Inflatable Bike Helmets
Summary: A few inflatable models have appeared on the bike helmet market over the years, most notably the Hovding airbag. There have always been questions about their durability. The Ventete is now being sold in Europe.
We were first aware of an inflatable helmet when the Johnson JH-1 AS hockey helmet appeared in the mid-1970's. Then there were reports in 1992 that Bell had a new model with an inflatable bladder to customize the fit. It reportedly used Rebok's pump mechanism. But the bladder only attempted to improve the fit, and energy management was through a conventional EPS liner. That one fell off the radar. There have been others rumored to be in development over the years.
More recently, the Hovding airbag was brought to market and sold for at time in Europe and other non-US markets. It did not meet the US standard, so could not be sold here. It was a collar holding an airbag that was to deploy when the rider crashed. The company declared bankruptcy after a Swedish consumer protection agency forced a recall. We have a page up with the full Hovding history. A company bought the patents at the bankruptcy auction, so the design may reappear some day.
In 2024 a new air-filled helmet appeared on the European market, the Ventete aH-1. It is an air-filled folding helmet with ribs that spread when they are inflated, similar in appearance to the classic hairnet-style racing helmet from a half-century ago. The Ventete website has a dynamic graphic that shows how it unfolds when inflated by the included rechargeable pump. It has a presta valve and a pressure indicator built in. There are small vents between some of the outer ribs. It comes with a small rechargeable pump to inflate it and an indicator showing optimum pressure. The inside of the liner has multiple collapsing Rheon spots, a rate-sensitive foam designed to shear and control rotational motion. The manufacturer claims that the air bladder is more effective in managing energy than conventional EPS or other technologies, citing a study done by the HEAD Lab at Imperial College London. The study concludes:
"The Peak Linear Acceleration and linear risk were lower for the air-filled helmet than the EPS helmets in all impact locations, showing a 44% reduction in the overall linear risk compared with the best-performing EPS helmet. This was attributed to the nearly twice as long impact duration of the air-filled helmet. The air-filled helmet's rotational performance compared to the EPS helmets was dependent on the impact location, with its overall rotational risk being slightly lower than the EPS helmet ranked middle."
For overall protection the Ventete was beaten so far only by the Specialized Align II MIPS.
Although the Ventete website has the words "Fully Certified" it meets only the European, UK, EFTA and Singapore standards, so can't be sold in the US or Australia where more performance is required. The helmet is made in Switzerland. This Gear Junkie review has good closeup photos and links. Reviews indicate that the Ventete may not be as cool or as light as a conventional road helmet, and one reviewer complained that the ribs caught crosswinds.
The effect of the longer impact duration on rotational energy management deserves some study. And we won't know about ventilation performance in the hotter US climate until they produce a model for our market. We pump up our presta valve tubes enough to guess that the helmet will have to be checked often. And any inflatable raises questions about leaking over time. But this is the first bike helmet to reach the market with inflatable energy management, and we are always interested in innovation.
The Ventete is available on their website. Unfortunately the price is 375 UK pounds.
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