James, what’s your thought on the ultimate safety of this latest helmet? It has the Virginia Tech 5 star rating but it just barely makes it over the fence to 5-star.
I'd have to believe that a custom helmet has the potential to be the safest of all and, being an engineer, I completely understand that the VT ratings while being better than what we had before can easily still be crude and not precise enough to answer this question. In other words, I could very easily imagine a situation where a given helmet could ultimately by much better and safer but still not show well in the VT testing. I know you have a strong engineering background so I'd be interested in your personal (non binding) opinion after visiting the company and examining the tech.
I know this may seem a little OCD, but our family has had a history with TBI (traumatic brain injury) with our obsession with certain sports like cycling and downhill skiing. My wife has had 2-3 concussions, and our son had a very serious injury from skiing that involved a 3 week coma and a year in rehab. So we're kind of hyper vigilant on helmet tech and I've followed it very closely after our son's injury (he's fine now). His injury happened just as the first MIPS helmet was coming out and I actually had significant dialog with the MIPS engineers at the time. So I have a deep understanding of the whole slip plane tech and its benefits.
So I'm very interested in this tech and specifically this latest helmet. Main concerns are avoidance of TBI (exponential function with deceleration) and cooling.
One impediment for me trying this helmet out is that I'm a big fan of helmet-mounted lights, especially when I'm commuting at night. I've bought into the Trek/Bontrager system of magnetized light mounts (Blendr), but it appears from the pictures like helmet mounting lights with the Rhoan isn't possible at all. Is that the case?
It might be that I'm the wrong customer since the Aero gains are relatively less important to me, but it would be interesting to see whether helmet mounting lights becomes possible.
That would indeed be a complication. I often use stick-on GoPro mounts for helmet-mounted lights, and while there's certainly plenty of surface area on the Rhoan to do that, I'm not sure the 3D-printed shell construction is sufficiently robust to support something like that. That's probably something you'd want to contact KAV about, although my guess is that if only for safety certification reasons, they probably wouldn't endorse such a setup.
The nice thing about the Bontrager magnetic mount is it'll pop off in a crash.
Thanks! There's definitely some debate within the industry over the validity of the VT protocol, but from a consumer standpoint, it's all we've got and certainly better than what we had before, which was nothing.
It's a process! I'm sure testing methodologies will improve as companies like KAV weigh in on places where they feel they can do better with their own testing rigs.
I may very well try one of these. Similar to Ahren's comment, the primary reason is that I get pressure points on each side of the forehead and approximately straight up from the eyes. Quite annoying. This is/was the case with the last two helmets I've tried, deliberately from different brands.
Mips has more or less ruined helmets for me. It's allowed helmet makers to reduce the number of sizes they produce and also generalize the shape. I have a very narrow head, so I pretty much always have to get the largest helmet I can and I get hot spots on my forehead and the back of my head, and the helmet still rattles side to side. I've been curious about Kav for a while, so thank you for this episode. Very insightful!
My KAV fit cap is coming today, so looking forward to listening to the podcast and your eventual review. Funny how your reviews influence my opinion of products I already have-I am lucky or irresponsible enough to have an Argonaut GR3 and I liked riding it even more after your review last week :).
Yeah, my straps were maxed out and I think it was causing the top of the helmet to touch the crown of my head. So, hoping the new, longer straps they’re sending will fix that. KAV said that I will get the new padding when they finalize what that will be. I think the combination of the longer straps and more rigid padding will fix my fitment issues. Otherwise the fit of the helmet feels great, almost like I am not wearing a helmet at all? Kind of weird at first but I am settling into it, and I am sure traditional helmets will all feel bulky soon.
I am a major sweater and so far have found the overall ventilation amazing. Being bald and sweating a lot means some great cooling with a well ventilated helmet such as the On the other hand, I have found the front pad to do little to nothing for keeping sweat out of my glasses/eyes. It almost just funnels it all to the ends of the pad, near the outside of my eyebrow, temple area. I think a thin piece of towel or something similar tucked in it could help? Definitely room for improvement.
Oh man, I'm jealous! That GR3 was indeed a truly superb bike.
I'd love to hear what you think of the fit cap once it arrives, by the way. I relied solely on KAV's fit algorithm to derive the shape of my test helmet, and I have to say it was absolutely dead-on.
I’ve had my Rohan for about a month now. I went through the fit cap process which resulted in just a minor change to the finalized helmet. The fit of my Rohan is still a bit off... I had a virtual follow up with KAV yesterday and they’re sending me some longer chin straps and informed me that they are working on more robust and rigid interior padding pieces as the current ones are a bit too flimsy, which for me leads to my (bald) head touching the 3D printed interior - no so comfortable. I appreciate the one on one support the company provides and they seem to really stand behind the concept. I am stoked to hear your thoughts on your helmet, James.
Aside from the padding issue you've experienced, does the shape of the helmet seem right for your head? Now that you mention it, the straps of my test sample were also a bit shorter than I would have preferred, but it was also a pre-production sample (delivered in mid-April) and something they were able to rectify during my visit. I otherwise haven't had any problems with the padding design, but it's possible I don't tighten my straps as much as you do.
James, this is almost more of a logistical comment - but is there a way you could also publish a transcript that subscribers could read if we prefer to read over having multiple streams?
UPDATE: Turns out Substack does have an automatic transcript feature, though it'd require a fair bit of manual corrections to make it useful. I'll try to get an idea how much time I'd have to put in to do this, but it's definitely feasible. Stay tuned.
Wow, thanks! I have seen some GenAI prompts that offer to do a decent job of manual cleanup - things like timestamps, hesitation words, etc. they wouldn’t be perfect, but would probably help a lot.
Even a 5-paragraph summary of the transcript (which might be easier to make accurate and interesting) would be great. If you can give us the detailed summary with the points that are different, that would work super-well for me!
James, what’s your thought on the ultimate safety of this latest helmet? It has the Virginia Tech 5 star rating but it just barely makes it over the fence to 5-star.
I'd have to believe that a custom helmet has the potential to be the safest of all and, being an engineer, I completely understand that the VT ratings while being better than what we had before can easily still be crude and not precise enough to answer this question. In other words, I could very easily imagine a situation where a given helmet could ultimately by much better and safer but still not show well in the VT testing. I know you have a strong engineering background so I'd be interested in your personal (non binding) opinion after visiting the company and examining the tech.
I know this may seem a little OCD, but our family has had a history with TBI (traumatic brain injury) with our obsession with certain sports like cycling and downhill skiing. My wife has had 2-3 concussions, and our son had a very serious injury from skiing that involved a 3 week coma and a year in rehab. So we're kind of hyper vigilant on helmet tech and I've followed it very closely after our son's injury (he's fine now). His injury happened just as the first MIPS helmet was coming out and I actually had significant dialog with the MIPS engineers at the time. So I have a deep understanding of the whole slip plane tech and its benefits.
So I'm very interested in this tech and specifically this latest helmet. Main concerns are avoidance of TBI (exponential function with deceleration) and cooling.
One impediment for me trying this helmet out is that I'm a big fan of helmet-mounted lights, especially when I'm commuting at night. I've bought into the Trek/Bontrager system of magnetized light mounts (Blendr), but it appears from the pictures like helmet mounting lights with the Rhoan isn't possible at all. Is that the case?
It might be that I'm the wrong customer since the Aero gains are relatively less important to me, but it would be interesting to see whether helmet mounting lights becomes possible.
That would indeed be a complication. I often use stick-on GoPro mounts for helmet-mounted lights, and while there's certainly plenty of surface area on the Rhoan to do that, I'm not sure the 3D-printed shell construction is sufficiently robust to support something like that. That's probably something you'd want to contact KAV about, although my guess is that if only for safety certification reasons, they probably wouldn't endorse such a setup.
The nice thing about the Bontrager magnetic mount is it'll pop off in a crash.
Love this. Big props for calling out the VT Helmet Ratings, which is an essential resource:
https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
Thanks! There's definitely some debate within the industry over the validity of the VT protocol, but from a consumer standpoint, it's all we've got and certainly better than what we had before, which was nothing.
It's a process! I'm sure testing methodologies will improve as companies like KAV weigh in on places where they feel they can do better with their own testing rigs.
I may very well try one of these. Similar to Ahren's comment, the primary reason is that I get pressure points on each side of the forehead and approximately straight up from the eyes. Quite annoying. This is/was the case with the last two helmets I've tried, deliberately from different brands.
Mips has more or less ruined helmets for me. It's allowed helmet makers to reduce the number of sizes they produce and also generalize the shape. I have a very narrow head, so I pretty much always have to get the largest helmet I can and I get hot spots on my forehead and the back of my head, and the helmet still rattles side to side. I've been curious about Kav for a while, so thank you for this episode. Very insightful!
My KAV fit cap is coming today, so looking forward to listening to the podcast and your eventual review. Funny how your reviews influence my opinion of products I already have-I am lucky or irresponsible enough to have an Argonaut GR3 and I liked riding it even more after your review last week :).
Yeah, my straps were maxed out and I think it was causing the top of the helmet to touch the crown of my head. So, hoping the new, longer straps they’re sending will fix that. KAV said that I will get the new padding when they finalize what that will be. I think the combination of the longer straps and more rigid padding will fix my fitment issues. Otherwise the fit of the helmet feels great, almost like I am not wearing a helmet at all? Kind of weird at first but I am settling into it, and I am sure traditional helmets will all feel bulky soon.
I am a major sweater and so far have found the overall ventilation amazing. Being bald and sweating a lot means some great cooling with a well ventilated helmet such as the On the other hand, I have found the front pad to do little to nothing for keeping sweat out of my glasses/eyes. It almost just funnels it all to the ends of the pad, near the outside of my eyebrow, temple area. I think a thin piece of towel or something similar tucked in it could help? Definitely room for improvement.
How have you found the sweat management?
Oh man, I'm jealous! That GR3 was indeed a truly superb bike.
I'd love to hear what you think of the fit cap once it arrives, by the way. I relied solely on KAV's fit algorithm to derive the shape of my test helmet, and I have to say it was absolutely dead-on.
I’ve had my Rohan for about a month now. I went through the fit cap process which resulted in just a minor change to the finalized helmet. The fit of my Rohan is still a bit off... I had a virtual follow up with KAV yesterday and they’re sending me some longer chin straps and informed me that they are working on more robust and rigid interior padding pieces as the current ones are a bit too flimsy, which for me leads to my (bald) head touching the 3D printed interior - no so comfortable. I appreciate the one on one support the company provides and they seem to really stand behind the concept. I am stoked to hear your thoughts on your helmet, James.
Aside from the padding issue you've experienced, does the shape of the helmet seem right for your head? Now that you mention it, the straps of my test sample were also a bit shorter than I would have preferred, but it was also a pre-production sample (delivered in mid-April) and something they were able to rectify during my visit. I otherwise haven't had any problems with the padding design, but it's possible I don't tighten my straps as much as you do.
How's the sweat management been for you?
James, this is almost more of a logistical comment - but is there a way you could also publish a transcript that subscribers could read if we prefer to read over having multiple streams?
I can certainly look into it!
UPDATE: Turns out Substack does have an automatic transcript feature, though it'd require a fair bit of manual corrections to make it useful. I'll try to get an idea how much time I'd have to put in to do this, but it's definitely feasible. Stay tuned.
Wow, thanks! I have seen some GenAI prompts that offer to do a decent job of manual cleanup - things like timestamps, hesitation words, etc. they wouldn’t be perfect, but would probably help a lot.
Even a 5-paragraph summary of the transcript (which might be easier to make accurate and interesting) would be great. If you can give us the detailed summary with the points that are different, that would work super-well for me!
Yeah, I may do the timestamped summary instead of the transcript. The transcript would be... long.
Also, how do we load this into our preferred Podcast app?