The increasing use of time trial helmets in road racing has been one of the most noticeable trends of the past couple of seasons.
With the UCI’s technical regulations not drawing a distinction between ‘time trial’ and ‘aero road’ helmets, enterprising riders and brands have revived old models and borrowed design cues from TT lids in search of aero performance gains.
Predictably, this development has led plenty of commenters to declare 'the game’s gone', while the UCI recently revealed it intends to put an end to this trend.
In my experience, though, the best of these helmets feature far fewer compromises than you might expect, while looking silly is simply a fact of life for most of us, whatever head gear you wear.
And although it remains to be seen how the UCI will delineate between TT and aero road helmets, revising the sport’s helmet regulations ought to be an opportunity to improve rider safety – not to ban something because it looks different.
The days of one helmet for everything are behind us
While pro riders have often switched between ventilated and aero helmets depending on the weather, most amateur riders tend to look for one helmet that can do it all.
If this new breed of hybrid, TT-inspired aero road helmets gains a foothold, though, many riders would benefit from having two or more options in their arsenal to choose from.
Helmets such as the POC Procen Air and Lazer’s Victor KinetiCore, for example, are incredibly race-focused. They’re perfect for flatter or rolling courses on cooler days (of which there are plenty, here in the UK) and provide a tangible performance improvement.
There’s no way I’d want one of those helmets to cover all of my road riding – they’re simply not ventilated enough for long climbs on hot days.
But pairing either with an all-rounder aero helmet, such as the Specialized S-Works Evade 3 or Trek Ballista MIPS, would enable me to cover practically every riding condition we encounter in the UK.
Of course, I’m speaking from the privileged position of someone who’s tested many of the most expensive helmets available without needing to spend a penny.
Good helmets aren’t cheap, of course – although models such as the Van Rysel FCR challenge that assumption – but compared to a new bike or carbon wheelset, most are relatively affordable.
Does looking silly matter?
One of the major criticisms levelled at time trial and aero helmets is that they look silly. Just look at the furore created by the Giro Aerohead II, for example.
And perhaps that’s true – while I occasionally have interactions with bad drivers on the road, one took the time to wind down their window and call me a “wanker” while I was wearing the Lazer Victor KinetiCore.
In fairness to that person, I did look like a bit of a ‘full kit wanker’ pootling around the South Bristol lanes on a carbon fibre road bike, with clip-in shoes, wearing skin-tight Lycra and a pointy helmet with an enormous visor.
Whether or not it was the helmet that specifically prompted that outburst, I’ll never know, but it’s also fair to say many of the things we dedicated road cyclists adopt in the name of speed are inherently a bit silly.
While brands such as Rapha, aided by the likes of Paul Smith, have done a decent job of marketing the idea of cycling as a ‘cool’ sport, I believe most people think the things we do and the gear we use generally look a bit stupid.
Wearing skin-tight clothing and using clip-in pedals, electronic groupsets and aero baselayers, shaving our legs, waxing chains and so on… it is, when you stop to think about it, quite a lot for people who ostensibly just enjoy a nice bike ride now and again.
Few of us are racing at a level where performance truly matters, but rarely does that stop anyone from obsessing over the details.
And I’m not saying it should. I’m just as obsessed as anyone else (hence why I have this job), and using, reading and writing about all the kit is a big reason I prefer cycling over a simpler, less kit-intensive sport such as running.
We should stop kidding ourselves about how it all looks, though – at least if we care about being fast.
Rather than pretending we’re emulating Fausto Coppi or Jacques Anquetil when we swing a leg over a bike, many of us would be faster and, perhaps even happier, if we embraced the absurdity of our chosen sport and stopped caring so much about the way things look to observers.
As infamous aero-weenie Dan Bigham eloquently told Cycling Weekly in 2021, “I’d happily wear a giant penis outfit if it was fast”.
Banning TT-style helmets from road racing won’t make it safer
If you’ve been following pro road racing this season, you’ll probably be aware the UCI is set to introduce a raft of updated regulations in 2026.
While much of the focus fell on the changes to minimum permitted handlebar width for mass-start road races, and the potentially “discriminatory” effects they might have, the UCI is also set to introduce distinct regulations for road and time trial helmets.
Effectively, the UCI is seeking to ban the use of TT helmets in mass start road races, as part of its wider goal to slow riders down and improve safety in professional road racing.
Exactly how this distinction will be drawn remains to be seen, although it’s easy to imagine the UCI targeting helmets such as the Giro Aerohead, Lazer Victor KinetiCore and POC Procen Air – all of which have been used in WorldTour road races in recent seasons.
Improving safety in pro bike racing is a laudable goal, of course, but I can’t help wondering whether this regulation change is being made purely on vibes rather than evidence.
For its part, POC says its internal testing (which goes above and beyond basic certification testing) hasn’t shown “any enhanced risk from an open structure” compared to more closed ones for road bike helmets.
So-called ‘closed structure’ TT helmets might not improve safety just because they feature fewer vents and cover slightly more of a rider’s head, then. But the UCI also hasn’t presented any evidence to show that the short-tail TT-style helmets currently being used in road racing pose any increased risks to riders either.
Of course, banning large time trial helmets that restrict a rider’s freedom of movement or their ability to hear seems a good idea – POC agreed helmets such as the Tempor aren’t practical for road racing – but restricting helmets based on looks alone won’t improve rider safety.
POC, for example, said it believed the improved field of view and reduced wind noise from the visor and partial ear covers on the Procen Air could in fact help improve rider safety by improving their situational awareness.
Helmets designed for road racing have typically focused on being as lightweight as possible, covering only the top part of a rider’s head, and the UCI’s technical regulations state simply that helmets used in competition must be “approved in compliance with an official security standard” – such as CPSC or EN-1078.
Standards designed for protecting the heads of people riding to the shops and back don’t feel appropriate to protect riders hurtling down mountain descents at high speeds, though.
Indeed, many EN-1078-compliant helmets have performed poorly in independent tests by the likes of Virginia Tech’s Helmet Lab, yet are perfectly legal to use in UCI-sanctioned road races.
Of course, the incoming regulations have yet to be revealed, but the UCI hasn’t made any noise about improved safety standards for helmets designed for road racing.
Enduro and downhill mountain bike racers often wear full-face helmets, which can be certified to the ASTM F1952-15 standard, while some new trail helmets, such as the MET Revo, align with the NTA 8776 standard – both of which are more stringent than EN-1078.
The UCI could explore whether road racers should wear helmets that conform to either of these or another enhanced standard, for example, or it could work with a body such as Virginia Tech to develop a bespoke standard that accounts for the unique demands of road racing.
As pro rider Michael Woods pointed out during the Tour de France, it’s “crazy” that road cyclists don’t wear more protective equipment already.
Like safer helmets, lightweight, low-profile impact protection already exists, produced by brands such as Armaurto – which claims its 4mm-thick pads can dissipate “up to 80 per cent of impact energy” in the event of a crash, and be “the difference between a bruise and a break”.
However, with neither currently mandated by the UCI’s technical regulations, individual pro riders likely don’t actively choose to use them because it may impact on their weight, aerodynamics and cooling – and therefore their performance in races compared to their peers.
The same is doubtless true of bulkier, ‘safer’ helmets, but that might change if pros lead the way, just as it did with helmets in the early 2000s.
