POC Omne Air Bike Helmet - Whether cycling to work, exploring gravel tracks or on the local trails, the helmet gives trusted protection

Product Information

If you want to dive deep, Virginia Tech goes into great detail covering the science behind the number. For the purposes of this guide though, the lower the number the better and right now the top-ranked helmet, out of 188 tested, has a score of 8.4. If you also see a star ranking, that is the same testing displayed in a different way. Any helmet with a score below 14.00 will have a five-star ranking. Do you need MIPS in a budget bike helmet? What really makes the Omne Air MIPS work as a gravel bike helmet is that it has a casual style that lends itself to the more upright position you often find on a gravel bike. That also works for endurance road bikes as well and POC has some very cool colours available. Stylistically you should be able to match a lot of riding. If you want more specifics though, road bike helmets tend to split into aero, climbing, and city styles. Aero helmets are an excellent way to add aero optimisation without extra cost but they tend to run hotter and weigh a bit more. Climbers helmets have tons of vents and do a great job keeping you as cool as possible while still wearing a helmet. More and more they incorporate some aerodynamics and they tend to be better all around options with a style that fits in on more types of rides. City, or commuter style helmets add features like extra coverage and lights and work best with an upright, relaxed style of riding. How do we test the best road bike helmets? When you actually wear the Kask Elemento though, none of that is what stands out. Instead, what you'll notice is how secure it feels. If you hate the feeling of helmets moving around on your head, this is the one to grab. The rear cradle, with a ton of space for a ponytail in it, hugs down and creates a very solid connection. It doesn't matter if you are bombing down a steep gravel descent or dripping sweat as you climb what seems like a never-ending hill. You'll never feel the need to reach up and adjust your helmet.

If you were to dream up what form an aero road helmet would take, you might very well dream up the Trek Ballista MIPS. The big vents make it easy to stash glasses and more importantly, they keep you cool even on the hottest days. The style is reminiscent of a long-tail TT helmet and Trek goes so far as to say that it offers "very competitive performance among TT helmets." Trek even considered visibility as part of the visual signature and angled the front up so it's easier to see when you are down low in the drops. There's more to the helmet than the look though. The front vents are also good for storing glasses. They technically miss POC's 'Eye Garage' feature, but this is just a small bit of extra high friction material. Not having it feels cheap, but it is ultimately unnecessary. as there's plenty of room to store them and the dozens of options from various brands I've tried all stay put fine. What I haven't done, and you shouldn't either, is to cut corners. Any helmet available will have passed government-mandated test procedures. You have a guarantee of a minimum amount of safety but there's more to a great bike helmet. When you start looking for the best budget bike helmets you want something from a reputable brand.The helmet has 10 ventilation holes and five internal channels, which run uninterrupted in an attempt to allow maximum airflow. POC seems to have used more material to create a larger, more aerodynamic surface area which may account for the added weight in comparison to its competitors. The helmet has a claimed weight of 330g for a size medium, weighing in at 324g on our scales. If you are looking for a helmet to handle commuting duties, there are a ton of options out there. Integrated lighting tends to be a big feature as well as extended coverage and a style that looks good without being too over the top for a mellow commute to work. Many of the choices that fit in this category are expensive with a lot of features. The Giro Escape MIPS keeps it all very simple.

The 360-degree retention system ensures a personalized and comfortable fit (Image credit: Aaron Borrill) Performance When you start your search for the best budget bike helmets you are going to want to start with safety first. That's the whole point of a helmet so it makes sense that you want something safe. Thankfully though, this is a pretty simple part of the buying process. In this review I have leaned into the idea of fashion quite a lot, but it's important to remember that it really doesn't matter, there is no fashion police and you can wear anything you want to wear. The only thing I'd suggest is that it makes you feel comfortable and that it fits.Any helmet on our list will work with any kind of bike you want to use. That said, most riders prefer to match the gear they have with the type of riding they are doing. Some of that is about specific features but it's okay that some of it is just about style. POC is obviously not ashamed to embrace that style element, and the POC Omne Ultra MIPS is unabashedly styled for gravel cycling. The big difference between the two is that Smith adds Zonal Koroyd in addition to MIPS. Koroyd looks a bit like a handful of straws and the idea is that it actually replaces some of the foam to add rotational impact protection right into the helmet itself. There's another interesting effect of the Koroyd though. On the upside, along with the frequent discounts, Smith seems to have confidence in the aero performance. While other brands don't give comparisons, Smith is happy to tell you how the aero performance of the Ignite compares. It's only 1 second slower than the Specialized Evade 2 over 40km. The Evade 3 isn't any faster so that's still a relevant piece of info. There are a variety of reasons that a good helmet might not have MIPS. For one thing, as already mentioned, not every company agrees with the need for a slip-plane system for safety. There are also other companies that do agree with the need but would rather develop a unique system of their own. Some of the technologies that replace MIPS are WaveCel from Bontrager, Kineticore from Lazer, and Koroyd which Smith uses.

When you look at the Giro Aries Spherical, there are almost more vents than helmet and it falls to a set of transparent arches to hold it all together. Instead of putting the MIPS liner inside Giro uses the Spherical design. This allows two parts of the helmet to move against each other with no possibility of interrupting airflow. Then, as a final nod to cooling, there is extensive internal channelling to get the air right where it's needed. Everything combined, Giro claims that compared to the previous Giro Aether MIPS, the Aries ups cooling efficiency by 2.3%. That's on top of 4% less aerodynamic drag plus a Virginia Tech STAR value score of 8.40 making it the #1 ranked helmet tested at the time of writing.If you’re interested in POC Omne AIR SPIN, and you want a slightly unique take on the same helmet, then the Rapha + POC Omne Air might be up your street. As with the standard Omne AIR SPIN, Rapha’s version features the same excellent SPIN safety system, high level of comfort and low weight. It’s also got good ventilation, though you could easily wear this on cold winter days without getting brain freeze. The POC Myelin is a helmet unlike any that's ever been on the market in the past. From a style standpoint, it's a commuter helmet and it's unique even if you don't go farther than that. The outer shell uses a fabric covering and there's no adjustment to the rear cradle. The look would pair well with something from Chrome or Mission Workshop but there's a lot more to it beyond what you can see.

The shape is the same as the basic Omne Air MIPS but the Omne Ultra MIPS has a couple of new appendages. On the right side, there's a bungee cord with enough room for, I guess, tyre levers as shown in one of the POC marketing images. On the other side, you'll find a POC logo on a fabric patch attached to the helmet. There's no practical purpose to this and even swapping it your own patch won't be super easy. Rotational motion is a common cause of concussions in oblique hits to the head. In a crash, the Mips system is designed to move slightly inside the helmet to help redirect forces away from the head. Just like you don't need a gravel-specific helmet like the Omne Ultra, you don't really need a special rain helmet. You could add a helmet cover to whatever helmet you like and it would work. For those who ride in the rain regularly though, the POC Ventral Tempus MIPS is going to be your new favourite option. Don't like wearing a bike helmet? Guess what: nobody does. But we all really should be wearing one any time we hop on our favorite man-powered, two-wheeled transportation. (If your favorite two-wheeled transportation is a motorcycle, I double down on my point.) The one thing I do wish this helmet had was a Virginia Tech score. This doesn't mean anything on its own, but helmets that have a test score from the independent testing facility allow consumers to compare their level of protection in an unbiased way. It's a nice added feature even when it just confirms what we already know.The Omne Air features a single-density EPS foam liner, as well as POC’s SPIN technology, which is designed to protect the head from oblique impacts. A comparable competing technology is MIPS, but whereas MIPS is a plastic liner, SPIN is comprised of a series of silicone pads that replace the foam pads in other helmets. POC says it doesn’t affect fit and is good for the lifetime of the helmet. There is a difference between budget and value. The Bontrager Circuit Wavecel is not the least expensive helmet out there and it's not even the least expensive helmet on this list. This helmet offers a different kind of value though. If you just need one helmet that doesn’t cost much the Lazer Tonic Kineticore will fill that role. On the other hand, if you have a little more money to spend but want something that fills both recreational and commuting roles, that’s where the Bontrager shines. If all helmets pass the relevant certification protocols why do some brands have MIPS? MIPS stands for multi impact protection system and it is a brand name. Like Hoover or Velcro, MIPS has become synonymous with a type of system but it is a brand like any other. If a helmet has MIPS it's because money has changed hands.