Think all MTB helmets offer the same level of protection? Think Again.

The Virginia Tech Helmet Lab has been providing independent safety ratings for sports helmets since 2011, and today we’ll hear from Dr. Barry Miller about how their testing works, why their rating system stands apart from standard certifications, and how the system has pushed manufacturers to improve designs over time.

In this episode we discuss the following questions.

Why did the Virginia Tech Helmet Ratings program get started?
How do your ratings differ from certification standards like CPSC?
How are bike helmets tested in your lab, and who performs the testing?
How well do lab results correlate with real-world crash data and field studies?
With so many models out there, how do you choose which helmets to test?
The 5-star rating scale was recently recalibrated, making 5 stars harder to earn—why?
Have the ratings influenced helmet companies to improve designs?
How unsafe is it to mount accessories (lights/cameras) on a helmet?
How do bike helmets compare tech-wise to helmets for other sports like football?
What are the main limitations of your testing and rating methodology?
Any upcoming testing updates, categories, or research directions riders should know about?

You can view the latest bike helmet ratings here. An automated transcript of the conversation is provided below.

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Automated transcript

Jeff Barber 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Singletracks podcast. I’m your host, Jeff Barber, and today we’re taking a close look at helmets, specifically how we know the ones we’re strapping on our heads are actually protecting us. While most helmets on the market meet baseline safety certifications by now, most riders know that not all helmets perform equally when it comes to reducing the chance of concussion and serious head injuries. The Virginia Tech helmet lab has been providing independent safety ratings for sports helmets since 2011, and today we’ll hear from Dr. Barry Miller about how their testing works, why their rating system stands apart from standard certifications, and how the system has pushed manufacturers to improve designs over time. Dr. Miller, welcome to the podcast.

Barry Miller 0:49
Thank you. Please call me Barry. Jeff, thanks for having me share what we do.

Jeff Barber 0:53
Yeah, my pleasure. So to start, can you tell us why the Virginia Tech helmet ratings program was launched in the first place?

Barry Miller 1:04
So the Virginia Tech helmet lab is a comprehensive injury biomechanics lab. So we started with automotive safety, testing seatbelts, airbags and all that stuff. And we wanted to study brain injury. And the only people in the real world that hit their heads frequently are football players. Okay? 50 football players initially agreed to have sensors put inside their helmets, and we started collecting data. And coincidentally, they asked the guys in the equipment room, “Hey, can you help us pick a safer helmet?” You got to remember back in 2004 and 2005, concussion research was limited, and we didn’t really know, and we still have a lot to learn. But they said, “Can you help us pick a safer helmet?” So anyway, we were collecting data on football players, and we collected data for about five, six years initially to launch. And so we developed what we call a bivariate risk function. So as linear and rotational head accelerations go up, your risk of concussion goes up. We have a probability curve based on a regression equation from now it’s over 2 million head impacts. Wow. The best data set, real world data set out there that when head accelerations get to certain levels, your risk of concussion really starts to ramp up. So, oh well, we can figure this out. So we could test helmets based on real world head impacts and see how the helmets reduce these peak acceleration numbers. And then obviously, the ones that do the best get the best ratings. And so we developed our STAR rating system, which actually stands for Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk. I can always go into that a little bit further, but we figure out how do you hit your head playing football? How do you hit your head if you fall off your bike? And we come back to the lab here and design test protocols and procedures that best represent those real world accidents or falls. We create this protocol, and then we test helmets against that protocol, and then we rank order them. So what we really do is we supplement the pass-fail certification standards. Their thresholds are the point of catastrophic head injury. We supplement those with real world sport-specific helmet ratings. So basically, we tell you which helmets are safer than another that’s already met the basic certification standard to be legally sold. So that’s our function. We have nine different STAR ratings now. So varsity football, flag football, youth football, ice hockey, equestrian, whitewater sports, snow sports, cycling. What did I miss? Soccer. I think that’s it. And then we’re getting ready to release safety helmet hard hat ratings here in about three weeks and a soccer protocol that we’re getting ready to release shortly after that. And then also youth hockey. So we’re a busy lab. And besides helmets, just so everyone knows, we do all the toy testing for the Hasbro toy company, Nerf toys for eye injuries in particular. They work with us, and we test all their toys. There’s a big difference between the real Nerf toys and then the knockoff brands. Knockoffs are cheaper for a reason. They’re hard plastic versus the Nerf toys are really rubbery, so they’re much safer than the knockoffs for the most part. Then we also do commercial testing for drone impacts. The drones that do the light shows, we work with our Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership that works directly with the FAA on figuring out rules and guidelines for these things. They’re used all the time, and are they allowed to fly over the public? What are the rules? How fast can they go? What are they made out of? What’s the mass, blade length, speed, all these things, range of materials, geometry. So we help figure out, all right, it tested well. It didn’t test well. What are the rules going to be? So we’re doing a lot of research in that area currently as well.

Jeff Barber 4:59
Oh, wow, yeah. I mean, is there a safe drone? A drone that if it hits you, it’s not going to hurt too bad. Is that what you’re trying to figure out?

Barry Miller 5:08
Yeah, basically what they’re made out of is a big thing. You want them frangible. You want them to fall apart, like a helmet, right? You want it to break apart and absorb energy. So the geometry of those things makes a difference, how fast they actually go. And the aviation part, they try to slow them down if they have a failure. Some of them have parachutes. They might put foam in certain parts of the fuselage or the arms. They might put foam on the ends of those, because those tend to be the worst places to be hit by these things. But they’re doing all kinds of things. And yeah, so rules and guidelines, we do the impact testing, and the MAP group works with the FAA on all these different types of drones. Yeah, into a light show.

Jeff Barber 5:55
Yeah, those are cool.

Barry Miller 5:57
But usually those are not over the public. They look like they’re over the public, but they’re at a distance. Most of those are not compliant for flying over people. It’s fascinating. I mean, 25,000 of these things in the air at the same time, and they don’t collide. But yeah, it’s really cool to watch, and they do it with music. Fun stuff.

Jeff Barber 6:16
Cool. Well, so you mentioned that the start of the helmet lab was getting this real world data from 50 football players. So have you, do you have that data for mountain bikers? Have people worn helmets with all these sensors? And you’ve been able to collect data for real world crashes?

Barry Miller 6:39
Yeah, the way we did the bike helmet ratings is we did damage replication studies on helmets from bikers that have gotten into accidents, and then we have accident reports. Like, did they get a concussion, or what was the injury? We take that helmet, and we also buy a brand new helmet of the same exact model. We do CT scans. We get a profile of the damage that was done. With fancy software, we recreate that test or that impact here in the lab and validate that. And that’s how we developed our test protocol for bike helmets. It’s not practical to put sensors in some biker’s helmet, because he may never fall, right? It’d be a while. And is it working? It’s really difficult. So those single impact helmets, snow sport, cycling, equestrian, whitewater, are really hard to collect data on. Football’s very easy because they let us put sensors in the helmet, and they probably hit their heads a lot more.

And the nice thing about both sports, football players, every practice is recorded. They tape it for watching it and review and skill improvement, et cetera. Other sports, it’s hard to come by. Like, what really happened in that head impact? You get the accident report, but it’s sketchy. Video tells the story. Yeah. No one, I got in an accident. I hit my head. Did you hit your head first? Yeah. Actually, I know you actually hit your shoulder first, and so you absorbed a lot of energy before your head actually hit the ground. And so, yeah, but that’s how we did the bike helmet ratings. So that’s, I think there was 100 helmets if I recall. And for your viewers, if you go to our website under technical documents, the methodology, they’re all under there. You go to our publications page, you’ll see all the STAR rating research papers. These are peer-reviewed to make sure what we’re doing is accepted in high quality research, which it is. So that’s all open on our web page, so you can go research it

Jeff Barber 8:44
Yeah, that’s great. Well, for our listeners, what’s your role, and how long have you been involved in the lab?

Barry Miller 8:51
My role? I’m the Director of Outreach and Business Development for the Virginia Tech helmet lab. So I also help with research. My office is actually in the testing facility. I sit right next to our Director of Testing, Mark Begonia. And so, yeah, collectively, I help with the research, but really I’m more of the outreach and business development guy. So I get our license agreements and some of that stuff, work with lots of companies, talk to people like you. Really fun job. I’ve been here for about seven, a little over seven years.

Jeff Barber 9:20
Okay, cool. So you kind of touched on this, but I think people would like to understand how these ratings that your lab comes up with, how they’re different from certification standards like those from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, those CPSC ratings. All bike helmets sold in the U.S. are going to have that rating, right? But how is your testing, how does it go sort of above and beyond that?

Barry Miller 9:50
So the certifications use a pass-fail testing methodology, okay? They use linear acceleration and the passing threshold is, I think, for bike helmets, 275 Gs of linear acceleration. That’s the point where skull fractures happen. Wow. Okay, so it means basically that if I buy a bike helmet that’s CPSC certified and I get into an accident, I shouldn’t get a skull fracture or die. Okay. And so we supplement that certification standard with real world sport-specific testing. So again, how do you hit your head if you fall off your bike? And we use both linear and rotational head accelerations. It’s a bivariate risk function to evaluate helmet performance. The ones that best reduce the head accelerations get better ratings. It’s a standardized test protocol, and we’ve become world renowned. I mean, just using rotational head accelerations is just one key aspect, because the certifications don’t do that yet. Well, and they’re very slow moving, very conservative. And the nice thing about our ratings, we can modify our test protocols as new data comes out. Yeah. If we need to include this test in the protocol or this, we can do that. So we’re a little bit more nimble and cutting edge. Again, we’re rank ordering helmets as it relates to performance, right? Best to worst. We’re extremely useful when you, I mean, otherwise, there’s no way for you to tell which helmet’s safer, right? There’s a big difference between a Volkswagen Bug, I’m not knocking the Volkswagen Bug, and a Ford F-150 that both passed some basic safety standard to be driven on the highway. There could be huge differences, right? And how those cars absorb energy. Well, same thing. Product differentiation is everywhere. It’s the same for the helmet industry. There’s big differences in impact performance among helmets in various sports and activities.

Jeff Barber 11:53
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, so tell us a bit about how the helmets are tested. What is the setup and how does that actually work?

Barry Miller 12:02
So for bike helmets, we use what we call a bike tower, or a drop tower. We use two different energy levels. I think it’s 4.7 meters per second. Don’t quote me, it’s in the methodology paper, because every sport’s a little different. Okay, so, yeah, I think it’s 4.7 and the high energy is, I want to say 7.3. It’s about 16 or 17 miles an hour, okay? And basically the drop tower, a halo holds the head form in a certain position, X, Y and Z. The probes hold the helmet in place, and then that halo ensures the helmet stays in place as it impacts an anvil at 45 degrees with sandpaper on the surface. Friction makes a huge difference in how a helmet will respond to a given impact. And in high horizontal velocity sports, we do need to conduct oblique, we call these oblique impacts. You fall off your bike, right? Your head’s at, we’ll just say, six feet, or seven feet, or whatever, and then you have a horizontal velocity. Maybe you’re going 10 miles an hour. So by the time your head hits the ground, it’s going to hit at some sort of angle, right? And so that’s called an oblique impact, and we want to simulate that. And so we figured out that usually it’s about 45 degrees. Obviously, it all makes a little bit of difference, but 45 degrees is pretty severe. That anvil is a steel anvil mounted to the floor. So it’s infinite mass. People always say, “What about e-bikes?” And they go 25, 30 miles an hour. Again, so our high energy impact is about 16, 17 miles an hour directly onto a steel anvil with infinite mass. Okay, so if you get into a bike accident, what’s the first thing you do, Jeff, before you fall?

Jeff Barber 13:47
Put your hands out or something.

Barry Miller 13:52
Yeah, exactly. You’re braking. You’re bracing your fall with any body part before your head hits. So 16 miles an hour directly onto your head is a pretty bad, pretty severe impact, and we expect those to be concussion-causing, those high energy impacts. Again, so we do six locations at two energy levels. That’s 12 test conditions. Those are pretty severe. There’s six high speed, six at low speed. And so typically, the helmets that really do the best do extremely well on the lower energy impacts. All helmets have to pass the safety certifications, which is high energy, right? And so all helmets pass that. But the ones that really do well on our test protocol are the ones that really enhance performance with the lower energy levels. Those helmets tend to be a little bit thicker with more compliant padding, whether it be EPS or WaveCel, whatever it is. There’s lots of different materials out there. So the good news for all you bikers out there, the helmets have gotten way better. Yeah. Big improvements over the last two to three years, and we rescaled recently, which I’m sure you’re aware of. So, yeah, we had to move the thresholds because there was over 50% of helmets that were five star. So the five-star category got watered down. And so we rescaled to make the five star really show that it’s best in class, right? Yeah. Under technical documents you guys can all read about it. We explain basically what I just said is that the helmet industry has responded. Helmets have all gotten a lot better, and so it was time to rescale, just like the car industry. Every five or 10 years they say, “All right, here’s a new safety standard. Now you got airbags everywhere, sensors.” It’s just the standard. Same thing with bike helmets. Well, helmets, the new thresholds, they’ve gotten so much better, so it’s time to rescale. And so, yeah, half the helmets should not be five star, right?

Jeff Barber 16:14
Yeah, makes sense.

Barry Miller 16:14
About a third of them. So we rescaled. And so they just reflect helmet performance and the best in class. And there’s still quite a few. 33 I think we left in the five-star category or something like that. And we have new prototypes coming out. They’re even better than the ones on the website. So it continues to evolve, which is great for the manufacturers, great for the participants and the riders out there.

Jeff Barber 16:14
So, yeah, I want to talk about how those protocols change over time. One question I have, and you’re right, that helmets have improved a ton. I mean, a lot of that rotational impact tech, I mean, it’s standard now, and it’s at all price points. It used to be just the higher end helmets, but now you can get it in even some of the $50 bike helmets.

Barry Miller 16:53
Absolutely.

Jeff Barber 16:53
But I’m curious, is this showing up in injury data at all? Like, are we seeing fewer reported concussions or those kinds of head injuries? Has there been an analysis of that injury data? If it’s out there?

Barry Miller 16:53
That’s a great question, Jeff. I’m not sure. We’d have to comb through probably the hospital databases and the injuries, but it’s really hard to document that stuff. Are there more riders? Are there more people wearing helmets? Who’s reporting, who’s not reporting? So it gets really difficult to get at the end result of, are they making a difference? But we know from impact testing that they drastically reduce risk of concussion because the performance has improved. We’ve shown it in football that the five-star helmets certainly reduced concussions by over 50% compared to a two or three-star helmet. And that was a paper back in 2014 and that’s over, I don’t know how many head impacts. That was lots of head impacts and lots of players. So it does work in the real world. It’s probably hard to show in cycling. We don’t follow people, we don’t know the accident scenarios. It’s really a little bit more tricky.

Jeff Barber 17:49
Right, right? That makes sense, that football, it is more regimented, and you have teams, and a lot of the teams have doctors, and it’s all much easier to document, I’m sure. So, yeah, you mentioned real world testing and what that looks like. And we’ve done our own sort of tests with various products over time, writing articles and things, but what people always tend to latch onto is whatever we do, they say it’s not real world. That’s not, real world is messy, and there’s all these other factors that can be involved. And it sounds like the testing protocol is focused on a particular crash scenario. So is there a way to make the testing more real world, or do you not want to, because then you’re introducing all these additional variables? Like, what if you hit a tree? What if you hit a rock? You know?

Barry Miller 18:48
Yeah, so our test protocol does represent real world accident scenarios. Again, we used damage replication studies. So can we recreate that exact damage here in the lab? And we can. And so those are based on real world accidents. And so now the only difference in the lab is it’s a very standardized protocol. We use six locations, but there’s an infinite number of ways you can hit your head in the real world, right? What we do is we create boundary conditions. Like, what’s the typical lower energy head impact? And what’s the typical, we got to stop somewhere, right? It’s not feasible or practical to do infinite locations. And so yes, we do 12 test conditions, six of those are at low energy and six at high, and they represent six areas on the helmet, which is pretty robust. Most certification standards only use a couple locations. And so I think we do represent as best we can these real world accident scenarios. And more than likely, we’re probably a little more stringent. Hitting a steel anvil with sandpaper at 45 degrees, that’s pretty severe. Yeah. More than likely in the real world, you may not, that worst case scenario would probably not be as likely in the real world. So we do have boundary conditions.

Jeff Barber 20:06
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. How many helmets do you test? Like if you’re doing one model, how many do you end up damaging or destroying within the testing?

Barry Miller 20:18
We use at least four samples because we rotate the helmet around. We can’t hit the same location twice, right? Because single impact helmets, they’re designed to crack, crush, crumble and break on impact. So we move the locations, and we can’t get too close to a previous impact location, because it’ll have an effect on subsequent test locations. So four samples, and we have a method for how we rotate them. At least, was it 10 centimeters apart for bike helmets to make sure that we don’t have an influence from the previous impact. And we did some studies to verify that. It’s usually five to six samples for the most part, because sometimes we have to do verification tests and things like that. So it gets expensive, right, for five or six samples for a given helmet model. And it takes us about six hours to test a single bike helmet model. So it’s time consuming and tedious for sure.

Jeff Barber 21:10
Yeah. Who’s doing the testing? You’re at a university. So are there students involved, or is it staff?

Barry Miller 21:17
Yeah, we have undergraduate test engineers and graduate students. So the undergraduate test engineers get trained by Dr. Begonia to conduct these tests. Again, it takes a lot of manpower, and so he trains them how to do it. And basically, yeah, we use them as our labor force, and they’re paid. It’s a great learning experience, and they get really good at all the different variety of tests for the nine different STAR ratings that we do. So,

Jeff Barber 21:46
so have you done any testing on helmets that are older? So a lot of people’s advice is that you should get a new bike helmet every three to five years, depending on how much you use it, because I guess sun can degrade it, and there’s various things that happen over time. Is that part of the testing at all? I know that’s not the STAR rating necessarily, but I think people would be curious to know how that affects a helmet.

Barry Miller 22:16
Yeah, we looked at that a little bit, but the Bike Helmet Safety Institute, are you familiar with them?

Jeff Barber 22:16
Yes.

Barry Miller 22:16
So they have a couple articles that are referenced. MEA Forensics did a study. So basically, EPS will hold up for a long, long time when exposed to UV rays, heat, moisture. It’s pretty resilient stuff, so it’s not going to degrade as far as impact performance by much. Okay. At least EPS. We don’t know as much about other materials, but EPS is cheap, it’s durable, and it’s really good stuff. Yeah. And that’s what most helmets use, right?

Jeff Barber 22:16
Yeah, most helmets use that.

Barry Miller 22:16
And so it’s doubtful that it’s going to have much of a difference based on environmental exposure. Obviously, if it’s severely cracked or crushed, and you hit that exact same location again, if you were to get in an accident, obviously performance will be different. It’s likely worse depending on the energy level, but maybe even better if it’s a lighter impact, right, because then it’s more frangible to start with. So we can’t control all those variables. Like if we tested 20 helmet samples that were five years old, well, we don’t know what each one was exposed to. So the data would be skewed. Like, we don’t know. And so in our lab, we just test brand new helmets to see how the performance would be. Yeah, okay. If you have old helmets, more than likely they’re going to do about the same as far as impact performance, unless you’ve had a couple accidents or it’s been really damaged, dropped hard. And dropping your helmet on the concrete is not going to do anything. People always go, “Really, should I replace it?” No, no, it’s fine. It can handle that. If you slam it or throw it down like you’re spiking a football after a touchdown, then consider replacing that helmet. But as you guys all know, the helmets have gotten so much better, so maybe it’s time for an upgrade anyways. And you pointed out that some of them are under $100 and they’re really good. Yeah. And you can function without an arm, a leg, damage to body parts, but when your brain’s damaged, it can be a little scary. So, right, buy high performing helmets for all your viewers.

Jeff Barber 24:27
Yeah, are for sure, yeah, worth the investment. And even if you’re saying that the EPS doesn’t degrade over time, and even if you’re dropping your helmet and that’s fine, it’s probably still worth getting a new one every few years, if not for any other reason, like you said, because the technology has improved and you’re going to be, hopefully, a little bit more safe with a newer helmet.

Barry Miller 24:50
The other aspect to that is, what is your environment? What is your exposure? Are you commuting in traffic? Are you just riding on rails to trails on easy paved or gravel roads with no inclines, or, depending on what you do, you may want the best of the best. Or maybe just a basic four-star helmet, depending on how often do you ride? What’s your frequency? How good are you? What, I mean, you factor all that in as well. So,

Jeff Barber 25:20
Right. Makes sense. Buy the best.

Barry Miller 25:23
With any product, buy the best and you won’t be disappointed.

Jeff Barber 25:27
Right, right. Well, yeah, so with so many helmets out there, how do you decide which ones make it into the testing rotation? Which ones get tested?

Barry Miller 25:36
Oh, great question. So we take consumer input, which is, oftentimes consumers or people email and ask, “Hey, can you get this one included?” We use that information. We actually browse Amazon and browse web pages for best, most popular brands. And of course, we ask companies to say, “Hey, which ones are you making the most of?” And companies can send helmets to us anytime. So commercially available helmets can be tested and rated and posted to the website. We can do that. It’s hard to keep up with it. There’s probably 2,000 helmet models out there. They can choose. Sometimes they want to pay for the testing, so they get the comprehensive data sets that go with that. And then if they do that, they can control whether it gets posted to the website. So maybe they want to do additional R&D, et cetera. So it’s a combination of companies sending us helmets for complimentary testing or us acquiring them on the open market based on popular models, et cetera, and consumer input as well. It’s like, “Hey, if you guys have a popular model you want to see on the website,” we can make sure we can acquire it. So it’s always our choice to, how we want to acquire the helmets to get them tested. But we work with all the major brands, and most of them really want to get their stuff tested. And when we talk to them, it’s like, well, we don’t want to test something that you don’t really sell much of, right? Even if we’re doing it complimentary, we want to have an impact. Like, are people actually wearing that helmet? Are you going to discontinue it? So that wouldn’t help us, or the ratings page either. So, right, yeah. And so a little bit of everything is how we figure out which ones to put on there.

Jeff Barber 27:19
Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the rating system being recalibrated recently, and it makes sense for why that happened. So I’m curious to know, though, what have you seen in terms of the helmet designs that have changed over the years that have made them that much better?

Barry Miller 27:43
Oh, that’s a good question. I think most of the impact protection comes from the density and the thickness of the padding materials, and then a little bit of geometry, and then material structure. Like WaveCel, Koroyd, are you layering? Are you using other 3D printed or lattice type structures? There’s lots of things coming out. Obviously, they’re not as cheap, usually, as EPS, but I think for the most part, it’s the density and thickness of the EPS. And then surface friction, vent locations can make a difference too. So, yeah, I think it’s a combination of all those things, but mostly the density and thickness of the EPS liners, if we’re talking just your basic, standard helmet.

Jeff Barber 28:32
Yeah, yeah. So it’s not, I mean, I know you can’t endorse any specific system or technology, but MIPS is one that we’ve seen take over the whole industry, the helmet industry. There are things that work similarly to MIPS, but it seems like most manufacturers have latched onto that solution.

Barry Miller 28:55
So MIPS, the standard MIPS, is like a slip plane between your helmet and the head. And so when you get into an impact, you want the helmet to, what we call is decouple from your head, okay, to absorb energy and move independently of your head before it takes your head with it and crushes on impact. It’s like in your car. Yeah. You don’t want to feel exactly what the car feels. You want the car to start to absorb energy before it moves you, the driver.

Jeff Barber 29:23
And when that came out, was that a new concept? That it needs to move independently?

Barry Miller 29:30
I don’t think so. I think we’ve always known that. I mean, that’s why you have crumple zones in the car. Yeah. If the car’s so stiff that it doesn’t do anything and it moves you, right, so you want it to crush and absorb energy. Then the energy that you receive as the driver is reduced, right? So if you can reduce that, and then lengthen the impact time, which reduces the peak values, you want that. So, yeah, helmets, even in football, it’s not like they have to come off your head. So I’m just saying a football helmet absorbs energy. The helmet absorbs, moves independently before it takes your head with it, right? Maybe not to the extent like a bike helmet or a snow helmet, right? Because they’re not coupled as tightly as a football helmet to start with. A football helmet has really thick padding materials. I mean, it’s robust, right?

Jeff Barber 30:17
You really got to push your head into those, especially. Even mountain bike full-face helmets, some of them, it can be tight.

Barry Miller 30:24
And so MIPS adds a slip plane there, at least their standard version, and that helps to decouple, perhaps in certain impact scenarios. Your hair and scalp are a natural slip plane. And so those help the decoupling process as well. So MIPS is, I wouldn’t say it’s the end all be all, but it may be helpful in certain impact scenarios. And like WaveCel, Koroyd and what else is out there? There’s a couple others. Hexr with their 3D printing technology, those geometries, those lattice honeycomb structures, people call those rotational technology companies as well, or materials. The geometry of those materials might lend itself for more opportunity to absorb energy during these oblique impacts. You have a standard EPS liner, you hit it directly, the impact vector, it’s going to crush. But what happens if you hit it from an angle? The geometry just doesn’t lend itself to absorb energy and crush and compress as easily. But a geometric structure like a honeycomb, you hit it at an angle, it still has that ability to bend and twist as it absorbs. And so the idea is that they might do better with a lot of these oblique impacts. But again, the density and thickness of that material also plays a huge role. So it’s hard to tease out the geometry in and of itself. I think that is the concept, and we do see some improvements with those types of structures.

Jeff Barber 32:11
So, yeah, well, and your tests, I’m sure, focus on the helmet itself. But do you have a sense of how the person wears the helmet, how much that affects the safety of it, in terms of is it the right size? Is it too tight? Is it too loose? Is that important as well?

Barry Miller 32:33
The most important item as it relates to helmet fit is, does it stay on your head for that initial impact? Again, the decoupling component. So you don’t want it so tight that it’s uncomfortable, but not so loose that it moves too freely. But you want the helmet to move a little bit on impact. And so we always say fit is probably more for comfort than it is impact protection. And the impact protection is coming primarily from the density and thickness of that padding material. So fit’s probably not as critical as people might think, as long as the helmet stays in its general location for that initial impact.

Jeff Barber 33:20
Okay, yeah, that’s great. So one question I often hear from riders is about the safety of mounting accessories to their helmets. So for mountain bikers, that’s going to be a light or a camera or something like that. Is that something that has been tested? Or is that a factor that people should consider? In your opinion?

Barry Miller 33:44
We don’t test that, but for the most part, cameras and attachments, they’re pretty frangible. As they get hit, they’re going to break. Even the visors, right? They’re just not rigid enough to actually move your head without breaking. So usually they’re pretty frangible materials, and so they usually break on impact. They probably don’t make much of a difference in impact performance. Because, again, if you had a severe oblique impact and a projectile like a camera, and you happen to hit way up here, it might cause a little bit more rotation, but again, it’s probably going to break before it actually has a significant effect on how the helmet performs.

Jeff Barber 34:33
Makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. So you mentioned, and the lab actually got started with football helmets. And so I’m curious, technology-wise, how do bike helmets compare to helmets that are used for other sports like football and hockey?

Barry Miller 34:49
Well, football, those are multi-impact helmets. So football helmets are the most advanced sport helmet on the market. The energy they absorb is phenomenal. So if you knew you were going to hit your head, I’d wear a football helmet. Granted, they’re five pounds, but I think there is still some opportunity to take the technology or the advancements in football and apply them to bike helmets. They might get a little heavier, and that’s not always the most popular with consumers, but I’m a mountain biker, and I only bike for an hour. I could certainly tolerate a helmet a little bit heavier if the impact protection was that much better. Yeah. Now football players wear it for two, three hours during practice, and they seem to be okay, right? If you’re competing, then obviously weight and ventilation and aerodynamics are all going to play a role. But a bigger, safer helmet would be better for most people. Yeah, right. So, and then the padding materials they use are different. They’re non-deformable, right? So they can take impact after impact without any permanent deformation. So, yeah, yeah. And they have some unique layering and geometries. If you go to like Riddell football helmets webpage, or Schutt and Vicis, even the new LIGHT helmet with Kollide impact technology, it’s a 3D printed material. So the geometries inside those are unique, kind of what I talked about, some of these lattice, honeycomb type structures that absorb energy really, really well.

Jeff Barber 36:29
Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like, yeah, I mean, you’ve mentioned the geometry a few times now, and so it sounds like, is that something that has only been possible recently because of computer-aided design, or how are those designs coming out and why hadn’t we seen them before?

Barry Miller 36:49
Well, football helmets have had them a long time.

Jeff Barber 36:49
Okay.

Barry Miller 36:49
Probably it’s the weight of those materials. And a football helmet might from your head to the exterior of the helmet might be, what is that, two to three inches? Wow. That kind of spacing gives you an opportunity to create those materials and buys you time to better attenuate energy. Right, right. Lower profile bike helmets, well, we don’t have the distance to work with. It’s more of a challenge, and that’s why I said, yeah, if bike helmets got a little bit bigger and a little bit heavier, we could further enhance impact performance. Yeah. As long as you’re not racing, and time is not critical, I think, or we used to say, why don’t you have a practice helmet where your impact exposure is higher? Yeah. And then a race helmet. Then you have your competition day helmet, which is safe, but it’s more aerodynamic, it’s lighter, and you’re maximizing or minimizing time. Then maybe you have two helmets, one for practice, one for games, so to speak.

Jeff Barber 37:58
Yeah. I mean, I think you’re right that comfort is a huge factor in terms of the weight and ventilation for bikers. But I think maybe just as important, or even more important, for a lot of riders is how they look. And what you’re describing, a bigger helmet that has more padding, I feel like that would be the biggest resistance is people just wouldn’t like how it looks, which is kind of strange.

Barry Miller 38:27
The equestrian world has a big problem with that. A lot of their helmets just aren’t the best. But it’s an aesthetically officiated sport. You have to look a certain way, and so style makes a big difference. But again, you could probably improve performance quite a bit if you changed how big the helmets are, the geometry. It only evolves. People don’t like to, your typical biker probably doesn’t want to wear a full-face downhill biking helmet either, right?

Jeff Barber 38:27
Right.

Barry Miller 38:27
It’d be safer in the big scheme of things for all kinds of injury scenarios. But what’s your risk? Am I really going to fall? Depending on the type of riding you do, et cetera, and how long the duration of your outing is, that’ll play a factor.

Jeff Barber 39:20
So, yeah, for sure. So what’s next, in your opinion, for bike helmets and bike helmet safety technology? Do you think, have we reached a point where we’ve gotten most of the gains, or are there more things that can be done to make them much safer?

Barry Miller 39:36
We have a couple new prototypes that are going to hit the web page in the next month or two, and then another one about five or six months out that are fantastic. Okay. Their STAR scores are extremely impressive. Even we went, “Wow.” I don’t think they’re done yet. Layering some of these materials, different technologies to optimize impact performance. That might be a possibility. Yeah. It’s easy for us just to test and rate. I don’t know what the best formula is for all these different materials. And they can tune them as well. Whether it’s Koroyd or WaveCel, they can tune those. They can make them longer, shorter, more dense, less dense, more rubbery, change the geometry, and they can make them a little bit wider or narrower, depending on what they’re trying to do. So there’s lots of opportunity. But we always say, it’s a challenge to optimize a helmet when you don’t know the exact energy impact you’re going to be exposed to, right?

Jeff Barber 39:36
Right.

Barry Miller 39:36
So if it was always high energy, you’d know what you could do. Or if it was always a low energy impact, you could certainly design around that. But when you might be exposed to both a low and high energy and everywhere in between, it does become a challenge to optimize that helmet for any given impact scenario, right?

Jeff Barber 41:02
Yeah, yeah. Well, the Virginia Tech helmet ratings have become an important resource for riders, and it’s great to know there are researchers pushing the industry to keep improving. Barry, thanks for sharing your insights today and helping us better understand what’s going on behind the sticker on our helmets.

Barry Miller 41:21
Yeah, you’re welcome. And yeah, reach out anytime, happy to share what we do. And again, kudos to the helmet industry for improving the helmets and making riders more safe. So it’s an exciting time. And yeah, we’ll see where it goes from here.

Jeff Barber 41:35
Awesome. Well, we’ll have a link in the show notes to the Virginia Tech helmet lab website where you can find helmet ratings and get even more info about how those ratings work. And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the Singletracks podcast so you never miss future conversations like this. You can find more interviews, gear reviews and trail recommendations at our website, Singletracks.com. Thanks again for listening. We’ll catch you next time. Peace.