Trying a helmet, for a bicycle or other, is always strange and complicated: you try it, but you don’t want to try all its features. You don’t want to try if and how much it can really protect you in the event of a fall. Because you don’t want to fall, of course. Even more so if it is a helmet equipped with the Mips technologythe purpose of which is to prevent possible head trauma after an accident.
It is with these thoughts in mind that we began the test of the MET Trenta 3K Carbon Mips on a road bike (which in turn we had tried here) through the streets of an Italian city that there is no need to reveal: like more or less all Italian cities, it is unfortunately not very welcoming with bicycles. And so it’s definitely nice to have some extra protection when pedaling in the middle of traffic.
Il Trenta 3K Carbon it has a carbon frame and is a high-end and high-priced helmet (over 300 euros), but that’s not the point here. The point is the yellow dot that indicates the presence of the Mips system: the abbreviation stands for Multi-directional Impact Protection System, is a technology of Swedish origin and what it should do is reduce the impact of rotational forces due to lateral impacts on the skull, thereby reducing the risk of brain injury in the event of an accident or fall. In practice, it manages to do this thanks to a low-friction layer positioned between the shell and the helmet lining (visible in the photo below): the idea is to allow the head to move inside the helmet, redirecting the rotational energy of a possible impact.
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Does the Mips system work or not?
We didn’t crash during our bike rides, so we don’t know if the Mips system would have really saved us from head trauma. What we do know is that having it doesn’t seem to involve any downsides: there is practically no weight increasebecause the extra material layer is really light (overall, the Trenta 3K Carbon weighs just 220 grams), and not even any discomfort is felt on the headnot even on the hottest days and not even in comparison with other helmets without MIPS.
Education recent, also cited by the American Helmetsa non-profit association founded in the late 1980s, confirmed that Mips involves “improvements in the reduction of rotational movement”, which is one of the most common causes of trauma and concussions after an accident.
Beyond this, to reaffirm its usefulness there is in some way its diffusion: developed in 1996, by now the Mips (also available for those who practice skiing, motorcycling and horse riding) has become an industry standard, even among professionals, and there are very few manufacturers who do not adopt it. To date, according to the data released by the company, this system is used in over 500 helmet models and it has also been much imitated: the Swedish POC has developed a similar technology, as has the South African Leatt or the American Trek.
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The question of the price
At this point the only doubt concerns the economic aspect: how much does it cost to equip your helmet with the Mips system, in the hope of never using it? Virtually nothing, in the sense that there are no significant differences between a helmet with and one without: in the price range under 100 euros, you get to 15-20 euros more, but going up the distances are reduced to zero. On the contrary: in a short market research, we even found helmets without Mips that cost about ten euros more than their counterparts with.
In short: it seems to us that there is not no reason, neither common sense nor economic, not to recommend Mips technology in the purchase of the next helmet, which is why this Tech Test ends like this and without our traditional What we liked and What we did not like. Although there is actually one thing we liked: we liked not having fallen.