New helmet of team Bahrain Victorious incorporates advanced comfort and protection features
(Image credit: Rudy Project)
If you followed Team Bahrain Victorious at the Tour de France and the breakthrough performance of Fred Wright with his second place on Stage 13, you may have noticed that he was wearing a new helmet from the team’s helmet and glasses sponsor Rudy Project.
It’s called the Egos and comes with a range of advanced features to up comfort and protection. Bahrain Victorious had the last pre-launch test of the Egos at the Tour, and the Egos has now been launched for the rest of us to purchase. It’s designed to be very well ventilated, but also incorporates cutting-edge features to ensure riders’ comfort and safety and Rudy Project says that it’s the most technologically advanced helmet in its range.
Enhanced venting
Most helmets can get uncomfortably hot in certain conditions. When you get hot, sweat from your forehead can easily drip down into your eyes. But the new Rudy Project Egos helmet incorporates a vented plastic insert across the brow between the shell and the padding. Called the 3D Airframe Band, this is designed to work with the large lower front vent to channel air to the rider’s forehead, so that you stay cooler.
3D Airframe Band inside the brow of the Rudy Project Egos helmet helps to up ventilation (Image credit: Rudy Project)
There’s better cooling airflow across the top of the head too, thanks to the Egos’s dual density inner shell. Over the head’s crown, there’s a lower density EPS foam layer inside the shell attached to a polycarbonate carrier. This ensures great ventilation, with linear channels fore and aft to direct airflow. It also ups the safety of the Egos, as the softer, lower density EPS foam will deform more in a crash than the higher density foam used for the rest of the helmet shell.
The Dual Density design lowers the weight of the Egos as well, with Rudy Project claiming that a size medium helmet weighs 250 grams.
New adjustment system for fit and straps
Rudy Project has also worked on making the Egos easier to adjust for a perfect fit. Its new RSR11 anti-slide fit system has a sturdy, lightweight design that is very compact, wraps around your head and lets you make tiny changes in both the cradle’s height and circumference, so your helmet stays where you placed it.
Rudy Project's easy-adjust ratchet wheel system helps ensure a great fit for the Egos helmet (Image credit: Rudy Project)
Fit is also enhanced by Rudy Project’s new divider design for where the helmet’s straps split below your ears to pass either side of them. The new design ensures that the straps won’t slip through the divider as you ride and so also helps to keep your helmet firmly in position.
There’s a revised Fidlock magnetic clip to close the straps too. It’s quicker and easier to use than a conventional buckle and ensures a secure connection of the two sides of the chin strap.
Fidlock magnetic clip is easier to use than a buckle closure for the chinstrap (Image credit: rudy project)
Finally, Egos has a new pad set design and comes with a second set of bug net padding. There are two reflective stickers at the rear to increase your low light visibility.
Sizing and pricing
Recommended European pricing for the new Egos helmet is €209.90. For more details see Rudy Project’s website.
The new Rudy Project Egos helmet is available in three sizes. Size S is designed to fit heads from 51cm to 55cm circumference and has a claimed weight of 230g; size M fits 55-59cm heads and weighs 250g; size L fits head sizes 59-63cm and has a weight claimed at 280g.
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Paul has been on two wheels since he was in his teens and he's spent much of the time since writing about bikes and the associated tech. He's a road cyclist at heart but his adventurous curiosity means Paul has been riding gravel since well before it was cool, adapting his cyclo-cross bike to ride all-day off-road epics and putting road kit to the ultimate test along the way. Paul has contributed to Cyclingnews' tech coverage for a few years, helping to maintain the freshness of our buying guides and deals content, as well as writing a number of our voucher code pages.
