The Dome Launches HelmetFacts.com
Bicycle helmets seem like fairly simple products - after all, they're just plastic and foam, right? - but trying to research safety standards, or figuring out exactly what the difference is between EPP and EPS foam can be a complicated endeavor. That's what HelmetFacts.com is trying to address. The full press release is below, but the gist of it is that staff at The Dome (Bell's and Giro's testing facility) have put together an informational website where consumers can learn more about helmet construction, testing, and standards. – Mike Kazimer
Press Release
![The Dome]()
The Dome – the in-house test lab serving Bell and Giro – is launching HelmetFacts.com. The website serves as an educational resource for consumers and helmet brands alike and includes videos as well as a library of detailed information regarding materials, standards and testing protocols for helmets and head protection.
“We saw unmet needs for more information related to head protection,” said Thom Parks, Senior Director of Product Safety at Bell Sports. “Now, more than ever, we’re seeing a lot of confusion and misinformation in the marketplace. The Dome and its engineering staff have taken a leadership role in this arena for more than six decades, so we thought it appropriate to invest the time and energy into educating consumers.”
![The Dome]()
The Dome’s has designed HelmetFacts.com to be an unbiased resource. The reason is simple – head protection is serious business and we all benefit from learning. A trip to HelmetFacts.com can reveal the differences between materials like expanded polypropylene and expanded polystyrene, and addresses common questions like “When should a helmet be replaced?” The website also sheds light on the dozens of current helmets standards across the globe and includes videos showcasing helmet testing for power sports, cycling and snow sports.
![The Dome]()
ABOUT THE DOME: Based in Scotts Valley, California, the Dome’s resources include more than 50 test fixtures as well as 3D printers, injection molding and thermal molding equipment, an in-house wind tunnel, CNC machines and other equipment required to design, develop, and evaluate new ideas in head protection.
The test lab and its engineering staff began in 1954 to support Bell Helmets. In the following decades these resources have served many helmet categories (including tactical, military, hockey, football, baseball and equestrian) and supported many brands, including Bell, Easton, Giro, MIPS and Riddell. The facility was officially named the Dome in 2011. Today, the Dome is focused on testing and R&D in powersports, cycling and snow sports and serves as the in-house test lab for Bell and Giro.
Press Release
The Dome – the in-house test lab serving Bell and Giro – is launching HelmetFacts.com. The website serves as an educational resource for consumers and helmet brands alike and includes videos as well as a library of detailed information regarding materials, standards and testing protocols for helmets and head protection.
“We saw unmet needs for more information related to head protection,” said Thom Parks, Senior Director of Product Safety at Bell Sports. “Now, more than ever, we’re seeing a lot of confusion and misinformation in the marketplace. The Dome and its engineering staff have taken a leadership role in this arena for more than six decades, so we thought it appropriate to invest the time and energy into educating consumers.”
The Dome’s has designed HelmetFacts.com to be an unbiased resource. The reason is simple – head protection is serious business and we all benefit from learning. A trip to HelmetFacts.com can reveal the differences between materials like expanded polypropylene and expanded polystyrene, and addresses common questions like “When should a helmet be replaced?” The website also sheds light on the dozens of current helmets standards across the globe and includes videos showcasing helmet testing for power sports, cycling and snow sports.
ABOUT THE DOME: Based in Scotts Valley, California, the Dome’s resources include more than 50 test fixtures as well as 3D printers, injection molding and thermal molding equipment, an in-house wind tunnel, CNC machines and other equipment required to design, develop, and evaluate new ideas in head protection.
The test lab and its engineering staff began in 1954 to support Bell Helmets. In the following decades these resources have served many helmet categories (including tactical, military, hockey, football, baseball and equestrian) and supported many brands, including Bell, Easton, Giro, MIPS and Riddell. The facility was officially named the Dome in 2011. Today, the Dome is focused on testing and R&D in powersports, cycling and snow sports and serves as the in-house test lab for Bell and Giro.
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Until then, they will keep it impartial to certain extends.
After the site will gain credibility, and ideally become a reference point, THEN, they will start indirect promotion of their products i.e. this material (used on giro and bell helmets) is better than others.... etc. etc.
Ultimatley this is to legitimize MIPS as I know the helmets are not selling and other brands stopped the interest licensing the "technology". Just be patient and you will see.
More information is always good, but only when it's non-biased. So this just seems like more marketing.
How is MIPS different than a lightweight helmet liner?
Do you agree that hotspots are a major issue for some companies, and there is a lack of consumer education regarding proper fit/hotspots?
@Dome-Test-Lab good on you guys for getting into the comments and interacting with the public.
In the interest of full disclosure, those of us on the Dome payroll are currently employed by the same company that owns several helmet brands including Bell, Bollé, Cébé, Giro, Raskulls and Krash. Rather than showcase marketing terms and glossy campaigns, however, the Dome’s intention is to be an unbiased resource for consumers and other helmet brands alike. The reason is simple – head protection is serious business and we all benefit from learning.
The industry has nothing to do with it, the government does.
Cars are tested with a uniform set of crash test standards. So the consumer can choose which one is "just fine" for themselves.
Helmet companies can and absolutely should be working towards setting up a system where consumers can choose the same way.
If you don't pay attention to safety rankings when you buy a car that's fine, it's your choice. But at least that information is there for all to see.
Marketing and hype is not enough to go on when it comes to your brain. And we're all the worse for it because we don't have all the information.
I think you took that literally. My point is... Kali will pass. Their helmets are safe as hell. Telling you right now that there are other brands that I know for a fact don't do as well in testing.
Helmets are required to pass certain tests to get certain certs. Standardized. Just like cars.
Beyond that... cars are required to pass or they can not be sold in this country. Helmets are required to pass certain tests or they can not be sold.
And I drive pretty much exclusively Subarus... sooo... some of the safest vehicles on the road.
At least Bell/Giro tests in-house and is trying to get information out to the public. No one else is doing it like that.
Kali... kali makes killer stuff and they'll talk head safety with you until your head explodes.
I think you're probably right regarding Kali and their helmets. I guess my point is when you go to look at a car, you can see how many "stars" it gets in certain accident scenarios.
SUV's score high in a lot of tests because they are heavy, but they score low in Rollover accidents. Subarus (excellent cars btw) score high all around BUT the Impreza scores higher in rollovers than the Crosstrek does. You could argue well, duh, of course it does because the crosstrek has a higher center of gravity. But without those ratings readily available, consumers cannot be relied upon to suss this out for themselves. Thus, with this industry wide standard of comparison, consumers can judge what is best for them.
See what I'm getting at?
No such thing currently exists for helmets at the moment. And I think that's a serious shortfall on the part of helmet makers.
I agree. There are standardized tests for every rating. But it's pass fail.
It would be great to see more information available and more standard testing. Etc. But that all takes time. Without companies like bell pushing it it's not going to happen. Most consumers don't know any better and definitely don't know how to ask for it or what they're looking at when they get the info.
Remember... cars have been around for over 100 years. Testing and safety standards have been steadily increasing for a long long time. You didn't even need a seatbelt in a truck until the 70's. Child seats. Seat belt laws. Mandatory rear cameras. Air Bags. Etc. All that stuff has been growing.
So comparing bike helmets to that, they're in their infancy and it's going to take time.
Props to Bell/Giro for being at the forefront and for pushing it.
It's perhaps a little too much to expect helmet companies to do something like this voluntarily, and would almost certainly only happen if there were some kind of legislation involved.
More info is always better, and Bell is definitely contributing to that. But I personally would love to know if a Smith Forefront MIPS performs better than a Bell Super MIPS, if at all, and in what way.
That said, the idea behind this is awesome. There is so much BS being sold in the world under the guise of science. It is so hard to find good info on safety products that aren't all out of pocket from those benefiting financially and laced with trademarked technology.
It's not so much that the scientific method is "rarely used" in the sense that most scientist are like "screw that crap, Imma do it like this..." but rather the constraints of the study, the field of study, the results, and the pressures of academia can all encourage said researcher to deviate from strict application of the scientific method. Sometimes this deviation is concealed by careful wording in the manuscript, sometimes not. This doesn't mean that "science" is a sham and that nothing can be learned from "scientific research." It means we need to be informed and skeptical consumers and evaluate a published article only within the context of all published research on the subject.
Welcome! We are a helmet advocacy program founded in 1989. We are a small, active, non-profit consumer-funded program providing bicycle helmet information. We are a 501(c)3 non-profit, so your contributions to us are tax-deductible. We try to explain the technology of helmets to consumers, and promote better helmets by working on improved standards. In a typical year our site serves 2 million pages to more than 700,000 distinct users. Our volunteers serve on the ASTM helmet standards committee and are active in commenting on actions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We are members of the National Bicycle Safety Network. We provide a Toolkit of materials for helmet programs and a periodic email helmet newsletter, both free. We are all volunteers, funded entirely by consumer donations. We maintain our independence by never accepting funds from the industry. As much as we believe in helmets we still consider them a secondary safety measure and urge that primary measures such as safer roads and education programs for riders and drivers not be neglected. We were founded in 1989, and put up our web site in 1995.
We are determined to present riders with more visibility to allow them to make informed decisions, but hopefully that helps explain where we stand today.
But "unbiased resource?" How stupid do you think we are? You are a corporation that sells helmets, not a charity. For example, if you believed that a competitor's patented technology were more effective than yours, would you think twice before saying so? Duh. That's bias.
Of course we're not surprised by your comments above, we knew from the beginning that we'd see this sort of response. But would you prefer that we didn't publish any of this information? We've seen so much confusion and misinformation (regarding current standards, for example) that we decided to stop waiting and create that resource ourselves.
Regardless of the helmets you choose to buy, if you want to learn the difference between CPSC and ASTM 1952 standards, or want to learn the differences between Expanded Polystyrene and Expanded Polypropylene there really hasn't been a great resource about those subjects. Our goal is educate riders, parents and even other brands.
LOL...
Seriously though. I can't believe people are complaining about having access to MORE information and testing.
Why? Because science costs money and disinterested parties won't fund it out of the goodness of their hearts. Other than, say, your government, and they'd only do it then when it interests them or a large part of their constituency, such as the need to test medicines and food.
And:
You inform about standars, testig methods (YOUR testing methods) and materials and some other stuff that some people might find interesting and some other already know.
BUT the only one thing we want and that could give you credit is still missing, as always; DATA!!
Everything you do has the same purpose, acquire data. Just share the data if you're so educational and unbiased, FFS.
All we want to know is how much force is transmitted to the test dummie's brain in the different scenarios, that's it.
Every climbing rope shows the impact force transmitted in a worst case scenario fall, is not very difficult to share numbers or understand them!
www.bhsi.org/mips.htm
"The helmet community has been discussing slip planes for years, and has been cautiously examining the MIPS data to evaluate the advantages if any. Everyone agrees that mitigating rotational force is important for injury protection, particularly for anti-concussion effects. But there are questions about how much a slip plane actually helps.
Helmets are not coupled closely to the head, and will slip anyway. The scalp (nature's MIPS) ensures that, and skin does not stick to EPS much, given sweat, hair, hair products and sunscreen. (The Koroyd "straws" pioneered by Smith Optics helmets might be a different story, given their known ability to abrade skin in a crash.) So the tendency for the helmet to slide on the user's head and to slide on pavement or other impact surfaces is substantial. "
When will we get a unbiased data set for each helmet so we the public can compare how well a helmet performs in different impacts???
This should be available on a unbiased website, in a format we can all understand and filter in certain ways. I.e. filter by full face, then by best by frontal impact. Then we can see which helmet we want based on something other than looks and a magazine or websites view on how well it's ventilated.
It's the most important purchase a biker can make and the least understood by the public. With what we know about head impacts in our sport and others along with high profile deaths this shouldn't be accepted.
Can we go one better and have a open database Bell, Giro, POC, Troy Lee, Kali etc. ?
It's about time a 3 party does this to truly see which helmet is safer.
If you want to read more on the subject of standards and "toughest" and "safest" we have an explanation here: www.helmetfacts.com/standards/toughest-vs-safest
Thanks Bell Full 9 Carbon!
Just the name, "helmetfacts" is a red flag at worst or just a poor choice at best. "fact" according to who? Any entity that is self regulating the "facts" about an industry where they are providing information to consumers is too much of a conflict of interest.
This should have been worked out with a third party in some way and would be much better if other helmet companies where involved with the effort. Otherwise it just "feels" like a marketing ploy. Even if all the information given is on the up and up. (but how could we ever know it was???)
So start with a gut feeling based on the name of the website and what they are doing that it doesn't seem like a good idea, and then THEIR VIDEO.....
Come on, that was nothing but an advertorial. Not for a specific product, but for their company, their history, their emotional ties. That was like the "feel good" video presentation you give to employee's for a business anniversary or something.
If I'm supposed to believe this information is even remotely un-biased information being presented for only it's educational value to the consumer than it needs to be presented in a more scientific way. Granted, I only watched the opening vid, maybe everything else gets back to a more "data" driven theme with lots of cool helmet smashes to keep viewers interest?
Anyway, sometimes things seem like great idea's and then the customer just drops a load on it. Been there. Sorry!!!
Or they did it because profits were too high? Oh wait they just want to give back to the world?
Pleeeeeeeeaaaaasseeee
Next!
Bell and Giro (same owners of MIPS) create a separate entity to show how MIPS works and gain some credibility. LOL...
Because this is the intent of HelmetFacts.com... just wait some time...
GIRO and BELL: Invest money on helmets molds... 90% of your helmets have severe hot spots which cause real damage on crashes. No word on hot spots on the site?
Just try it for yourself.
Get a bunch of buddies and go to a store.
Try on either a TLD A1, any KASK or Rudy Project helmet and any Bell (beside stroker) or any Giro (besides top end road).
Put the helmets on, and push the palm of your hand oh the following spots:
Top of the parietal bone, front, both temples, back.
Compare the pressure quantity and how large is the pressure area on each helmet.
Then shake your head sideways and back and forth.
Compare how some helmets move more than others.
This should be the basic test on helmet fitting.
People are crazy about "data", which can be easily manipulated and are often results of poor testing.
We have about thousands years of data on helmets, going from the ancient time to nowadays.
Problem with common sense is that is not common anymore.
Anything else?
They did not invent MIPS. They did not invent the MIPS tests. They have a MIPS sled to do internal testing. How is that a bad thing? They have readily available testing... you'd assume their helmets are pretty safe.
As for hot spots. I guarantee you that you have not tried on 20 percent of their helmets let alone 90%. And the main one that had a hot spot issue is 2 generations old now... and on a completely different head mold... and is comfortable as hell.
Spit some more crap you half read on the internet... makes you look super smart.
are you sore down there too?