shop it did seem it was lighter than the ‘Urban’ helmets that are very popular. (Bern’s etc)
I’ve got one. I’ll be testing it when my urban riding starts at some point in the (hopefully near) future.
If you want one, you can get them from here: Velorution, London
(and are now shipping 4-5 a week to the US when I spoke to them last weekend)
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