Along with the difficulties of colour matching your gloves and shorts, enduro racing/riding throws up the challenge of choosing what helmet to use – do you go for the breathability open-face, the protection of a full-face, or do you ride with both and feel like a turtle with your life on your back?
MET’s answer is the new Parachute helmet; a super lightweight, dedicated full-face (the chin guard is non-removable) with ventilation galore, designed to be comfortable on the climbs and protective when it matters.
Weighing in at 720g on our scales, it’s a hell of a lot lighter than even the lightest leading carbon fibre ‘true’ full faces (for instance, a Fox Rampage carbon is 1150g) and is crammed with more features than you can squirt your Camelbak at. There’s a goggle strap clip, the forehead pad is a hypoallergenic anti-stink gel material, and unlike other full faces there’s size adjustment via micr0-adjust dial. It also comes with a helmet camera mount that slips neatly into one of the vents.
We’re not 100% sold on the styling, but we’re hardly Christian Dior. First impressions are that the Parachute strikes a good balance between protection and bulk, so we’ll be handing it over to one of our enduro-racing test crew to get their thoughts for a full review soon. Pricing is $279.99 AUD, which seems pretty damn reasonable (and a lot cheaper than dental work).
