Wout Van Aert, Marianne Vos and their Team Jumbo Visma teammates will wear the newly designed helmets at this year’s Paris Roubaix and Paris Roubaix Femmes, having also worn them during their pre-race scouting rides on Thursday.
Based around the Lazer Vento helmet, which features the new Kineticore rotational impact protection technology, the new helmets will be painted to resemble the human brain, using a pink base colour, with black and yellow markings to create brain contours.
The gory design is sure to grab the attention of race watchers, just as intended. In posts shared on the team’s social media, Jumbo Visma said they hope that by using them they can raise awareness of the importance of wearing a helmet in general, with the aim of increasing helmet use.
The announcement came along with a link to a new website created by the team and their helmet sponsor Lazer. Called UseYourHead, it contains interviews with doctors who have dealt with brain injuries caused by bicycle crashes, statistics supporting helmet use, and case studies of riders who have suffered head injuries in crashes without a helmet.
“Accidents happen, and while we can’t prevent these accidents from happening, we can put the importance of wearing a helmet in the spotlight,” the website says. “Lazer, together with partner team Jumbo-Visma, are addressing this social issue by raising awareness of the importance of wearing a helmet with the aim of increasing helmet use. What better way to grab the attention of many than to show up with a distinctive and outspoken helmet design at the start of one of [the] the biggest cycling races in the world: Paris-Roubaix”
The website also claims that head and brain injuries are reduced by 88% when wearing a helmet, while neck and face injuries are reduced by 33%. It also states that in the Netherlands alone, 50,000 victims of bicycle accidents visit the emergency department annually, with a quarter of them – 12,500 – having a brain injury.
This is actually the second cerebral design helmet we’ve seen recently, with Scottish brand Endura recently announcing the Project Heid (opens in new tab), which features a set of custom helmets painted with CT scans of life-threatening brain injuries of real patients after bicycle accidents. This campaign, which coincided with Brain Awareness Week, saw the helmets auctioned off to raise money for The Brain Charity.
All UCI-sanctioned races require riders to wear helmets, of course, but Paris-Roubaix, with its grueling cobbled terrain, will undoubtedly – and unfortunately – see its fair share of crashes. Even with the best road bike helmets on the market, professional riders can get concussion from a fall, just recently it affected Strade Bianche winner Tom Pidcock.
Interestingly, despite the campaign, Van Aert is not completely abandoning his usual Red Bull helmet design. The Belgian’s helmet usually features a Red Bull theme to mark his personal sponsorship deal, and for this weekend’s race he looks set to wear a helmet that combines the two themes into one.
🔍🧠Our riders will wear this unique helmet during #parisroubaix. pic.twitter.com/n5o0F6BA9pApril 6, 2023