colintrax wrote:
Mips is nothing but a plastic liner that helps the helmet rotate on your head. It's honestly not a great design, because the ...more
colintrax wrote:
Mips is nothing but a plastic liner that helps the helmet rotate on your head. It's honestly not a great design, because the harder the impact the less the liner is going to work. Doesn't take much effort to dig the liner into the foam and it no longer moves.
6Ds design allows the helmet to rotate with ease regardless of how hard you hit the ground. The bumpers also allow the shell and liner to flex more, which can reduce the acceleration your head receives when hitting the ground.
The leatt does much the same, the bumpers physically touching your head doesn't really matter. Those bumpers both allow the helmet to rotate on your head regardless of impact strength, but also can move in conjuction. Say landing on the top of your head, the bumpers on the top of the helmet can collapse some, absorbing impact. The bumpers on the sides and back can bend allowing your head to push into the liner more. They basically act like ball bearings. Same as 6D. MIPS just doesn't compare.
So yeah, like I said the 6D might be better. I don't know. But the leatt is much closer to a 6D than a mips helmet, except in price...
Are you tied to any manufacturers and the testing involved to be able to make these statements? Helmet safety is such a controversial topic and even the manufacturers-themselves (like Shoei in regards to the new VFX-Evo) are admitting that there are no standardized tests to validate their proprietary systems (MEDS, 6D, Leatt Turbines, etc).
I feel like now everyone is just trying to make up their own "rotational force" systems, but just for the sake of doing it to attempt to stay "in the race". Don't get me wrong - this is great - competition drives evolution, but in the example of Shoei, I feel like the creation of MEDS (for example) is just then saying "shit, we need to come up with a tech we can own to stay relevant".
This is such a crazy subject. So important, but there really is no authority or method to build something that will be safe for everyone, in every situation. The space was stagnant for so long and thanks to MIPS and 6D, helmets are finally changing.
As far as MIPS - Troy Lee himself said they tried to create their own similar system, but he claimed they could not come up with anything better than MIPS, so they embraced it and brought it in.