Every afternoon, I Picked up my two kids, ages 4 and 7, over our ebike. The second time their feet touched the ground in my house, their hands immediately supported their chin and put their helmets on their heads. Before I could dive and rescue them—accident! Smash it! They blew their helmets off. The flimsy helmet touches the ground with a cracked.
I try my best to stop them, but it’s hard to blame them. Helmets can be substantial reduce the risk of injury, but they’re also annoying. I would never consider cycling without a bike (ah, almost never), but most every helmet I tried to be huge and cumbersome, both to wear and carry. They must fit exactly. They are expensive, and most importantly, they are single-use items.
Most bike helmets are made from hard, expandable polystyrene foam. To protect your noggin, the foam will absorb the force of impact impact by breaking. Not only do they have to be changed after a crash, a 4-year-old banging his helmet repeatedly against a wall can affect their safety. And what if you’re facing a long walk home and want to rent a convenient scooter or e-scooter instead of riding a Lyft? Forget it. Go ahead, meet the sidewalk.
But what if you had a helmet that was convenient, comfortable, and didn’t make you feel like a little piggy when you put it on? The Newton-Rider N1 helmet has garnered rave reviews from almost everyone who has seen me wear it. It is compact and stylish and is half the thickness of a normal helmet. It sits on top of your head like a beanie, instead of spinning tightly around your scalp. We’ve seen other solutions to this problem before, but for $300, a helmet with an airbag like Hovding not particularly accessible. They’ve also been around for a few years and have yet to see widespread adoption. N1, however, price $99.
Gear head
Photo: Newton-Rider
The Newton-Rider N1 folds up to fit comfortably in your bag and is designed to protect your head against multiple impacts, not just one. That reduces waste and saves you money.
The helmet’s protection comes from a series of plates, connected by stretchy and durable fabric. Each panel consists of three layers of protection: a tough polycarbonate shell, impact-absorbing elastomer polyurethane foam, and an inner core made up of what Newton-Rider calls a “metamolecule,” made of a substance exclusively non-Newtonian thermoplastic elastomers.
