Yesterday was a time trial day at the Tour de France and, as usual, it delivered a feast for bike tech nerds.
Although modern Tours have far fewer kilometres of individual time trials than in decades past, these stages are still days on which the general classification – the fight for the yellow jersey – can take dramatic turns.
In fact, a 2019 article by French newspaper, L’Equipe, suggests time gaps created by time trials are generally more significant than those in the mountains – accounting for “44 per cent of the winner's lead over the runner-up in Paris” in the decade prior, compared to just 30 per cent for mountain stages.
With that in mind, every team pours resources into optimising their time trial bikes and equipment, and one of the most notable trends at this year’s Tour is that enormous helmets have spread like wildfire throughout the peloton.
It’s a trend we can trace as far back as the London 2012 Olympics, where POC debuted its iconic Tempor time trial helmet.
However, it really started catching on at the 2022 Tour de France, where Specialized launched its S-Works TT5 helmet and Team Ineos riders used oversized Kask helmets with barge-board style visor edges.
Since then, we’ve seen Giro launch the jaw-dropping Aerohead 2.0 helmet, TT helmets have become a trend in mass start road races and the TT5’s visor design has become extremely influential.
At this year’s Tour, we’ve spotted new oversized TT lids from a number of brands, including MET, Van Rysel, ABUS, Oakley and Ekoï, plus a few modifications to existing options.
Pogačar goes big
We showed you all the secret tech Tadej Pogačar has on his Colnago TT1 time trial bike yesterday, but the defending champion also had a new helmet from team sponsor MET.
It appears to be an updated version of the brand’s Drone Wide Body II helmet, with a revised ventilation layout up front and an even larger form factor.
The side edges, for example, appear to flare out slightly – somewhat like the POC Tempor – likely in a bid to help smooth the airflow over the rider’s shoulders.
Unlike Remco Evenepoel’s Specialized S-Works TT5 helmet, though, Pogačar’s new lid retains a long tail.
Helmet designers have swayed back and forth between long- and short-tailed TT helmets over the years.
The general consensus is that long tails can be faster, provided the rider can keep their head in an optimal position. If not, then a short-tail design – which doesn’t present a sub-optimal profile to the wind every time a rider moves their head – may be better.
As always, aerodynamics tend to be a personal subject and we suspect this new option from MET was likely designed with Tadej Pogačar and his riding style and position in mind.
Van Rysel isn't resting on its laurels
Decathlon and Van Rysel may only have re-entered the WorldTour last season, but they're already back with a second time trial helmet.
While the first stab at a TT helmet, the XCR, was a relatively sedate affair, this new model is far more progressive.
The new lid is far larger, with an enormous wraparound visor up front. To our eye, it looks like a hybrid of the Specialized TT5 and the Kask Mistral (typically Filippo Ganna’s TT helmet of choice).
So large is the visor, in fact, that it appears to extend past the riders' noses – looking like something you might see a speed skier wearing.
The tail is medium-length, ending with an abrupt cut-out just between the rider’s shoulder blades.
A single, centrally located ventilation slot is all the riders get to help with cooling – and may also serve an aerodynamic purpose by harnessing the Venturi effect, as on the POC Procen TT and Sweet Protection Redeemer 2Vi MIPS helmets.
We’ve been thoroughly impressed by Van Rysel’s recent helmet offerings, awarding a rare five stars to the FCR aero road helmet last year – could this new TT lid offer a similar balance of price and performance? We certainly hope so.
ABUS changes philosophy
Previously, ABUS has stuck to Kask Bambino-style, short-tail TT helmets.
Now, though, the German brand looks to have overhauled its design philosophy in the shape of a new wide-bodied, medium-tailed lid with – you guessed it – a massive visor up front (the Specialized TT5 really has influenced a lot of brands).
Rather than hugging close to the rider’s face, though, this visor looks to flare out slightly towards the lower edge. We don’t know for sure, but we can be pretty certain this helps direct the airflow in a manner that’s intended to reduce drag.
We spotted a few Movistar Team riders using this new lid in training, at the Grand Départ in Lille, but Mathieu van der Poel also wore it during the individual time trial on stage 5.
This should please the brand, because Van Der Poel has tended to go off-brand for TT helmets in recent years (eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed he prefers the brand’s original Gamechanger aero road helmet, rather than the updated Gamechanger 2.0 as well).
At this year’s Criterium du Dauphine, for example, he wore what looked very much like a Rudy Project Wingdream helmet (with the branding carefully removed, of course) for the time trial on stage 4.
In terms of ventilation, the new ABUS lid has a single V-shaped vent in the centre-front section of the helmet, plus a few small slots in the top edge of the visor.
Ekoï on trend
While many brands saved their big helmet reveals for the Dauphine or Tour, French-brand Ekoï launched its Pure Aero in February 2025.
Claimed to have been designed using artificial intelligence (AI) and a year’s worth of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and wind tunnel testing, Ekoï says the Pure Aero helmet’s large shape helps to minimise gaps between the helmet and the rider’s body, reducing drag.
Although it doesn’t name any names, Ekoï says its Pure Aero helmet is 13 watts more efficient at 50kph “compared to other helmets on the market”.
50kph is a fast but realistic speed for a WorldTour time trial – Evenepoel won yesterday’s TT at an average speed of just under 54kph, for example.
It also says the large gap between the visor and the rider’s face allows for better airflow and cooling.
A good look at Oakley’s new TT helmet
We also spotted Oakley’s new TT helmet at the Dauphine last month, but yesterday’s stage gave us another opportunity to have a close look at it.
Conceptually, it appears similar to the new ABUS lid, with a medium-length tail, a large, wide body and a huge visor up front.
In bright red team colours, it’s certainly a look. Sadly, though, it wasn’t enough to see Julian Alaphilippe return to his 2019 TT form (when he stormed to a stage win in the individual TT on stage 13, ahead of defending champion, Geraint Thomas).
Ineos keeps playing with visors
With the UCI unceremoniously deciding that Kask’s ‘barge-board’ Aero Pro visors were non-compliant with its technical regulations earlier this year, Ineos Grenadiers have clearly gone back to the drawing board.
And, surprise surprise, they’ve come up with something that looks a lot like the Specialized TT5 visor (albeit somewhat shorter).
As with the previous visor, the new one looks to be compatible with Kask’s existing TT helmets, such as the Mistral and Bambino Pro Evo, but modifies the leading edge to – we suspect – improve its aerodynamic performance.
Unlike many of the other enormous visors at this year’s Tour, this one doesn’t cover the rider’s nose. Although it's perhaps less aerodynamic in isolation, this might enable the riders to more easily close the gap between their head and their hands, without bumping the helmet out of position.
Visor cut-outs for Evenepoel, Vingegaard et al
On that subject, a clear trend developing on some of the large helmets that have been out for a while is visor cut-outs.
Remco Evenepoel, for example, had a new $449.99 visor for his Specialized TT5 helmet with a large U-shaped cut-out at the Dauphine, which he also used yesterday at the Tour.
Jonas Vingegaard and a few of his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates also had updated visors for their Aerohead II helmets with similar cut-outs.
It appears Pogačar’s new MET helmet (mentioned earlier) is already onboard with this potentially emerging trend too, because the visor doesn’t cover the riders' noses and has a small U-shaped cut-out already built in.
Will the UCI step in to stop these trends?
With TT helmets looking set to be banned in mass start road races (as part of sweeping changes to its technical regulations) from 1 January 2026, might the UCI also look to clamp down on these XXL time trial lids at some point too?
With so many large TT helmets now being launched, though, we wonder if the UCI might look to tighten its regulations and clamp down on some of these extreme designs.
When Giro launched its radical Aerohead II helmet last year, the sport’s governing body – the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – immediately announced it would be conducting an “in-depth analysis of the regulations governing the design and use of time trial helmets”.
According to the UCI, the Giro Aerohead II, POC Tempor and Rudy Project Wingdream helmets raise “a significant issue concerning the current and wider trend in time trial helmet design, which focuses more on performance than the primary function of a helmet, namely to ensure the safety of the wearer in the event of a fall.”
Given how many new helmets seem to follow the approach of those three helmets, we wouldn’t be surprised if there are grumblings in Aigle about the escalating situation.
We’ve approached the UCI for comment (and will update this article if we receive a response), but more than a year on from that announcement, nothing seems to have come of it so far.
While we’re not experts on helmet safety, it’s fair to note that all of the helmets mentioned adhere to the current international standards for bicycle helmets, as required by the UCI’s technical regulations.
We can argue whether helmet safety standards for racing should be more stringent (as insiders such as Dan Bigham believe), but that’s a question for the UCI to answer rather than brands, given it’s in charge of setting the required minimum standards for events such as the Tour.
Whatever happens, we can only hope the UCI will learn from the fallout of its recently announced technical changes for 2026, and allow riders, teams and equipment manufacturers more input and, crucially, more time to react to any changes.
