Despite being synonymous with cycling glasses, Oakley has never quite managed to crack the code when it comes to cycling helmets. It’s not for a lack of trying – the brand has had several attempts at cycling helmets down through the years – but although you might not have known, they are still offering helmets despite disappearing from the WorldTour with Katusha a few years back.
Now it seems they are about to give the upper echelons of road racing another go as an unidentified aero helmet bearing the Oakley badge has appeared on the heads of Julian Alaphilippe and Marc Hirschi and their new Tudor Pro Cycling team.
Not much is known about the new helmet, and Oakley has not yet responded to a request for comment on the lid, but in a first for an Oakley helmet, visually it’s ticking many of the boxes I’d like to see in a performance helmet.
What are those things? Well, first off, with a mostly closed-off profile and just three forward-facing vents, it’s clearly an aero helmet. It is very reminiscent of the Specialized Evade that tests fast for many riders, and it has a few features of its own that I quite like the look of.
Chief among these is the large central vent and two side openings. That large central vent should provide plenty of airflow onto the head, making the helmet at least somewhat practical on warmer days. But more interestingly, it strikes me as a clever way to use a vent, which typically adds drag, to instead relieve the high-pressure buildup that often occurs on this portion of a helmet.
The leading edge of a helmet is a critical area for aerodynamic performance. As air flows over the helmet, it creates high-pressure zones, particularly around the front and sides. If these pressures aren’t managed properly, they can lead to turbulent airflow and increased drag, known as high-pressure drag. What reduces high-pressure drag, you ask? Either smoothing the airflow with an aerodynamic profile or relieving the pressure by creating an escape route. Unless we go down the route of a fully elongated helmet, like the time trial-specific Giro Aerohead II, some degree of blunt frontal surface is inevitable, leading to high-pressure zones.
Looking at the vent on this new Oakley helmet, it seems to me there has been an effort to relieve that high-pressure zone by opening up as much of it as possible. The sharp, pointed edges around the vent likely help limit remaining high-pressure zones to these specific points. With the rest of the helmet’s surface sweeping backwards, pressure buildup should be lower on these areas.
Of course, there’s a head inside that large vent, so airflow won’t pass through unobstructed. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Oakley has designed large internal channels to guide airflow toward the rear of the helmet, especially given that the upper rear section appears to incorporate a composite technopolymer similar to Kask’s Fluid Carbon 12. If that’s the case, Oakley may be using the material’s enhanced impact absorption properties to reduce the amount of foam required, allowing for larger interior channels that promote airflow and cooling without compromising protection. While this might sound like wild marketing, it’s exactly what Kask did with the Elemento helmet to balance safety, ventilation, and aerodynamics, and having reviewed the Elemento helmet myself, I can confirm that the improved airflow is noticeable.
Whether these channels exist and work as intended may depend on the rider’s hairstyle – some styles could disrupt the flow. Regardless, even if the airflow is blocked inside the helmet, it still has the opportunity to provide some cooling for the rider. Of course, that black panel with the TUDOR logo up top at the rear that I think looks like Fluid Carbon 12 could also simply be plain old black paint and I could be entirely wrong.
It’s unclear whether the two black panels on the shoulder between the top and sides of the helmet are removable to increase ventilation or if they’re simply part of the aesthetic design. They fit so neatly and snugly that I’m inclined to think they’re primarily design elements. However, there’s just enough of a lip along the edge of each to suggest they could be removable plugs, similar to those provided with Scott’s Cadence helmet, which I featured in my favourite things from 2024 list before Christmas.
Below the possible vents on both sides and just above the rim are two small openings set within similar-looking black panels. I’ve specifically chosen the word “openings” rather than “vents” because their placement along the helmet’s sides – set back roughly 30% along the chord length (the straight-line distance from the leading edge to the trailing edge of a surface) – suggests to me a purpose beyond just cooling. Instead, these openings may be intended to manage airflow around the helmet, reducing drag by tripping the flow at this point and providing an early escape route for high-pressure air. This design could help smooth and maintain attachment of the airflow along the helmet’s surface, minimising turbulence in a critical area. Potentially, this design doubles up; where many helmets feature a full-size vent on the sides, the smaller openings may allow Oakley to maintain impact protection with a marginal aerodynamic gain.
There’s also the slight possibility that these openings create a pressure differential between the air passing through the channels and the air flowing along the helmet’s exterior. However, without seeing whether the inner surfaces of these openings flare outward – like, say, a diffuser – it’s difficult to say whether this is the intended effect, let alone whether it would even be effective at cycling speeds.
As for the straps, it’s clear from the photos Oakley has not incorporated any adjustment mechanism into the Y-splitter beneath the ear, likely an attempt to keep weight down. Any weight savings may well come at the expense of comfort and potentially aero drag for riders for whom that fixed position splitter doesn’t fit particularly well. Whether just poorly adjusted at the buckle or an indication of the inherent design, the straps do not look particularly aero for Messieurs Alaphilippe and Hirschi, flapping as they are behind the ear and looking loose elsewhere.
That’s all we have on the helmet for now. Whether all that translates into it being fast … only time and independent testing will tell.
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