With this article I’m going to give you an overview of the very best open face mountain bike helmets.
And with very best I mean that any one of these helmets offers the most protection in case of a crash, and are generally meant for both trail and enduro riding.
Very best also means very best in extracting money from your wallet, because the average suggested retail price of these beauties is above 200 USD.
Each entry includes the MIPS technology, which is a thin liner suspended in the helmet with elastomers that allows for a modicum of helmet movement upon impact, reducing the amount of rotational energy which is transferred to the head. It seems that as far as helmets are concerned you either join the MIPS bandwagon, or you’re out of the game in terms of credibility as a premium helmet manufacturer.
Other notable technologies is the Spherical reinforcement, e.g. a roll-cage for helmets, breakaway visors, and other forms of reinforcing the helmet. You can find a table overview of all technologies used at the end of the article.
For now, let’s see what I deemed worthy to go on my list of the best open face mountain bike helmets.
Troy Lee Designs A2
The Troy Lee Designs A2 is one of the most affordable, high quality, open-faced mountain bike helmets worth your money.
It offers superb comfort and fit, with an anti-bacterial X-Static Pure Silver padding. The padding sits within a dual-density EPS liner. The polycarbonate shell wraps around the edges to further protect the rather delicate EPS.
The decade-old design has been updated to feature the MIPS technology. Safety is further enhanced with the bolt-on breakaway visor, and 3-point fit system.
Part of the popularity of the A2 can be attributed to the comfort it provides. Both with the excellent fit and its ability to keep your head cool when you try and get the most out of your ride. 2 vents on the side extend far into the front. Together with elongated vents on top they suck in cool air, which can exit through a number of vents located at the back.
It’s a great looking helmet, available in many colors, with a perfect track record in crash protection, for a price below many of the top-of-the-line offerings from its competitors. An unbeatable proposition when it comes to mountain bike helmets.
- Best-in-class safety for a reasonable price when compared to the competition
- None
Troy Lee Designs A1
The Troy Lee Designs A1 takes everything from its more premium brother the A2, but is offered with a standard EPS liner instead.
Furthermore it comes with a regular padding not the X-Static one.
This shaves a couple of dollars from the price, which means you still get a great-fitting, comfortable helmet that excels in the area it should excel in, which is safety and crash protection.
- If the A2 is a bit too much for your budget
- The A2 is better
Fox Racing Dropframe Pro
The design of the Fox Racing Dropframe Pro is certainly unique, and a hit-or-miss design-wise depending on the person you speak to.
Design arguments aside, what you can’t deny is the added amount of crash protection you get with this helmet, there’s simply more of it.
The shell is made from a mix of thermoplastic, polycarbonate, and polyamide instead of your regular polycarbonate. The liner is a dual-density EPS for added energy absorption versus a regular EPS liner.
The helmet wraps around the ears, providing more coverage without getting in the way of your field of vision. And it also comes with the MIPS crash technology, something almost every high-end helmet currently has.
At 460 grams it’s about a hundred grams heavier than your standard open face mountain bike helmet, but that added weight is something you won’t notice while riding.
One thing to keep in mind is that the visor is fixed into place, which might impair your vision on very steep descends.
Because the helmet covers a much greater area, Fox decided to ditch the adjustment wheel normally used to create the desired fit. Instead Fox achieves a comfortable fit by providing a padding fit kit with two different sets of padding. Together with the Fidlock buckle it does a great job in keeping the helmet in place.
In terms of heat management, more coverage also means more heat buildup. If you’re using this helmet for a lot of ascending, it’s noticeably warmer. On the other hand, slow climbing is not really the intended use of this helmet.
The Fox Racing Dropframe Pro is a perfect choice for those who’re seeking for more protection, without wanting to ride with a full face helmet. And it fulfills this role outstandingly, offering better crash protection than any other standard open face mountain bike helmet.
- Offering more protection over your standard open face helmet, without neeing to go for a full face one.
- The design, the fixed visor, heat buildup
Fox Racing Speedframe Pro
The Fox Racing Speedframe is the same helmet as the Pro version in everything but a small number of features.
The Speedframe Pro is one of the best helmets in terms of safety, and the standard Speedframe inherits many of its safety features except for the multi-density EPS liner.
The helmet is known for having an excellent fit, and you can fit a pair of goggles underneath the 3-point adjustable visor, as well as stash your glasses.
A good fit without pressure points, and a huge number strategically placed vents funneling air into and over your scalp keeps the heat buildup at bay. The air flow is especially noticeable when you pick up speed.
To keep the price down when compared to the Pro version, there’s a cheaper liner and the Fidlock snap buckle is missing from the straps, in an otherwise similar 360 degrees fit system.
It’s a great-looking mountain bike helmet, available in many colors and 3 sizes to choose from.
- One of the safest mountain bike helmets, in lots of different color variations.
- None
Giro Merit Spherical
The Giro Merit Spherical offers superb crash protection in a fantastic open face mountain bike helmet.
There are multiple crash technologies ensuring this helmet sits at the top of the range in terms of protecting. As do many other helmets it offers MIPS technology. The Merit uses MIPS Air which is the lightest variant.
Furthermore it offers Spherical technology, commonly referred to as a ball-and-socket setup where the inside of the helmet can move independent from its outer shell. A dual-density EPS liner is the last piece of tech to ensure maximum crash protection.
The entire package is still very light at 360 grams. Other great features are the bolt-on adjustable visor and the multi-point Roc Loc adjustment system.
The only downside I can think of is that you have to pay a lot of money for all that tech.
- One of the best open face mountain bike helmets, period.
- Very expensive
Giro Manifest Spherical
The Giro Manifest Spherical offers the airiness of a road bike helmet in an open face mountain bike helmet package.
The general notion of this helmet is that Giro played around with the design of the helmet to ensure maximum air flow. With 19 air vents it seems to do the trick creating probably the best mountain bike helmet for hot summer rides.
In terms of protection it offers the same as the already very expensive Giro Merit Spherical, but tops it off with an added ring of polycarbonate called the Auro Arch, which serves as a kind of roll-cage for your head.
So it means you also get the MIPS Air technology, the Spherical ball-and-socket setup for the EPS liner, which has a dual-density characteristic.
The Manifest is not only one of the safest helmets on the market, it’s also one of the best-ventilated. A total of 19 huge vents in a relative low-weight package ensure maximum air flow and a reduced risk of heat building up. When you don’t do prolonged stretches of slow climbing the chances of the helmet feeling hot and uncomfortable is near zero.
Does that kind of tech win awards in the safety department? Yes it does. Does that kind of tech win awards in how fast it’ll drain your wallet? It does that equally impressive, being the most expensive helmet of its specific category.
- Jam-packed with award-winning crash technology to create the ultimate mountain bike helmet for hot summer trail riding.
- Extremely expensive
Bell Super Air Spherical
The Bell Super Air Spherical is their top-of-the-line open face mountain bike helmet.
It has everything you’d expect from a helmet manufacturer’s flagship product. MIPS Spherical ball-in-socket liner, a reinforced polycarbonate shell, and multi-density EPS liner.
The helmet offers generous covers, an adjustable visor, smart ventilation, and is slightly heavier than the average helmet at 410 grams.
The helmet offers room for both glasses and goggles, and has a special slot for a GoPro mount.
I love the overbrow ventilation and sweat guide padding to prevent sweat from dripping onto my glasses, which is an incredible nuisance when riding.
The Super Air sits at the top of how much you can spend on a half shell mountain bike helmet. Its features do justify the cost in comparison.
- Premium half shell mountain bike helmet ticking all the boxes, and then some.
- Extremely pricey
Bell Sixer MIPS
One tier below the Super Air sits the Bell Sixer MIPS.
In terms of value-for-money it’s significantly less expensive, while only sacrificing the full-face optional chin bar and Spherical technology.
It doesn’t mean this helmet is not expensive, it’s just that the Super Air is really expensive. But what you do get for that type of money is the same solid design and MIPS Evolve protection underneath a reinforced polycarbonate shell. This helmet also features the progressive EPS 3-part layering.
One of the things I especially like about this helmet is the 3-point adjustable visor. The ratcheting mechanism lets you easily click the visor in the right position. You can store your eyewear at the front or back.
For an open faced mountain bike helmet it’s really well ventilated. I don’t know exactly how this Dual-flow Ventilation system works, but it does, and that’s what matters.
The Float Fit system lets you adjust, tighten or loosen the fit with a dial, and includes 4 positions for vertical adjustment as well.
- Offers ample protection with very little compromise in a gorgeous design.
- None
POC Kortal Race MIPS
The POC Kortal Race MIPS is a trail and enduro open face mountain bike helmet offering above-average coverage and protection in a very premium package.
The Swedish company has made an exquisite-looking helmet with a Halo’s Master Chief blocky design. But rather than fighting the flood, you’ll be tackling the trail with one the most unique entries in the open face mountain bike helmet lineup.
With almost every helmet manufacturer choosing to integrate MIPS technology into their premium offerings, POC decided to ditch their otherwise excellent SPIN crash protection in favor of the newest MIPS Integra version. It means the MIPS system is customized for the specific helmet, which should improve its effectiveness in decreasing rotational impact damage.
Something they call an aramid bridge is part of the helmet, which sounded very much like the Kevlar breaker used in tires to make them more puncture resistant. Aramid, which is the non-brand name of Kevlar, is not meant to protect the tube in this case, but to protect your head. It’s not known for being inexpensive and neither is this helmet.
They also included a NFC medical ID, and Recco reflector. To me that means you’re either one of the most hardcore lone-wolf riders out there, or a tad too much. The stuff is usually reserved for people who’re being rescued unconsciously from underneath an avalanche.
Neatly placed dual slits in the front of the helmet keep your brow cool. This is the most important area to keep cool because much more than simply being a nuisance, sweat buildup can trickle over your glasses or into your eyes. Goggle straps don’t cover the ventilation holes and the helmet is designed in such a way that it does an excellent job of moving air into, over, and out the back of the helmet.
The 3-position adjustable visor sits quite high so you’ll have no trouble propping your glasses underneath them. On the other hand, when confronted with a low-sitting sun, you might still get blinded.
It’s a tad heavier because of the amount of coverage it provides, and fits snugly around your head with the 360 Fit system.
- Large coverage provides extreme levels of protection for trail and enduro riders.
- You pay the hefty price for tech you might not need
POC Tectal Race MIPS
The white/orange version of the POC Tectal Race MIPS has the honor of being my personal favorite bike helmet design-wise. But what’s more important than how I feel about design is whether or not it does the job it was designed for. And as with many POC products, it does.
Similar to its bigger brother, the Kortal Race, it offers the MIPS Integra version of this crash technology, aimed at the reduction of energy transfer caused by rotational forces during an impact.
It also features the aramid reinforcement attached to the EPS liner, otherwise known as Kevlar.
And where it ditches the NFC chip, it still has the Recco Reflector should you find yourself flying off the trail and ending somewhere in the ravine.
The ventilation is similar to that of the Kortal Race, with the exception of the dual slits, which are missing in this model. Yet, the helmet offers the same fantastic air flow into the helmet.
The helmet offers a snug fit, but it is still highly ventilated offering great air flow capability. It has a standard helmet weight of around 365 grams.
- Fantastic design, great protection, snug fit
- Snug fit
Specifications open face mountain bike helmets
Name | Price | Technology | Shell | Liner | Visor | Fit | weight (gr) | eyewear port | rating | Buy at Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Troy Lee Designs A2 | 170 USD | MIPS | polycarbonate | dual density EPS | bolt-on breakaway | 3-point dial fit | 350 | yes | 9.99 | |
Troy Lee Designs A1 | 145 USD | MIPS | polycarbonate | EPS | bolt-on breakaway | 3-point dial fit | 393 | yes | 11.65 | |
Fox Racing Dropframe Pro | 200 USD | MIPS | thermoplastic polycarbonate polyamide | dual density EPS | integrated | custom padding w. Fidlock buckle | 460 | 8.85 | ||
Fox Racing Speedframe Pro | 190 USD | MIPS | polycarbonate | dual density EPS | 3-position adjustable | 360° Fit System w. Fidlock buckle | 380 | yes | 10.84 | |
Giro Merit Spherical | 220 USD | MIPS Air/Spherical/Hardbody | polycarbonate | dual density EPS | bolt-on adjustable | Roc Loc 5 Air | 360 | yes | 9.90 | |
Giro Manifest Spherical | 260 USD | MIPS/Spherical/Hardbody/Aura Arch | polycarbonate | dual density EPS | bolt-on adjustable | Roc Loc 5 Trail w. Fidlock buckle | 340 | yes | 12.20 | |
Bell Super Air Spherical | 235 USD | MIPS Air/Spherical | polycarbonate | Progressive Layering 3-layer EPS | adjustable | Float Fit | 410 | |||
Bell Sixer MIPS | 170 USD | MIPS Evolve | polycarbonate | Progressive Layering 3-layer EPS | 4-position adjustable | Float Fit Race | 395 | 15.56 | ||
POC Kortal Race MIPS | 250 EUR | MIPS Integra/Aramid bridge | polycarbonate | EPS | 3-position adjustable | adjustable 360-degree fit | 407 | yes | ||
POC Tectal Race MIPS | 230 EUR | MIPS Integra/Aramid bridge | polycarbonate | EPS | adjustable | adjustable 360-degree fit | 365 | yes |
Johan van Seijen
FoundeR Restoration.bike
Johan van Seijen is the founder of restoration.bike. His passion for cycling in general, and restoring older bikes turned into a website to share his knowledge with a broader audience. Starting out on his father’s road bike and riding classics as the Amstel Gold Race and Liege Bastogne Liege he has shifted his attention to trail, XC, and gravel riding since. No matter how much he loves writing about everything related to cycling, nothing beats actually using his ever-expanding bicycle collection.
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