First Look: Bontrager's New WaveCel Helmet Technology
Trek and Bontrager have debuted a new helmet construction technology that's claimed to be 48 times more effective than EPS foam at preventing concussions. It's called WaveCel, and it uses a collapsible cellular material that's designed to flex, crumple, and glide during an impact in order to absorb the force of an impact. It doesn't entirely replace the EPS foam in a helmet, but the amount of foam that's used is greatly reduced. The EPS acts as the helmet's exoskeleton, with the WaveCel material situated underneath. The structure of this new material bears a resemblance to the inner profile of corrugated cardboard, which makes sense – it needs to be strong in one direction, but also able to deform during an impact.
WaveCel was developed over the course of the last four years by Dr. Steve Madey, an orthopedic surgeon, and Dr. Michael Bottlang, a biomedical engineer. The two have worked together for more than two decades on other projects related to head injuries and fracture care.
According to WaveCel's peer-reviewed study, WaveCel equipped helmets significantly reduced the probability of a mild to moderate concussion during an impact. Three styles of helmet were tested – a CONTROL helmet, which used only EPS foam, a MIPS-equipped helmet, referred to as SLIP, and a WaveCel helmet, referred to as CELL. According to the article, “SLIP helmets significantly reduced the probability of sustaining AIS 2 brain injury compared to CONTROL helmets in all impact scenarios, with reductions ranging from 32% to 91%. CELL helmets significantly reduced P (AIS 2) compared to CONTROL helmets in all impact scenarios, with reductions ranging from 81% to 98%.”
In other words, the MIPS liner did help, but the WaveCel-equipped helmet performed even better. In addition, all of Bontrager's WaveCel helmets received 5 stars, the highest ranking possible, in tests performed by Virginia Tech.
The WaveCel material is designed to flex, crumple, and glide during an impact.
According to Bontrager, WaveCel does add approximately 53 grams to a helmet, but that seems reasonable if the material works as claimed. The open design should help keep air flowing into the helmet, and Bontrager say that because a WaveCel helmet uses less foam it's inherently cooler than a traditional helmet – we'll see if that's the case once we have a helmet in for review.
The shape of WaveCel may bring to mind Koroyd, the material that uses hundreds of bonded tubes to provide impact protection. The difference between the two is that WaveCel is designed to both mitigate linear and angular impacts, while Koroyd is mainly used to reduce linear impacts, which is why helmets that use Koroyd often have a MIPS liner added in.
Bontrager's Blaze WaceCel MTB helmet
Initially, there will be four helmets in Bontrager's line that use the WaveCel technology - two road helmets, a mountain bike helmet, and a commuter helmet. The Blaze WaveCel MTB helmet shown above retails for $299.99, which includes a crash replacement guarantee that allows riders to receive a free replacement if it's damaged within the first year. Other non-WaveCel related features include a Boa dial retention system, a Fidlock magnetic buckle on the chinstrap, and Bontrager's Blendr system that allows a GoPro or light to easily be mounted to the top of the helmet. The claimed weight for a size medium is 420 grams, and there are three sizes and five color options.
Bontrager's WaveCel design certainly looks promising, and the more options on the market that can potentially help prevent concussions the better. We'll be taking a closer look and digging into more details about this new technology in the near future.
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Remember back when MIPS was a 100$ markup? Now you get MIPS helmets for 80$. Things are looking up for the future of head-bashing.
We all now you love Trek.
Yes- your helmet did receive a 5 stars from Virginia Tech's independent testing; however, is it any better? Two cheaper more 'standard' helmets outperformed your helmet: www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
Someone really needs to step up and do a thorough review of this stuff to cut through all the marketing hype and find a way to quantify all the different tech.
I'm currently looking for a new helmet. There is nothing wrong with my current helmet but it is 5 or so years old and im ok with spending some more coin if its going to make my head safer. The problem is sifting through they hype to find actual benefits between the brands.
Also: You're wrong about there being nothing wrong with your helmet. Usually a helmet's lifetime is maximum 5 years for regular users, but with more use involving sweat and perspiration, this effectively cuts the helmets lifetime down to around 3 years. This is because the styrofoamish material which dampens impacts, gets harder over time and this is accelerated with the salts and minerals in your sweat and perspiration, significantly reducing your helmet's ability to absorb an impact. This is why I change all my helmets every 3 years.
How do you know they will be doing this? And does this include the ATB 1 helmet?
Would love for them to test the TLD A1 as well.
My concussion: 2014
ER CoPay: $200
Neurologist Follow Up: $50
Psychiatrist cost to deal with the anxiety and panic attacks that started showing up: $25/mo for 4.5 years
Medication to deal with Panic Attacks: $60/month 4.5 years
Appointments with Counselor for CBT: $80/2weeks for three months
I'm still not out of the woods, and at this point I'm not sure I'll ever be. $300 is a small price to pay for this much of a reduction in concussion risk.
Well here in Czech I would pay nothing of the above, but of course it doesn´t mean I am riding without a helmet.
I hope Giro will bring some news in this dept. as I see them being more on the "safety for riders" side as they are selling MIPS helmets from 55 USD
What you're missing here is cost of R&D, testing, production (starting small ish scale). It takes time for these sunk costs to pay off and for production to ramp up - the first generation (or three) of everything isn't cheap.
First MIPS tech added like $100 to the cost of the helmet, despite being essentially being a plastic slip plane, but as you mention, you can now get full helmets with it for $55.
Early adopters will pay a little more (as happens in every industry), but will help pay down those sunk costs and demonstrate the need for production at scale. If you don't want to pay $300, wait 3-5 years. Otherwise, be an early adopter, pay the extra cost and make it happen.
And note that risk reduction and risk prevention are two totally different things.
Wear a helmet everyone. Wear the nicest helmet you can afford. Save money elsewhere.
thanks, this looks like great technology and the looks of the helmet is nice too. rather than b*tch about $300 for a half shell (grrrr!), I'll just ask if you plan on releasing a version with detachable chin bar for us endurobros & gals.
Also, crash replacement guarantee in year 1 is nice. How about extending to 50% cost for year two?
"Since axonal shear strain caused by rotational acceleration is a predominant mechanism of injury in concussions (Meaney and Smith, 2011), strategies for improved helmet designs should therefore target mitigation of rotational acceleration. Results of SLIP and CELL group helmets demonstrated the potential that rotational acceleration of a headform can be significantly reduced by these helmet technologies."
FWIW, I think this technology is one of the more promising ones for bike helmets and definitely should be tested further.
I’d frankly just be happy that I’m cognizant enough to be able to make that decision.
Digging through the articles and references reveals that all testing was done on dummy heads with a thin layer of rubber firmly glued to their metal surface. That might give realistic data with respect to linear impacts, but certainly not with respect to angular impacts because it forcibly eliminates all angular slippage betwen helmet and head.
Clearly not the same as natural hair and skin but it seems to me that there is a) no glued rubber as you claim @Ttimer, and b) they tried to modify the slip to be more similar to natural conditions. FWIW obv.
The stocking might help with reducing bias, but if i were a reviewer i would have liked some good evidence that the stocking actually mimics hair and skin before accepting an article which is specifically about angular impacts.
I suppose using Hybrid 3s in this way is the standard practice in impact testing for linear impacts, and probably works quite well for that purpose.
Now we don't know how good that (quite funny) stocking layer is at mimicking hair and skin, so we don't know how valid the results are.
What the Trek helmet is trying to do is fine-tune slippage layers to absorb energy while still staying mobile. That approach gets messed up by hair, skin and sweat. It could even be that the Trek helmet will perform worse on a realistic head than it does in the study.
By the way, has anyone tried building energy absorption systems into chinstraps and fitting systems?
A confounding factor are rotational impacts that can cause very dangerous tears in the brain tissue, even with low energies involved.
www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html
There is also not a lot of helmets on here.
Less I'm just about to hit home on mother natures best work, Hard!.. then I'll want to be aware it's there, and not about to drop off my oddly shaped noggin when I start ploughing with my head.
This seems a better way to go then a slip plane (mips) between you and the lid, fit wise. though having EPS, and this WaveCel does worry me a tad in terms of heat dissipation, but maybe that would make it a good winter riding lid?
Long live innovation!
Manufacturers need to drop the one-type-fits-all road and mountain bike helmet design and address the common and abundant low-speed hits of mountain biking. Something hard like EPS or anything that gets destroyed in one knock is ridiculous. Those are fine for outer layers to reduce skull fractures, but their engagement needs to be reserved for the rare big impacts.
But "it's better than MIPS" doesn't mean very much. What matters is how it compares to its real competitors, helmets like Kali Interceptor and Leatt DBX 3.0 (both of which are way less expensive). Or Maya 2.0 and DBX 2.0, which are under $100. Just saying it's better than old MIPS isn't nearly enough to get me to persuade me it's the safest or worth the extra price.
Cheers
2) Just reading through the article and it appears they only compared three helmets- The Scott ARX, Scott ARX plus (MIPS) and the Blaze WaveCel. While the Scott ARX was selected based on their ratings with consumer reports 2016- I would hardly assume it represents the diversity of helmets with or without slip liner systems. Just another caution on reading too deeply into the findings. I get why they did that for reliability but it sure kicks some of the validity in the crotch when trying to generalize or isolate the significant construct. The claim that can be made here is that the helmet performed better in their tests than the Scott ARX- not that it performed better than any other helmet out there.I would hope that it is true as it looks cool and has verisimilitude (appears to be the thing it is is said to be)- but lets not run wild with the findings yet. Great work Trek! Look forward to seeing this rolled out and explored more!
"In other words, the MIPS liner did help, but the WaveCel-equipped helmet performed even better. In addition, all of Bontrager's WaveCel helmets received 5 stars, the highest ranking possible, in tests performed by Virginia Tech. "This is not exactly true, is it ? At least for the Blaze.
1) You cannot realistically argue it reduces concussions in a crash unless you have a large diverse sample size and run randomly assorted trial and testing. Given the ethical issues I'd say they didn't. Concussion is a clinical diagnosis meaning Dr. MD sees signs and diagnoses based on the criteria of the signs. Mild impacts still do damage and when we fall we still come to a sudden stop accelerating the brain in the skull towards impacts, coup countrecoup.
2) Reduce impacts, looks like it. They tested three designs with limited numbers or drops in very controlled environments performing standard safety tests of anvil drops and so on. So progress not I am bullet proof and can be dumb under the helmet.
3) Discussion by authors is full of "narrow range impact conditions" and "need for further research". So easy with the sensationalism and hoopla PB, let the authors words speak for themselves and they do a pretty good job a good old modest science.
How about how newly developed oblique-impact tests from multiple angles, that are not currently performed on helmets, are "standard"?
Or perhaps how accurate scientific data can be obtained outside of "controlled environments"?
Finally, I'd like to see who here is deciding to be "dumb under the helmet", and where this claimed "sensationalism" is located?
It is great they had a controlled environment and implemented controls. Now lets see a wider field of test and get closer to real life simulations. It would be cool to see a wider range of helmet manufacturers not just tech as well aggregated into a meta-analysis. The standard should be and I would argue is now something towards MIPS. Simple Styrofoam domes are dinosaurs on the field and we should have a higher bar be set. Judging my the comments here and the efforts already in place to achieve such a thing, I am not alone in such statements.
Again just a caution, don't take the new fangled tech to be an end all to save your noggin. People who are too keen on something that says it prevents a serious injury which is sensational, true or not, should just pull back a little.
So, the baseline for bicycle helmet concussion prevention is almost nothing. Now, multiply nothing by 48. What do you get?
Marketing hype.
Not advocating for going out and buying one, just for careful reading.
It’s dividend and coupon time too.
www.rei.com/search?q=wavecell
I implore you to be the first one.
Do you honestly believe that anyone is going to take more risks after buying a helmet that claims to improve safety (regardless of whether it's true or not)?
Further, do you actually believe the PB videos of people crashing hard INCREASE the number of people willing to take risks that may result in those sorts of crashes & injuries?? Complete opposite for me.
Finally, do you really think that no neurologists were involved in a study supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke?