Specialized Evade

A month back I bought myself a new helmet for a couple of reasons. The first one is my old helmet was starting to really stink. Even though I replace the pads once a year and try to rinse it out every week, I sweat like a giant hog in a swamp. There's only so much sweat the helmet can take. I'm a very salty sweater, so that makes it even worse. At the end of Covac and Kings Tour of the Quabbin double metric, my jersey and pants are caked in salt. Here is a picture of both helmets. The evade is the first one and the Giro is the second one.

To be totally blunt, I didn't buy the evade for the aero features. I bought it for the looks. Of all the helmets at bike alley, the evade looked the best. Since I was shopping during Tax Free Holiday, I figure might as well get a good helmet this time.

I bought the Giro Eclipse helmet in 2011 from Nashbar for $40.00, so it was a great bargain. For comparison, the Evade cost over $200.00. Now that I've used it for over a month, I'm very happy with the purchase. The thing that surprised me the most isn't the aero features or the look. It's the vents and how much cooler I feel on a hot day.

At 15mph, I can feel the air rush over my head. At faster speeds my head feels cool, instead of like an oven or steamer. I know it's suppose to be designed for aero and save time/watts over 40K, but not overheating is by far the greatest benefit. Feel cooler lets me relax more during rides and lets me focus on riding. I'm not wishing for cooler weather or trying keep the sweat out of my eyes so I can see.

This isn't scientific, but I believe a couple of things contribute to the better cooling and less "sweat in my eyes". The first is the vent design results in much faster flow, which helps evaporate the profuse sweat pouring from my head. The second is the type of padding used isn't as spongy. The Giro pads quickly get soaked with sweat, which ends up pouring down my face and into my eyes. Third is the retention system seems to keep the helmet off my head, which gives air more room to flow. The end result is even when I'm going FTP and sweating up a river, sweat isn't pouring down my face. It's more like a couple of drops every 5-10 minutes versus a constant stream of sweat. I know it sounds gross and nasty, but there's no nice way to say it. I sweat ALOT and have very salty sweat. Back in high school I ran cross country. At the end of a 15mile run, my arms and legs had a layer of salt.

Back to the helmet. The evade is an excellent helmet for those who sweat profusely. It's clear the designers at Specialized took their time to make sure venting worked well. Even if you don't sweat like a hog, it looks great and will save you some watts.