Hey yall, looking to replace my aging Oakley ARO5 aero road helmet with something new and was curious on the experience of other between aero road helmets and more traditionally styled road helmets. I’m looking primarily between the Trek Ballista, Trek Velocis, MET Trenta 3K Carbon, and S-Works Evade 3.
One of the primary reasons I want a new helmet is because riding in the South I’ve noticed a tremendous amount of sweat getting into my eyes throughout a ride. Are the newer aero road helmets getting better with this? Has anyone gone from an aero road helmet back to a more vented helmet and not looked back?
I really like the quirkiness of the new Ballista, but worried I’m going to be in the same boat as my Oakley helmet.
The vented helmets are getting better in the aerodynamics too. For example, the aerodynamic difference between the Giro Eclipse and Giro Aries is only 6% according to the reviews. IMO if you are not looking for a TT specific helmet, the modern vented helmets are most likely aero enough.
Yeah, that is similar to bikes, me thinks: is the Tarmac SL8 an aero bike or a road bike with aero features that has most of the aero benefits of a “true” aero bike?
Most regular helmets have been gaining more aero features while aero helmets have improved a lot when it comes to ventilation.
I have both- Evade 3, Prevail 3 . I live in Texas. They both have the same thicker sweat pad. Older style helmets like yours usually have thinner pads. I use both helmets, depending on the temp and how sticky hot it is. I’m a sweater and they seem to work quite well.
I’ve got a Met Manta (aero) and POC Ventral Air (SUPER airy). my cutoff is 80-85 degrees on the road depending on humidity and directness of sun. Mountain bike is pretty much always the airy helmet. It’s not so much the sweat (you can always supplement with a halo headband), but your head simply overheating. It’s almost like a heat headache for me. I would stay away from wavecel as those types of helmets really overheat as the air doesn’t hardly vent.
My goto for a number of years was a vented Kask Mojito and I bought an aero Abus Gamechanger last year. I’ve been using the Gamechanger 50/50 last summer and pretty much 100% this year. While I think the ventilation doesn’t feel as good, due to the design I get less sweat dripping down the front and haven’t felt like I’ve been overheating due to it (North Carolina summers, but out early so usually 80s, sometimes 90s.) I will likely replace my Kask with the new MIPS Gamechanger that came out this year and use both GCs. I like to have a spare / small rotation.
Living in the summer in the south, it really doesnt matter, i have sweat in my eyes no matter the helmut. The only thing that helps is a sweatband under the helmet. I have both the evade and prevail. I must say, when i do put the prevail on, i do notice quite a bit of air flowing thru it, but like i said, hot and humid and going hard equals sweat, no escaping that
I have an older Balista MIPS and I’ve always found the cooling to be just as good as my previous helmets with a lot more holes in them. They design the airflow to go under the front of the helmet and then over your head.