Giro Prolight Cycling Helmet

Funny how what looked like a step back turned out to be a step up. Giro's new Prolight Helmet debuted on the stage to Arcalis in the 2009 Tour de France. It looked odd, as if Giro had given their riders a retro helmet for an important mountain stage. We were right and wrong at the same time. The Prolight shares a name with Giro's debut product, the Prolight, of 1985. But it represents all of Giro's knowledge in weight-saving helmet technology. The goal was to make a 200 gram helmet (and a medium weighs just that), a weight that is 2/3 of their marquee model, the Ionos. 200g is crazy light for a helmet. Even the old leather hairnets of the Merckx era would have trouble crossing this barrier. Giro did a lot of rethinking with this helmet. The changes aren't just the weight, though reducing grams was the point of just about every change. The Roc Loc SL, Giro's secondary retention system, is a completely new design. The obvious is that it saves 20g of weight savings compared to the Roc Loc 4. Elastic and non-elastic segments keep the helmet anchored to your head with a minimum of weight and fuss. There are three "snap baskets" at the forward ends of the Roc Loc SL that allow you to adjust how firmly it grabs your head.Giro also scrutinized the helmet straps. Their usual nylon strap material wasn't light enough, so they searched the world and found some thin Italian nylon strap material. It feels ribbon-thin, yet it's strong enough to survive impacts without ripping. The strap material saves 14g.The adjusting "Tri-Loc" buckles where the helmet straps join were also eliminated. Too heavy. The buckles are now no longer buckles but fixed points. As in, they don't adjust. But this shouldn't result in any worry that the fixed points will result in a helmet position that won't fit with your head. They studied countless heads and determined a position that works with most.Back to our memory of the Prolight. The vents were smaller.