According to the World Health Organization, around 41,000 people die each year while cycling. How many of those weren't wearing a helmet is unknown. What is known, is that helmets are a deterrent for many.
Cycling UK, a charity promoting bicycle use, suggests that if helmet use were to be made mandatory, it would prompt a drop in the numbers of people choosing to go by bike.
For evidence of that, look no further than Australia – after New South Wales and Melbourne introduced mandatory helmet laws, cycling in the two states dropped by 36 per cent.
Studies suggest people's reluctance to wear helmets is due to, among other things, scepticism about the protection they offer, the difficulty of storing them and cost. Ventete, a British start-up might just solve those problems.
Storage issues
The aH-1 is an inflatable helmet. Designed in Britain and made in Switzerland, it was 10 years in the making.
There have been other inflatable helmets, but they were like a car’s airbag – only inflating in the event of a fall. The aH-1 is inflated before use, via an electric pump, and takes about 30 seconds to reach the recommended 32psi.
After use, the aH-1 can be deflated down to a package that’s less than 4cm (1.5in) thick, making it easy to store almost anywhere.
“We knew many people weren’t fans of the helmet, partly because of having to carry it around when not in use,” says Ventete co-founder Colin Herperger. “That got us thinking and we were drawn to the challenge of turning a 3D object (the helmet) into a 2D object that was easily stowed.”
“The aH-1 consists of 11 inflatable chambers,” Herperger says. “Each one is encased in a protective rib and built from a laminated nylon, which is puncture, abrasion and stretch resistant. The ribs are moulded from glass-reinforced polymer, which provides additional structural rigidity.”
Each rib also has a rubber lining inside to help absorb the energy of impacts.
Herperger, a cyclist himself, knew a pneumatic pressurised structure would provide more compression than traditional helmets made from expanded polystyrene (EPS), but when they started off, the technology didn’t exist to create what he and the founders had in mind.
“About five years ago we had a breakthrough and … after many iterations – we arrived at the aH-1.”
Read more:
- How fast could you cycle in a vacuum?
- Why shaving your legs could help you beat the rush to work
- A beginner's guide to bike technology
Safety standards
Being inflatable makes it convenient from a storage point of view, but what about safety? Will it protect your head? Well, the Ventete aH-1 is EN 1078 certified.
That's the European helmet safety standard, which is exactly the same as Britain's standard, and it covers a helmet's construction and field of vision, as well as its shock-absorbing properties. All of which is fine, but, says Herperger, not all helmets are equal.
“Once you’re certified, that’s it. You don’t need to publish your results,” he says. “We’d been working with the brain-injury specialists at the Human Experience, Analysis and Design (HEAD) Lab at Imperial College London. They were wrestling with the same question: ‘How does the consumer know which helmets are better or worse?’
“So, they surveyed over 1,000 riders about what helmets they were using and whittled those down to the 30 most popular. They then tested those 30 and shortlisted three that were the best-, median- and lowest-performing. They then tested those three against the aH-1.”
Testing involved strapping each helmet on a dummy head, attaching the head to a rig and then dropping it onto a U-shaped testing platform at 6.5m/s (13mph) and a 45° angle to mimic real-world cycling accidents.
“The highlight for us was a 44.1-per-cent reduction in the linear risk compared with the best-performing EPS helmet,” says Herperger.
Linear risk relates to a straight-line force, like hitting your head on a wall, and the reduction came by lengthening the impact. “It sounds counterintuitive, but you want to lengthen the impact, so that the head doesn’t bounce.”
Think of it like falling onto a bed versus falling onto a hardwood floor – the impact’s shorter on the floor, but because of that, there’s more chance of the brain bouncing against the inside of the skull.
“We doubled the impact time, which resulted in that big drop in linear risk.”
The testing also measures rotational impact. This focuses on twisting, or shearing, forces that occur when falling to the side, for instance.
In this respect, the aH-1 performed second best out of the four, behind a helmet that featured a secondary inner layer that allows 10-15mm (about 0.5in) of movement in order to reduce the transfer of rotational motion to your brain.
These secondary inner layers are often seen on more expensive helmets, although they are finding their way onto cheaper models.
Which raises the issue of cost. All three helmets the aH-1 was tested against cost less than £50. The aH-1 costs £350. So while it may address the protection and storage concerns of people reluctant to use a helmet, the cost issue may remain a sticking point.
About our expert
Colin Herperger is the co-founder and CEO of Ventete. He has a PhD in Architecture by Design at UCL London, in the UK.
Read more: