Maybe it’s a small thing but I don’t like wearing my mud-splattered, aggressive-looking mountain bike helmets when riding leisurely through town, or on gravel/road rides. Partially it’s aesthetics and partially it’s to preserve the life of my expensive mtb lids. Each of those kinds of rides has different needs and priorities from a helmet. So, I got myself a Thousand helmet, the MIPS-including Chapter model to see if it works for commuting/leisure and adventure.
It does.
This is a well-made product that you can use to look classy around town, but that has the ventilation, coverage, and MIPS you want for adventuring. I’d happily use this to slay some single track too. Thousand is a woman-founded company (cool) that set out to make helmets helmet-shy riders would actually wear (their name comes from the goal to save 1,000 lives with their helmets). They make helmets for skating and riding, and at least one of their models is geared for both.
Mine has a cool-ass tortoise-shell visor that I adore (you can buy diff color visors separately), and a door-covered hole which you can pass a bike lock through (unless it’s a thick chain), so you can lock your helmet when you lock your bike. It’s comfy, vents plenty well on long, hot rides even when I’m putting in big mile days on the gravel bike, and looks great. Bonus: comes with a brilliant magnetic light that attaches to the rear of the helmet, that ships with a strap so you can attach it to your seat post if you’d rather. Their plan worked on me. I rarely wore a helmet when riding my daughter to preschool on our cargo bike ’cause I didn’t want to wear the mtb lid on those rides. Now, I always ride in a helmet. No matter what.
• ON SALE for $116
