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There’s a whole new type of helmet emerging on the market. While we’ve seen aero road helmets become a dominant part of a fast cycling kit, the POC Procen Air and Oakley Aro7 helmet take things one step further. These two helmets are aero road helmets that take another half step towards the full time trial helmets of years past.
You can consider these two helmets as specialist options. I love to joke about using them on casual no-drop rides but that’s not actually the use case. Both the POC and Oakley helmets integrate magnetic visors into the design and the POC Procen Air even has ear covers.
These lids are what you grab when you are looking to be as fast as possible, but I wanted to know what you had to give up. This kind of helmet might be fast but is it torture to ride with? I’ve been riding with both for the last few hundred miles and here’s what I’ve found.
Oakley Aro7
I can’t tell you why, but there is virtually no information available about this helmet. It launched a couple of months ago and it’s only just starting to actually be available for purchase. If you head over to the Oakley site it recently hit the webpage. There’s an MSRP of $300 USD for black or white but details continue to be sparse. There is no aero claim, no pictures in a wind tunnel, and the main focus is on the same kind of details you might expect from any modern road helmet. It doesn’t help that it shares a name with a TT helmet from 2017.
Clearly it matters in this case that Oakley is a glasses company first. The included Prizm lens receives the lion’s share of the marketing copy in the description and it is indeed fantastic. As with Oakley glasses, the tint of the lens is ideal for seeing details in pavement while riding and the magnetic system that holds the lens to the brow of the helmet is a joy to use. It’s quick and easy to pop it off and if you want to ride without the lens in front of your face it flips upside down and mounts in the same place. I never once had to hunt for where to place the lens with the Oakley helmet.
Being a glasses company also means that Oakley is a fashion company and, at least to my eye, this helmet is the one that looks best. In the box there’s a large foam case that holds the lens and the helmet and if you leave the lens in there, no one would question the helmet on its own. It looks like an aero helmet with large front vents and rear exhaust, but most people won’t think twice about it until you add the lens.
That focus on standard helmet features continues on the inside as well. Rotational impact protection comes in the form of MIPS Air Node padding and the rear cradle uses a BOA adjuster. The front brow pad is an innovative series of rubberized strips that seal to your forehead while also feeling great against your skin. It helps keep sweat out of your eyes and I wish more helmets used this system. If you are looking for something close to a traditional helmet, this is clearly the best choice.
I suspect that this isn’t the fastest helmet on the market but it really is a joy to have a giant Oakley windscreen in front of your face. The clarity and field of view is astounding even compared to the biggest and best glasses I’ve tested. When you sweat it tends to miss the part of the lens you see through and if you want to stash the lens, it’s no big deal. I kind of love the case too.
What I don’t love about the Oakley is the weight. At 369 grams (size medium), including the 54 gram lens, it’s heavy but it’s more the weight distribution that bugs me. I always want the lightest helmet possible but the right helmet at 315 grams is workable. The issue with the Aro7 is that it’s forward heavy and I found it slipped down my forehead causing the lens to touch the end of my nose. In general I find the amount it moves similar to most helmets but with the lens now a part of the picture, it can be annoying.
This system did not beckon me to try it more than my fast after-work ride. Despite that, there’s a lot to like about the helmet in general. Instead of the Aro7 Road, check out the Aro7 Lite and pick your favorite Oakley glasses.
For more info and to purchase the Aro7 Road or Aro7 Lite visit Oakley.com
POC Procen Air
The POC Procen Air is the polar opposite of the Oakley helmet. Long before it became available for sale it showed up in competition on the heads of both men and women EF Education riders. It first broke cover in the Tour Down Under then later at the Trofeo Palma Femina. There’s also great images of the pink helmet atop Allison Jackson’s head surrounded by pink jerseys. Jackson was, of course, mid-dance move having crossed the line first on the second stage of the Vuelta España Femenina.
When the POC Procen Air launched to the public in April, the $400 USD helmet came with plenty of pictures in a wind tunnel as well as very specific aero claims. As with most brands, POC only benchmarks against the its own helmets, but according to POC when tested against the aero road “Ventral, the Procen Air showed significant performance gains, typically ranging from 5 watts at low speed to 18 watts at high speed (approx. 30-60km/h).”
To get that performance, POC claims that the big vents sit in the high pressure spot where the helmet meets the wind. As the wind hits, some of it escapes through the helmet. That, in turn, helps reduce the pressure at the leading edge making for both a faster and better ventilated helmet.
The other thing that the public release brought was details about how the POC Procen Air was actually constructed. You can’t tell when you see pictures but the ear covers are only thin strips of foam with a fuzzy interior. The inside lacks any angular impact technology and the lens attaches with a series of three magnets. The magnets are so strong that you can’t get the lens off without touching it in two places so there’s a small handle at the top. When it’s time to stash it, POC doesn’t expect it to flap in the wind like Oakley and instead it attaches facing down and at the back of the helmet. The POC helmet is also a little lighter at 355 grams with a 32-gram lens.
What the POC Procen Air does not have going for it is style. This is an outrageous looking helmet and yet, it’s the one I spent far more time in. The weight might be about the same but it’s balanced in a way that doesn’t shift the helmet forward. More importantly, it feels fast.
What I mean by that is actually a lot to do with the noise. When you nail the right position, things get quiet. Wind noise dies away and there’s a quiet feeling of cutting through the air. When you drop your head, as I did after losing an impromptu race with a friend one evening, you can tell right away you are now in the wrong position. Get back into the right position, hands on your tops with flat forearms, and get up to speed then turn your head and you will again feel the shift in both pressure and noise. Without a wind tunnel I’d guess the Procen Air is somewhat forgiving for neck position, as long as you are looking forward, but it needs you to hold a reasonably aero position.
When you do hold an aero position, there’s a reward. Not only can you hear it, you can even feel it a bit. There’s a great balance with the weight on your head and tons of visibility. There’s also very good air movement. The face shield does reduce the feel of air hitting your face but there’s some air moving down from the vents at your forehead. There’s also a lot of air moving across your head.
This helmet was good enough that I kept looking for new ways to test it. After doing a series of flat rides with it I took it to the hills to see how it did. After a series of short rides, often among my fastest, I decided I could take it for 100-ish miles. That 100 mile ride ended up being one my fastest point to point 100 mile rides but it also wasn’t torture. This is clearly a helmet designed for serious riding and racing.
Despite all the good, there are a couple of things I don’t love. The visor is very good, reminding me a lot of the POC Propel glasses I absolutely love, but Oakley Prizm has better contrast. The visor is also very difficult to stash and so far I’ve mostly avoided trying to find the spot where the magnets sit at the back while riding. My biggest issue though, is the lack of rotational impact protection. Although the helmet passes all the required tests, I’d prefer to see something like the SPIN technology found in other POC helmets.
Even with those small details, this is the helmet I’ll be grabbing on a regular basis. I find it unlikely I’ll try to use it for another long ride but next time I want to see if I can break my records after work the POC Procen Air will be with me.
For more info and to purchase the POC Procen Air visit POCSports.com
What’s the point of a visor helmet?
Okay, you’ve read about a couple of crazy looking aero helmets but why should you care and how much can you expect to save with one of these?
If you dive deep into the numbers, you can expect as much savings from the right helmet as you’ll get from a set of fast wheels. To verify that, American wheel brand Flo Cycling has a collection of data available covering the testing the brand carried out. Check the product page for the Flo 64 AS Disc and you can see that with a 28mm tire at 22mph Flo claims a 9.73 watt savings compared to a Mavic box section wheel. You can then compare that to the 2007 Sidelko study showing that at 225 watts, which a rough estimate puts close to 22 mph, an older TT helmet shows savings between 9.3 and 14.3 watts.
Those numbers then match up with Rudy Project and the 12.6 watts that the brand claims is an average savings for the Wing Aero Helmet. This isn’t a time trial post though, and Rudy Project helps us make the connection to everyday riding. Lower down in the same blog post, Rudy claims 20-40 seconds of savings over 40km/25mi for an aero road helmet compared to a minute with a TT helmet.
That’s the place where the POC Procen Air and Oakley Aro7 helmets fit into the conversation. They likely aren’t as fast as a traditional TT helmet but they are faster than an aero road helmet. That probably means in the range of 40-60 seconds over a distance of 25 miles.
To give you a sense of what that actually means for regular people, I spent far too long diving into my own data. What I found is that in my own testing I’m seeing roughly 15 seconds per mile time savings for an aero optimized ride vs a regular ride. That number also tends to hold steady whether that’s a 100-ish mile or a 25-ish mile ride though the average speeds drop for longer rides.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying that by only swapping helmets you will save close to 30 minutes on a 100-mile ride. What I’m saying is that when I put on a fast helmet, ride a fast bike, with fast wheels, and add fast socks. I tend to save about 25 minutes on a fast and focused 100 mile ride. My helmet is only one piece of that puzzle but if I can choose one that’s faster then why not?
I’m not a scientist publishing a detailed study but during the testing for these helmets I managed a number of my fastest rides. Particularly with the POC Procen Air, I’m seeing a number of rides grouped near the top of my charts.
With that in mind, and with my testing largely behind me, I expect that I will continue to ride with a standard aero helmet most of the time. I like being able to pick sunglasses based on fashion and although I’m up for standing out, these are a bit much for me. Both options also tend to be hotter behind the lenses despite having good overall ventilation.
What I know I will do is grab one of these helmets on those days when I’m feeling fast. My after work ride is a 27 mile out and back that I’ve done countless times. Sometimes I want to see what I can do and that’s when I’ll grab a helmet like this. If I raced, I’d for sure want one for race days too.
