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We’ve seen a few different bicycle helmets hit the crowd-funding pages, and while I’m always intrigued, I’m also a bit wary. Buying a watch or a gadget, that’s one thing. But trusting your safety to some random company asking for your money on the internet? Well, that does give me some pause. Fortunately, for this new Newton-Rider helmet, it looks like they’ve passed some crashworthiness tests.
Most helmets rely on a hard plastic shell that is lined by a stiff (but carved) block of polystyrene foam. Sure, if gets the job done, but they end up being thickly built, and should you crash, they need to replaced after just a single spill (you can’t tell where the integrity has been compromised). The Newton-Rider looks to get around this by relying on visco-elastic and non-Newtonian materials. What this means, is you not only get a helmet that’s pretty thin, it’s good for protecting your noggin for more than a single crash.
All of this results in a fairly compact – but appealing – punch list of features:
- Worlds thinnest bicycle helmet, only 16mm thin.
- Semi-soft
- Foldable
- Built in chip for incentivised riding.
- Utterly stylish – a helmet we believe people actually want to wear.
So, I will say, from a materials and design perspective, the Newton-Rider sounds very interesting. However, it seems other folks have some concerns about backing a safety product, as their Indiegogo campaign is sitting at 26% funded as of this writing. However, if you want to jump in and help make the campaign a reality before it closes on November 15th, you can get in for just $98. campaign page
