Giro’s expanding their helmet offerings for 2014 with more cost-conscious and simpler to use options for a broad range of uses, but not at the expense of specialty items like the new Cipher full face, full featured helmet shown here.
They’ve also unveiled new enduro ready shoes and gloves that look mighty nice, and all get color coordination that could end up extending across upcoming clothing, too.
At just $200, the new Cipher comes in halfway between the outgoing Remedy carbon and standard models. It gets plenty of updated features like rebounding Vinyl-Nitrile foam in the chin guard, integrated camera mounts and easily removable cheek pads and more…
One of the challenges with full face helmets is good ventilation since holes have to resist penetration in testing. The Cipher manages to put eight decently sized, screen covered vents throughout, including four large ones on the chin and a couple at the brow. The latter combines with internal channeling to help move air through the fiberglass shell.
Note the brow vent channels. The camera mounts are for GoPro and Contour and are removable. The visor bolts on, tool free.
The blue foam is the Vinyl-Nitrile and will rebound from impacts. Giro’s careful not to say it’s good for multiple impacts, but, well, it will return to full foaminess after small knocks and dings. Use that info as you will. The reason it’s not used throughout more of the helmet, which we learned at our tour of their design center and reiterated again talking to someone inside their company here at Eurobike is that it becomes less effective if overheated. So, if you left it in your car in the summer or it was an insanely hot day, it may not offer proper impact absorption. Once cooled to ambient temps, it’ll resume normal function, so there’s no permanent damage, but that simply means it’s not the right material for the primary impact sections of a helmet.
Cheek pads can be pulled straight down to ease helmet removal in the event of a bigger knock or ding, and they hide cavities for Giro’s TuneUps speaker system with cable management.
Big grooves between the padding and shell provide room for hot air to move. Straps close with a D-Ring loop and the whole interior gets plenty of X-Static to keep it from stinking.
Claimed weight on this one’s interior sticker was 1250g, and it came in at 1244g (size Large, I believe). It’ll be available in four sizes, XS/S/M/L to fit heads 51cm to 62cm in circumference. And it’ll come in colors:
Note the orange camo – that them will carry through to the other items. The matte gray might be the winner here, though. Available in October.
GIRO TERRADURA MOUNTAIN BIKE SHOES
Seems everyone’s making “enduro” oriented gear these days, and Giro’s on the bandwagon. The new Terraduro shoes get a scuff resistant microfiber upper with reinforced, more scuff proof sections around the base, toe and heel.
The toe gets a rubberized guard, too. The shape of the last carries over from their other shoes, but it gets a new dual material sole with an Easton carbon shank that runs from under the cleats to mid-heel rather than the full length. That provides a more flexible zone at the toe and heel for easier walking and scrambling.
An offset mid-foot strap and replaceable buckle ratchet on the primary make for a good range of comfortable adjustment. A company rep told us the uppers are very lightweight, just like an XC shoe, which helps offset the weight gain from the full rubber tread:
The outsole is a heavily treaded Vibram Mont rubber outsole. Giro’s PR man Benny Cruikshank says it’s the right balance between grippy and durable, and it felt pretty good when we mashed it with our fingers. Looking forward to trying this out on the trail.
The uppers have solid coverage with plenty of pin hole venting – remains to be seen how it handles hot temps.
It’ll also come in black, plus the Terradura women’s version (right). MSRP is $180, available in October. Estimated weight is 420g (claimed) for a 42.5 mens.
REMEDY X GLOVES
The new Giro Remedy X gloves are a more aggressive version of the standard Remedy. They get a vented Pittards Cabretta leather upper with flexible, breathable XRD armor and microfiber thumb wipe.
The wrist has a massive main opening with huge Velcro flap coupled with a secondary adjustment strap for fine tuning. The grabby panel for the smaller strap is a bit weak – so far, it hasn’t come loose during riding, but we’ll see how well it holds up. I really like the large opening, though. It makes it easy to get them on and off, and for reasons that defy explanation, I just kinda dig the fact that it’s on the outside edge.
The palm gets XRD padding on the outer edge of the meaty section of your hand. It’s placed mostly on the outside edge, more for where you’re likely to land if you’re imitating Superman rather than serve as padding between you and your grips. The palm is a three-panel “Super Fit” Clarino that’s comfortable and pretty grippy.
I’ve been wearing a size XL on a few rides and they’re very nice. The uppers aren’t too hot and seem to have protection placed just where it’s needed. Reinforced slits at the big knuckles make for easy articulation. The palm material doesn’t bunch too much when curling fingers in, not really enough to create wrinkles between you and the grip. They’ve also put touch-screen friendly stitching on the thumbs and pointer finger tips, which works as advertised.
They’re available in black and camo for $45 in five sizes (S/M/L/XL/XXL). Available in October.
