In The Know Cycling

The Specialized S-Works Prevail 3 improves on its already quite-good predecessor and joins the leaders in the competitive field of maximally ventilated cycling helmets.

That’s the conclusion my fellow testers and demanding gearheads Nate and Miles emphasized after riding Specialized’s latest Prevail model.

OPEN TO THE AIR

With the S-Works Prevail 3, Specialized widened the three central airflow channels that run from the front to the rear of the helmet. It also replaced the six, roughly 1-inch or 30mm deep cross struts between those channels in the Prevail II with 1/8 inch, 3mm structural slats.

The Prevail’s signature-look rear exhaust area continues on this newest model. If anything, the truncated helmet’s back end starts higher on the Prevail 3, perhaps to enable the air to exit the helmet sooner than with the Prevail II.

And yes, Specialized did switch their numbering system from Roman numerals to alphanumeric ones. Sadly, the Roman’s contract with the NFL for the Super Bowl remains in place.

Design, look, and numerical designation aside, the net effect is more air ventilation. In our experience, the S-Works Prevail 3 excels on hot days doing fast rides, whether on climbs or in crits. While we have also felt good airflow with the Giro Aries Spherical and Trek Velocis, two of Prevail’s closest competitors, the Prevail 3 appears to have more of its shell open to the air than either of those helmets.

IMPROVED FIT ADJUSTMENTS

Spech has also improved the fit adjustments in the Prevail 3 in several ways.

While you still can’t raise or lower the clip below your ear where the down straps come together, you can now adjust it fore and aft with a bit of effort.

This design appears to compromise between the infinitely adjustable and often self-adjusting clip used on many helmets and those that join the straps in place either by sewing them together or with a fixed clip.

Nate prefers a clip that allows height and fore-aft adjustment; I like the simplicity and streamlined feel of sewn straps; Miles likes the Prevail 3 clip’s solution, and Nate and I are ok with it.

The down straps themselves now exit the helmet from the shell’s inner edge rather than the center, as with the Prevail II. While the straps don’t lay flat against your temples, the arms of your sunglasses can now comfortably sit over the straps, abiding by Velominati Rule #37. Shamefully, the straps on the Prevail II forced you to violate it.

Under your chin, Specialized uses a standard strap buckle. The straps coming into it lay flat against each other and have the appropriate length to adjust for your neck size and a band to keep any extra length in place. All of this makes for a clean look and feel.

The Prevail 3 MIPS also appears even better integrated into this cycling helmet, perhaps as invisible as any MIPS design I’ve seen. Its inner pads are embossed on the slip layer substrate used in the safety system rather than being attached with ties or adhesive.

A highlight of the Prevail helmet continues to be how well it fits your head. The small dial at the back of the helmet allows you to micro-adjust the length of the circumference strap. Tightening it feels uniform, front to back and side to side. And there is enough range to accommodate a thick winter hat or a high-and-tight summer haircut.

You can also easily and securely change the height of the helmet with one of the five detent positions. While I might be reading more into this than what Specialized had in mind, you can also adjust the two height sliders to make more room for one side of your head than the other, depending on whether you are more left or right-brained.

AS COMFORTABLE AS THEY COME

Superior ventilation, comprehensive fit adjustments, and sufficient padding across the brow, temples, and front half of the head make wearing S-Works Prevail 3 very comfortable and secure.

The helmet feels light and unobtrusive. It doesn’t shift around when you ride over bumps. Instead, it just stays out of the way.

Even sunglasses with large or tall frames don’t interfere with the Prevail 3’s high brow line. There’s also plenty of clearance for sunglass arms around your ears.

In one of the most noticeable and unique updates, the S-Works Prevail 3 adds sunglass docking slots at the helmet’s outer front edges just above your temples. These are not vents that you can stick sunglasses into. Instead, they are purpose-built for sunglass arms, and they fit every pair that Nate, Miles, and I tried, some upside-down, others right-side up.

MODERN STYLE

Among road bike helmets, the Specialized S-Works Prevail 3 stands out as much for its modern style as its cycling helmet performance. It’s an eye-catcher that those riding with both Nate and Miles asked about during their test rides.

The materials and assembly of the functional components and paint and finishes look first-rate. Beyond the standard white, black, and red, the helmet also comes in what I find to be the pleasing pastel colors sage, off-white, light green, and grey, with a bright green rear panel that we tested.

Except for a ride on a cold or wet day where you might want more protection from the elements or one where marginal gains would favor an aero-road helmet, the Prevail 3 is one of the best cycling helmets you can wear. It will serve you well and stand out on road, gravel, or MTB ride whether you are a racer or a more casual enthusiast.

Even at its US$300, £250, €320, there’s a lot of value built into the performance, functionality, and styling of this Specialized helmet.

You can order the S-Works Prevail 3 using these links to recommended stores Performance Bike and Sigma Sports.

There’s a lot to like about the Trek Velocis road bike helmet. It’s supremely comfortable, well-ventilated, expertly executed, and has traditional styling with just a few flaws that shouldn’t be deal breakers for most cycling enthusiasts.

SUPREMELY COMFORTABLE AND WELL-VENTILATED

From the first time my fellow tester Adam and I put the Velocis on, it was comfortable on our more oval than round-shaped heads. The helmet’s weight seems well distributed and feels like just another part of my head rather than an extra I’d added on top of it.

Adam especially likes how the Trek Velocis’ combination of thin but dense padding, secure BOA-dialed tensioning, and a sense of being open-to-the-air creates a superior level of comfort.

The Trek Velocis has two horizontal vents spanning your forehead, five large intake vents across the front and sides of your head, and three more at the top. Five exhaust vents sit at the back, and all of the helmet’s vents appear in good alignment to channel the airflow.

That’s a lot of venting in one helmet, and you feel the wind moving through them when you ride along at speed.

FIRST RATE EXECUTION

The Trek Velocis cycling helmet is also very well executed. The MIPS safety system integrates seamlessly within it; you wouldn’t notice it without the yellow logos. And among the over 100 road bike helmets receiving five-star ratings in the Virginia Tech impact tests, the Velocis ranks in the top 15.

It also looks and feels expertly constructed, with no rough or unfinished edges between its inside EPS foam liner and its outside shell. The helmet we tested has a handsome, consistent black matte finish running the length of the surface with grey-black patterned crossing ribs.

The rear cradle, with its BOA dial and thread-like circumference strap, folds into the helmet and out of the way when you’re not wearing the Velocis. This feature, similar to what you find in the aero road Trek Ballista that was introduced alongside the Velocis, is unique to these Trek helmets. It’s a space saver and protects the whole mechanism when you store the helmet between rides or pack it into a kit bag or luggage for a trip.

A FEW FLAWS BUT NO DEAL-BREAKERS

There are a few things I wish Trek had done better with the Velocis.

I like that the rear down straps come from separate, fixed positions rather than threading through the cradle and that the front ones come from inside the helmet rather than the shell’s edge.

At the same time, I would prefer they used a more pliable strap material. If you’re not careful, the strap edges can fold in at the locking clip below your ears. And between those clips and the clip below your chin, the straps don’t lay flat against each other.

The Velocis (and Ballista) straps run too long for my 15½ inch size climber’s neck and even for Adam’s 17½ inch size sprinter’s one. You can easily cut them and use electrical or black duct tape to finish the edges, but it seems like an oversight with this otherwise well-made helmet.

Sunglass docking is also hit-or-miss with the Velocis. The helmet has 2cm or 3/4 in wide rubber pieces at the inside edge of the outermost front vent to help hold your sunglasses in place. But even with those, only the most flexible sunglasses with average-size lenses inserted upside down held firmly and confidently enough against the helmet during a ride on rough roads.

The Trek Velocis also sits lower on your forehead. That’s something my fair skin appreciates, which also improves aero performance with average-size cycling sunglasses. That said, if you wear the very large frame shades, they will likely come in contact with the front lip of the helmet and press down on the bridge of your nose unless you adjust the helmet height to create more room.

While not heavy, at 309 grams for the Large model that Adam and I tested, the Trek Velocis weighs about the same as many of the better aero helmets. That’s also similar to many of the best-ventilated road bike helmets from other brands we’ve tested. This probably says more about the advances aero road helmets have made and the challenges of reducing weight while maintaining the features of the best road bike helmets.

Prices for the Velocis and other top-performing road and aero-road helmets come in at around US$300. While that’s not cheap, considering all the safety, fit, comfort, and performance benefits you get from a helmet like the Velocis, it’s money well spent.

TRADITIONAL STYLING

Considering how good the best road bike helmets have become, many of us will choose between helmets that both fit and perform well based on how we like the way they look.

To my eyes, the Trek Velocis has a traditional road bike helmet style and, except for aqua, comes in standard albeit wonderfully finished black, white, and red colors.

If that look suits your style, and you appreciate all the performance benefits packed into this helmet without being put off by the strap or sunglasses limitations I’ve pointed out, the Trek Veloics is one of the best cycling helmets you can buy.

You can order it for US$300, £230, €300 using these link to the Trek and Sigma Sports.

WHAT MATTERS MOST

Here’s a summary of my criteria for choosing the best cycling helmets for this review.

Safety – All bike helmets should have a safety compliance sticker showing they meet a national safety standard. For example, helmets sold in the US must meet the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) standard. Those sold in Canada must have the CSA (Canadian Standards Association) sticker. Those in Australia and New Zealand meet the AS/NZS standard. In Great Britain, it’s the BSI, in Europe, the CE, Japan, the JIS, etc.

If you want to compare how much safer one road bike helmet is than another, there’s a fair amount of debate (and marketing) around what kind of tests should be done and what type of technology a helmet needs. The best of both attempts to test and protect you from a range of potential impact angles and forces that might cause a concussion.

There’s plenty of detail on the different approaches and what’s behind them in this section of my review of aero road helmets. For this summary, I’ll merely say that all the helmets we tested met the US standard.

MIPS liners are one of several technologies used to promote helmet safety

Note that helmets using designs and safety technologies other than MIPS and ones with none of these technologies also rank highly in tests done by labs that use protocols that favor MIPS technology.

Fit – If a helmet doesn’t fit you well, all the helmet safety stickers and protection systems and arguments about which are better at protecting you from a concussion or worse aren’t going to help you much. Consumer Reports published a good list of things to do to ensure your helmet fits safely. I encourage you to review it and decode the numbers in the graphic below.

Six helmet safety suggestions. Illustration: Chris Philpot

Fitting safely and fitting comfortably aren’t the same things. You can have a cycling helmet that fits safely but isn’t comfortable; you can have one that fits comfortably but isn’t being worn safely.

Ideally, you pick a road bike helmet that you can fit both safely and comfortably. More on comfort in a minute.

In getting your helmet to fit right, I look at

• How adjustable is the helmet?
• How good are the adjustment devices?

Comfort – Of course, comfort is subjective. We often evaluate comfort on how light the helmet feels and how the pads, straps, and clips feel against our head, face, or chin. Another implicit measure of comfort comes in how soon you forget you’ve got your helmet on after your ride starts or how long a ride you can do without wanting to take it off.

The mismatch between fit and comfort I mentioned above can be due to wearing a road bike helmet that is best suited for a head shaped differently than yours. For example, if you’ve got a more oval head shape, a helmet designed for a rounder one will pressure you in the front or back and give you too much room on the sides. If your head tends to be rounder, even the best cycling helmet with a more oval shape can be tightened to fit you on the sides of your head yet never tight enough in the front and back to avoid moving up and down when you ride.

Just like with shoes made in lasts that can be too narrow or wide for your feet despite being your size, helmets are also made in shapes that are more oval or round, or somewhere in between. Fortunately, some also have adjustments or use internal fit mechanisms to allow for a wide range of shapes In my review of aero helmets, I discovered these distinctions not only by wearing a bunch of helmets from different brands but by measuring and plotting their length and width.

In this review, my fellow testers with conveniently different head shapes judge how comfortable a helmet is or might be when worn by a rider whose head and helmet shapes are best suited for each other.

Cooling – As with fit and comfort, cooling and venting are different things. Many helmet suppliers boast about the size and number of vents a helmet has. While more or larger vents should enable better cooling, they don’t determine how much better one helmet will cool your head versus another.

Where air enters your helmet, how it flows across your head, and where and how it exits is far more a contributor than the size and number of vents.

For example, I’ve found some helmets with a lot of front vents don’t cool the top of your head because there aren’t enough vents or the right placement of vents at the top of the helmet to pull the air up and out. Other helmets have smaller or fewer vents, but they keep your head cooler than those with more and bigger vents because of how the whole arrangement of vents sucks the air across your head and out the back of your helmet.

It’s complicated

And we each have different cooling requirements. Some of us naturally sweat more than others, so we have different cooling requirements.

Noise – Airflow through and around a helmet can also create or dampen noise. The size or position of your ears, in combination with a helmet’s size and shape, can also affect the amount of airflow you hear. Your speed, body, and head position on the bike can contribute to noise level as well.

With all these variables, we discounted helmets that were particularly noisy.

Sunglasses fit – Depending on the type and model of sunglasses you wear and the shape and strapping on your helmet, your sunglasses and helmet can get along famously, or you can have a non-negotiable conflict between them.

While more usually the case with aero helmets that cover more of your forehead than the best road bike helmets, the top of your sunglasses can compete for space with the front of your helmet.

More often, it’s the arms of your sunglasses that come into contact with the circumference strap from your helmet, either along the side of your head or above your ears.

With multiple testers using different types of sunglasses, we’ve identified these conflicts.

We’ve also looked at how well sunglasses “dock” or fit into these helmets when you want to take them off for a section of a ride or a rest stop.

Looks – Oh yeah, we roadies are a self-conscious group. Does the helmet look standard? Is it unique in a good or bad way? Does it come in enough colors to match with our bikes or kit or high-viz options? Does it look well made?

Most of these helmets stand out in one way or another. I’ve pointed out where they do.

Price and Weight – I used US $300 as the upper market price limit and about 300 grams as the medium-size helmet weight target for those I selected to review.

The weight of the same helmet can differ depending on where it is sold as it may have to add or change something to qualify for the safety certification of one country or region where it doesn’t in another. And, the actual weight as with most cycling gear, isn’t always what the brand claims it will be.

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There are literally hundreds of road bike helmets and other cycling helmets sold. You might reasonably ask why we included so few in this review.

Only road bike helmets – As mentioned in the introduction, I’ve done a separate review of aero road helmets and am updating that soon. And as this review is focused on cycling helmets for road and gravel, I’ve not included other categories of helmets like those dedicate to MTB or Urban/Commuting, though you could ride the helmets reviewed above for that kind of riding.

There are also no “budget” or “value” helmets included here. While they may have safety approvals, those helmets are more appropriate for the needs of recreational riders out on short rides a couple of days a week for a couple of months a year. They fall short of the needs of enthusiasts who ride 4-6 days a week for hours at a time throughout the year.

Only those that currently have United States CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) approval –  Brands that don’t distribute their helmets in the US won’t submit them for CPSC or CSA (Canadian) safety approval. Since I and my fellow testers live in the US, we can’t get access to those helmets to test.

Some European or British helmet brands will introduce their models in their home region first and get the necessary CE (Europe) and BSI (Great Britain). They will then submit the helmets for testing with the CPSC, CSA, AS/NZE (Australia, New Zealand), and JIS (Japan) safety agencies.

There are a few helmets I’m interested in testing that are currently in that situation. If they become available and our testing shows they are among the best, I will include a review in this post.

Only the very best performers – To make it easier for you to choose, I don’t want to give you a review, as some do, of the “best bike helmets” with short summaries of 10 or 15 helmets that vary in performance. That’s a waste of your time and mine. Worse, some of those “reviews” are regurgitation or AI summaries of supplier provide product descriptions.

I’ve read a lot of them and reviewed the product lines of every major bike helmet brand distributed in the US. I’ve picked the top-of-the-line helmets to review and brought you the best of those.

Further, some helmets that may have been the best in prior years have been or are due to be replaced, according to what the brands have told me. That’s why you don’t see some brands or models in this review.

If there’s a helmet you’re interested in that you believe clears all of these bars – is a standard road bike helmet, approved by the US, and is one of the best performers still in the company’s line – let me know in the comments below. I’ll either tell you why it isn’t included in this review or review it and compare it to those that are.

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Thanks, and enjoy your rides safely! Cheers, Steve