After a bit more than two years of focused product development, new helmet maker Nonstop On Wheels recently debuted an eye-catching trio of new helmets – the Furi, Zappi & Urbi – to suit everything from road racing to commuting around town. Founded with more than a decade of experience on the motorcycle helmet side of things, NOW brings a completely unique look to head protection of the bike. Their angular designs pack all the safety we’ve come to expect (and more) into a shell that breaks the mold…
FURI
From their design base in SoCal, the Furi is NOW’s top helmet with a wind tunnel tuned design that claims to use its unique sharp-edged design, Kamm tail, and pronounced fins to reduce turbulence around the head making it more stable on your head at high speeds. It also is designed to be extremely light with an internal skeleton to hold the EPS foam together and a multi-part in-mold shell that let the designers shave a bunch of extra material away while retaining protection from impacts.
NOW claims just 240g for the CE certified small/medium of the Furi. The edge-heavy shape is also said to have been designed to scatter airflow across the helmet, both drawing air into and extracting air out of the helmet’s 32 openings to maximize cooling. The Furi sells for $218 in either S/M or L/XL sizes. It comes in a wide array of bright or more subdued colors, and is available with either CPSC or CE certifications.
ZAPPI
Maybe even more pointy than that, the Zappi shares pretty much all of the same technologies with a slightly lower profile design and a bit more ventilation up front, even through it shares the same number of ventilation openings. It shares the same easy to position dial retention device and removable anti-bacterial & self-cooling padding.
It comes in the same two sizes and its own dozen of color combinations. The Zappi sells for a bit less at $198 and weighs just 5g more than the Furi.
URBI
The final of the new range is the more affordable $90 Urbi. More of a geometric shape than the pointy edges of the road helmets, the urban commuter helmet still boats what NOW calls their Spider Web air channels that link the outer openings in the shell with grooves inside to move air across your head for improved cooling.
The 305g Urbi still gets a standard EPS + in-mold construction and the retention system of the more pricey helmets, just cutting the vents down to 10 and going with a very different aesthetic. It is also available in two sizes and 7 base shell colors, with 6 different accent color options. You can even buy a color coordinated snap on cycling cap-style visor.
All of the helmets can be ordered direct from NOW.