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Giro Aeon helmet Giro Aeon helmet Giro Aeon helmet Giro Aeon helmet Giro Aeon helmet
Giro Aeon helmet

Giro Aeon helmet

8
by dave atkinson
UPDATED Thu, Oct 15, 2015 04:24

First Published Mar 21, 2014

39
£199.99

VERDICT:

8
10
Very good pro-level lid that's light and comfortable
Weight: 
197g
Contact: 
www.zyro.co.uk
How we test

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Giro's Aeon has been in the range for a few years now, but it's still easily holding its own as a really well ventilated, lightweight race helmet. It replaced the Prolight and Ionos at the top of the Giro pile; the Prolight has since been discontinued and the Ionos moved down to the second tier, £40 cheaper.

With our test model creeping under 200g by three grams, the Aeon is one of the lightest helmets out there. The fact that it's hugely ventilated helps with that; the Aeon features a thermoformed skeleton inside the EPS foam to keep the structure rigid. The shell is bonded in the mould for extra resilience, as you'd expect from most lids these days. The Aeon conforms to European CE standards.

Retention on your bonce is taken care of by Giro's Roc Loc 5 which is a minimal-but-very-effective clicky dial affair with enough up and down adjustment to get it just so on the back of your head.

The lightweight theme is carried on to the webbing straps that are noticeably thinner than usual. They're a bit more flexible as a result, and sit very comfortably against the sides of your head. The strap guides at the side of the helmet have shrunk a bit too, but they're still very usable and you can adjust the length of the front and rear straps for a perfect fit, which isn't possible with some lightweight retention systems.

Once it's on you'd barely know it was there. The 24 vents let masses of air through and the pads, although minimal, are perfectly placed to keep the lid comfy. They're contain silver antibacterial fibres too to keep the whiffs at bay. It feels plenty comfortable with the flexible straps and lightweight retention keeping everything firmly in place. As always, helmet fit is a pretty personal affair but I found the Aeon to be nigh-on perfect for my averagely-shaped bonce.

At a penny under £200 this is at the top end of what you can pay, and with helmets like Giro's own Savant providing much of the performance for a lot less than half of the price, you're properly in the rarified realms of incremental gains here. But it's a very good, very light, pro-level race helmet so if that's your kind of thing, you won't be disappointed with the Aeon.

Verdict

Very good pro-level lid that's light and comfortable.

road.cc test report

Make and model: Giro Aeon helmet

Size tested: Medium, Fluo Orange

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

MAXIMUM VENTILATION, MINIMAL WEIGHT, ZERO COMPROMISE

You wanted a lighter helmet, a cooler helmet, a better helmet '' so we created one. Starting with a full roster of our best features, we optimised every component in the Aeon™ including the shape of the helmet itself, reducing weight by 28 percent compared with its predecessor. We also sculpted massive vents with interior channeling for best-in-class cooling power and integrated the adjustability and comfort of Roc Loc® 5, for a luxurious feel with all the performance you need.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

FEATURES:

X-Static® padding

Featherweight webbing with Slimline buckle

 

CONSTRUCTION:

In-Mold polycarbonate shell with EPS liner

Thermoformed SL Roll Cage™ reinforcement

 

FIT SYSTEM:

Roc Loc® 5

 

VENTILATION:

24 Wind Tunnel™ vents with internal channeling

 

SUPER FIT™ SIZES:

S 20'-21.75' / 51-55cm

M 21.75'-23.25' / 55-59cm

L 23.25'-24.75' / 59-63cm

Sizes Available:

L 59-63CM

M 55-59CM

S 51-55CM

Colours Available:

BLACK

BLACK/RED

BLACK/WHITE

BLUE/BLACK

ORANGE/WHITE

TITANIUM

WHITE/SILVER

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
9/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
9/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
8/10
Rate the product for weight, if applicable:
 
10/10
Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
8/10
Rate the product for value:
 
6/10

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Very well indeed

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Fit, weight.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

The fact that you can get Giro's excellent Savant for £140 less.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.

Would you consider buying the product? No, I'm more comfortable a few rungs down the helmet ladder.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes, if top-level gear was their thing.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 40  Height: 190cm  Weight: 102kg

I usually ride: whatever I'm testing...  My best bike is: Genesis Equilibrium 853

I've been riding for: 10-20 years  I ride: Every day  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: commuting, club rides, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling, track

 

Giro Aeon helmet
Giro
Dave Atkinson

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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39 comments

Avatar
russyparkin replied to kie7077 | 10 years ago
0 likes

um... dont buy one then.

pretty simple, we have to thank the lovely people that do buy them though as the tech trickles down to the £50 helmets

savant is what i would buy as i know its basically the same but if mr large wallet feels faster in his £200 one then just remember to thank him for making yours cost less

kie7077 wrote:

Low weight, extremely high amount of venting, more advanced construction and materials all go into the cost.

Low weight - a bit less polystyrene, should be cheaper.

High venting? and? why should bigger holes cost more?

More advanced construction? The worker in china got paid 50p no change there.

Materials: plastic, nothing fancy.

If you want complicated construction look at a cassette walkman from 30 years ago, they cost £10 back then, nothing about these helmets comes close in complexity.

Avatar
Accessibility f... replied to russyparkin | 10 years ago
0 likes
russyparkin wrote:

tech trickles down

lmfao. It's just a piece of polystyrene with some coloured plastic bits here and there. There's no "tech" to speak of.

The cheap helmets available today look no different to the cheap helmet I bought 25 years ago. Trickle down, lol.

Avatar
lookmanohands | 10 years ago
0 likes

37

3 - 2 - 1 helmet debate (snigger)

Avatar
Accessibility f... | 10 years ago
0 likes

So what extra security does this helmet provide when compared with cheaper helmets under £50?

I mean, that's the only reason we wear them, right? For safety? So why review a safety product and not include anything about safety?

Avatar
chadders | 10 years ago
0 likes

Surely its not £200 worth of materials and manufacturing costs. But whilst people pay daft money for these helmets the makers will slowly up the cost as has happened over the last 10 years since helmets became compulsory in the pro peleton,
hang on is there a like there!!!!!

Avatar
kie7077 | 10 years ago
0 likes

My value scale for all polystyrene helmets:

£20 2-stars
£40 1-star
£60 and above 0-stars

CTC Helmet Debate

Avatar
indyjukebox replied to kie7077 | 10 years ago
0 likes
kie7077 wrote:

My value scale for all polystyrene helmets:

£20 2-stars
£40 1-star
£60 and above 0-stars

CTC Helmet Debate

You need to work harder to get a better paid job then. Our take away last night cost about £60. £60 for a piece of safety equipment sounds fine to me, not 0 stars.

See what I did there? Its perspective isn't it? Don't like it, don't buy it. Just stop wasting our time ranting about things you cannot or want to afford.

Perhaps the website should only review lids from poundland/Lidl/Aldi all the time? Will that make you happy?

Avatar
harrybav replied to indyjukebox | 10 years ago
0 likes
indyjukebox wrote:

You need to work harder to get a better paid job then.

Sounds a lot like Top Gear's embarrassing, boorish "Work harder and buy a car" line, designed to bully and infuriate by knowingly misrepresenting cyclists as poor and jealous (half of London's cyclists are architects and IT workers, as TG well knows, even if their less urbane fans won't). Let's not even start on the link you are suggesting between the low pay of groups like nurses and soldiers and their not working hard enough. 13

You could rebut this daft "poor value" point easily and cleanly - there's simply nothing wrong with people buying and enjoying upmarket pro-level bike gear - without going down that embarrassing, boorish road.

Avatar
gb901 replied to indyjukebox | 10 years ago
0 likes
indyjukebox wrote:
kie7077 wrote:

My value scale for all polystyrene helmets:

£20 2-stars
£40 1-star
£60 and above 0-stars

CTC Helmet Debate

You need to work harder to get a better paid job then. Our take away last night cost about £60. £60 for a piece of safety equipment sounds fine to me, not 0 stars.

See what I did there? Its perspective isn't it? Don't like it, don't buy it. Just stop wasting our time ranting about things you cannot or want to afford.

Perhaps the website should only review lids from poundland/Lidl/Aldi all the time? Will that make you happy?

That a boorish prig - bet he's got a small penis as we'll?

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