![]() I can't perform impact tests and give objective data like that, so I have to rely on what I know about kayaking, the industry, the product and what I think the market at large generally wants and needs. Or cheap, ugly and disturbingly unsafe.įinally, I don't have access to a materials testing lab. Or there's one that looks cool, very light but not very safe and still very expensive. Say one helmet is very safe but it makes you look like a mushroom cloud, makes it hard to roll because of weight and on top of it all is expensive. Each manufacturer is going to strike a different balance from the next, so there will almost always be some trade off. So a helmet has to have a formula a ratio between safety, encumbrance, cost and marketability. Nevertheless, manufacturers will always follow suit and give the public what they want - they have to make money right? And when the next guy is selling more helmets because they are stylish (or less expensive) but not safe, the competition either follows or goes out of business. In Europe, you can wear a face cage and not feel too silly about it, but they are quite out of fashion in America, so safety takes a back seat to appearance. Beginning boaters are reluctant to invest in a good helmet when that money could go to a better boat or paddle, and advanced boaters don't want to look like dorks. What helmets sell well and are popular? Perhaps too frequently helmets sell because of fashion or price. CE 1385 doesn't get you very far from the bottom end of the spectrum for safety, and in America, helmets don't even have to meet that standard. ![]() At the other end you have any number of helmets of shoddy design which are inadequate for various reasons such as a thin crush zone (or worse yet an old-school webbing suspension system), flexible shell, bad fit. For example, I have a friend from Scotland who assures me that many of the creekboaters there wear full coverage motorcycle helmets when boating - that's probably a good benchmark for the upper range of impact safety. Given that, there is a broad spectrum of helmets which provide differing degrees of protection. I mention this in every review, because it's something that consumers need to be aware of. Getting CE 1385 approval is not difficult and to some people's way of thinking does not ensure a helmet which will provide adequate protection in the event of an impact. There is one important consideration in all helmet appraisals: there is no American safety standard for whitewater helmets and CE 1385 - the European standard - is considered very weak by the industry. So before I launch into the next two reviews, I am going to take a minute and offer some information and perspective on whitewater helmets. And I get a little more information to pass on that will hopefully make my readers more educated consumers. I should probably just consolidate all my helmet reviews into one big article, because every time I write one, I find out more and more about helmet safety and marketing that changes my perspective. Shaggy: more expensive, Supper Scrappy: less protection.Warm and comfortable snap-on ear flap option.(Shaggy) EPP crush zone for high energy impacts.EVA comfort foam liner for low energy impact and improved fit.Hand Of God system is one if not the best occipital lock on the market.Helmet reviews are the reviews I take most seriously, so please bear with me on the length of this article. There is a more in-depth gallery of images in the Super Scrappy review linked in the article. ![]() CON at the top of the page, so you can just hit that and scroll down to the section for each helmet. This is a really long article and gets pretty deep into helmet philosophy and risk management. ![]()
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