POC Tectal Helmet - Review

When POC introduced the Trabec in late 2010, the helmet stuck out like a sore, Easter-egg colored thumb. It wasn’t the first helmet to meld skateboard style with the aerodynamics and lightweight construction of a cross-country lid (Giro achieved that in 2003 with its Xen), but there’s no denying that a lot of the all-mountain style helmets on the market today bear more than a passing resemblance to the Trabec.

The Tectal is POC’s latest offering and you can think of it as a hybrid of the Trabec and POC’s road racing Octal helmet. To that end, it sports a redesigned, uni-body shell with bigger vents. While the Trabec offers quite a bit of coverage (particularly on the rear portion of the helmet), the Tectal ups the ante a bit, yet manages to weigh a good 20 grams less (340 grams total) than its predecessor (which, by the way, is still alive and kicking in the POC line).

This standard Tectal sells for $190 (USD). POC also offers a Tectal Race model, which sports a full time goggle-strap clip (a minimalist bungee-strap, doo-hickey at the rear of the helmet) as well as an extensive aramid reinforcement of the helmet liner, sells for $210 (USD). POC


On Trail

Despite offering quite a bit of coverage—at the upper range of what you can expect from a half-shell lid these days--the Tectal doesn’t feel like a gargantuan sail atop your skull. Instead, it fits nice and low on your head. You won't mistake it for one of those Swiss cheese-style XC lids, but it's far less noticeable than its size would suggest possible. Helmet shape is, naturally, a subjective matter—my melon and your melon may not share the same shape. So take this for what it’s worth, but I found the Tectal to offer one of the more comfortable fits on the market—a step up from the Trabec, to be sure, and not far off the mark of either the Bell Super or TLD A1. Ventilation is good. There are some breezier lids out there, such as the Specialized Ambush, but the Tectal is upper tier here as well. I’d have absolutely no reservations running it on very hot days.

The Tectal's retention system offers nice indexed tweaks via a dial at the back, which is easy to adjust—even when you’re wearing full-finger gloves.




As you’d expect from any helmet worth its weight, you can adjust the tilt on the Tectal’s visor. Run the visor high to make room for your goggles when you’re not getting all enduro-ific or run it low to block the sun. The visor doesn’t sport the indexed tilt adjustments that I’m fond of on some other helmets, but that’s a petty point. It works. Tilting the visor did scuff the helmet a bit and if you’re the kind of rider who carries their brain bucket in a velvet-lined bag (I’ve met such types), that might bum you out. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass one way or the other, but it’s worth a mention.

Helmet tests are sort of silly; we whinge on and on about everything other than how they actually function in a crash. Having already knocked myself out plenty in this life, I decided to forgo doing so for this test, but can tell you that the lid meets internationsal (CEN, CPSC, etc.) safety standards. In addition, POC reinforces the EPS foam liner at key points in the Tectal with aramid fibers (the stuff in folding tire beads). The upper-tier Tectal Race gets the aramid reinforcement spread throughout the entire EPS liner. In short, both Tectal models should carry out the keep-your-skull-intact portion of their job duties just fine.

What is missing here? You probably noticed I didn't mention MIPS or any other kind of slip-plane device that might help reduce rotational accelerations and, therein, reduce the likelihood of concussions. There's a reason for that--neither the first edition of the Tectal or Tectal Race sport any such device. Three years ago, most people wouldn't have cared. Today? It feels like an oversight, particularly at this price point.


Pinkbike's Take:

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