The Best Bike Helmets of 2024

Whether you simply enjoy getting your bike out for a weekend cruise or are a bonafide, road, gravel, or mountain biker with a garage full of bikes, the simple truth is this — you need a bike helmet. They are vital for staying safe and protecting yourself while you’re on the bike, regardless of surface or riding style. Safety is paramount, but the best bike helmets of 2024 are much more than plastic brain buckets. 

Modern helmets provide next-level ventilation to keep air flowing throughout a ride, they’re built lighter and stronger than ever before, and the tech has become so advanced that the lines between road, gravel, and mountain bike helmets are as blurry as ever — which is actually a good thing for consumers. Commuters can choose between stylish, vintage-inspired options or pick their favorite from the performance bunch.

To help you decide which one (or two, or three) is best for you, we got our hands on dozens of the best bike helmets across all of the most popular categories, gathering first-person insights, taking notes, and digging into the details that we think move the needle. 

Read on to explore our favorite options across the road, mountain, and commuting categories. Also included is Buying Advice and a Price & Value section to help you make an informed decision when choosing a bike helmet, and a Comparison Chart to see al the models we tested at a glance. And if you ended up here in search of mountain bike helmets or road bike helmets, our buyer’s guides cover both categories in greater detail.

Editor’s note: This guide was updated on November 13, 2024, with the addition of a Price & Value section that explains what you get at different price points.

The Best Bike Helmets of 2024

• Best Overall Mountain Bike Helmet: Giro Manifest Spherical
• Best Budget Mountain Bike Helmet: Specialized Camber MIPS
• Best Overall Road Bike Helmet: Giro Aries Spherical
• Best Budget Road Bike Helmet: Lazer Tonic KinetiCore
• Best Mid-Range Road Bike Helmet: POC Omne Air MIPS
• Best Gravel Bike Helmet: Smith Network MIPS
• Best Commuter Bike Helmet: Thousand Chapter MIPS
• Best Budget Commuter Helmet: Outdoor Master Goat Helmet

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Best of the Rest

Bike Helmet Comparison Chart

Bike Helmet Model	MSRP	Weight	Rotational Impact Protection System	# of Vents	Sizes	Virginia Tech Rating
Giro Manifest Spherical	$260	362 grams (M)	MIPS Spherical	19	S, M, L	5-star
Specialized Camber MIPS	$75	400 grams (L)	MIPS	13	XS, S, M, L, XL	5-star
Giro Aries Spherical	$300	271 grams (M)	MIPS Spherical	24	S, M, L	5-star
Lazer Tonic KinetiCore	$80	240 grams (M)	KinetiCore	18	S, M, L	5-star
POC Omne Air MIPS	$180	350 grams (L)	MIPS	10	S, M, L	4-star
Smith Network MIPS	$170	300 grams (M)	MIPS	15	S, M, L	Not tested
Thousand Chapter MIPS	$145	360 grams (M)	MIPS	8	S, M, L	5-star
Outdoor Master Goat Helmet	$50	500 grams (L)	None	18	S, M, L	Not tested
POC Kortal Race MIPS	$270	401 grams (L)	MIPS Integra	17	XS-S, M-L, XL-XXL	Not tested
Trek Velocis MIPS	$300	240 grams (M)	MIPS Air	16	S, M, L	5-star

How We Tested Bike Helmets

Our team is composed of cyclists and outdoor-oriented athletes looking for the best products on the market. Our staff includes professional gear reviewers, former and current racers, recreational cyclists, folks who bike commute 60 miles a week, and everyone in between — people who care about fit, finish, and function but, at the end of the day, want a product they can trust.

Our team spends its time carefully evaluating new products so that you don’t have to, which translates to more time in the saddle for you. We strive to create thorough, comprehensive, helpful reviews to help you find the best gear for your individual needs.

Our bike helmet buyer’s guide is more general in its scope and combines our favorite models from our more specific best mountain bike helmet and best road bike helmet guides with a few additions for commuting and gravel riding.

Our Expert Testers

Our mountain bike helmet tester, Jeremy Benson, has been professionally testing and reviewing bikes and related accessories for the past 8 years. Benson is an avid mountain and gravel rider and racer who spends an inordinate amount of time in the saddle training, riding for fun, and testing all manner of new gear for reviews. He isn’t immune to crashing (spectacularly), and he takes his safety seriously, so he’s always searching for the most comfortable and protective helmets he can find to protect his brain. He has tested over 30 mountain bike helmets, including all of the models in our guide to the best mountain bike helmets.

Our road bike helmet buyer’s guide author, Bennett Shane, has been cycling seriously for over two decades. While his racing days are behind him, he’s shifted his focus to achieving other goals on the bike, riding for fitness, and testing countless road-related products for reviews. He also spent years working for various prominent brands in the cycling industry and has an uncanny depth of cycling products, technology, and material knowledge.

As a father of a young child, Bennett is extra-conscious of his own safety while riding, and he takes head protection very seriously. In the past year, he’s tested over 15 different helmets, including those in our guide to the best road bike helmets.

Another tester and contributor to this story, Will Porter, loves to ride his XC bike in the foothills outside of Boise, Idaho, spend hours in the saddle of his gravel bike, and restore old mountain bikes to their former glory — right now, he’s in the middle of making a ’90s Specialized Hard Rock his go-to daily rider.

Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose a Bike Helmet

Riding Style: Mountain, Road, Gravel, or Commute

The terrain you ride will ultimately dictate the helmet you buy. Before you open your wallet, give some thought to where and how you plan to spend the majority of your time in the saddle. It will point you in the right direction. Below are some considerations to check out before you throw down on a new lid.

Mountain Bike Helmets

Mountain-oriented helmets have more materials that wrap the side and back of the head, creating extended coverage to protect the occipital lobe (the bony knob on the back of your head) and temples. Steep trails increase the risk of falling backward and onto the back of your head. This makes good occipital coverage like that offered by our favorite mountain bike helmet, the Giro Manifest, that much more important.

Mountain bike helmets typically also come with a visor similar to the one found on the POC Kortal Race MIPS, which provides shade as riders move in and out of the direct sun. A visor also brings a little extra protection from brushy limbs that tend to stretch out over unmaintained roads and trails.

Our favorite visors are also adjustable, so you can optimize their position to keep the sun out of your eyes. To learn more about helmets for tackling your favorite trails, check out our guide to the best mountain bike helmets.

Road Bike Helmets

In general, helmets designed for road cycling tend to be a bit more streamlined and provide a bit less coverage than their chunkier mountain bike counterparts. With more of a focus on aerodynamics and ventilation, road bike helmets are often much lighter and racier looking, too. Still, the goal is protection, and modern road helmets feature innovative designs and technologies to keep riders safe out on the road.

Helmets like the Giro Aries Spherical do an excellent job of combining good coverage, excellent ventilation, and the newest safety technologies to provide a great helmet for road cyclists looking to maximize safety, style, and comfort. Other road helmets may prioritize aerodynamics more, and there is a growing number of aero options available for those seeking marginal gains. If you’re in the market for a road bike helmet, we cover lots of options in our guide to the best road bike helmets.

Gravel Bike Helmets

Gravel riding is essentially road biking on gravel roads. As such, the protection demands are similar, but with the addition of sometimes less predictable loose or rocky surfaces. Realistically, most road and mountain bike helmets can easily pull double duty for gravel riding. While there certainly are many gravel-specific helmets on the market these days, most serious gravel riders are typically seen wearing high-end road helmets that are lightweight, well-ventilated, and protective.

Ultimately, gravel riders should consider the terrain they ride most often, and factor their favorite backroads, routes, and trails into choosing a helmet that will best suit their needs. Check out our FAQ for more on gravel-specific helmets.

Commuter Bike Helmets

Commuter helmets occupy a bit of a middle ground in the helmet world. Even if your commute is short and mellow, a good helmet is an excellent and necessary investment. While weight may not be the top priority, coverage, visibility, and comfort certainly are. You might not be shredding the gnar on your way to work (or maybe you are), but cars and pedestrians are omnipresent hazards that warrant a good helmet regardless of your riding style.

While you can wear any helmet you like while commuting by bike, many riders prefer not to look like they’re heading out on a serious road or mountain bike ride when they’re pedaling to the office or running errands around town. For this reason, many commuter helmets have more casual styling that fits in better with casual or work clothes. Additionally, many commuter helmets also have features for enhanced visibility, such as the lights on the Thousand Chapter MIPS and the Outdoor Master Goat Helmet.

Fit

The best helmet is one you don’t notice. Because you’ll be wearing it every mile in the saddle, you need a helmet that fits your head properly and is comfortable, too. Compromising on fit can be dangerous, increasing your exposure to injury in an accident or fall.

A helmet should fit snugly, but not too tightly, and never cause pressure points or hot spots. A good-fitting helmet should be snug around the head even before clipping the straps.

Look for a helmet that sits level on your head without tilting forward or backward and that cradles the shape of your skull all around without any gaps. The straps should feel snug but not strained while you ride. It shouldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. If you can pull, twist, or slip it off, try a different size or another helmet.

Most helmets have a range of measurements — small, medium, large — that have some wiggle room for folks who are between sizes. Not all brands fit the same.

Once you decide on the style, it’s time to try a few on. And this is where your local bike shop is a huge asset. You’ll want to actually try on several helmets to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.

If you do decide to buy a helmet online, start by measuring your head. Take a tailor’s tape measure and wrap it around the dome of your head — the widest circumference of the skull, just above the brow.

Microadjustment features, like a dial-fit system and chinstraps, tighten behind the head and under the chin to fine-tune the fit, minimizing movement. In recent years, this feature has become almost ubiquitous, and all of our top picks feature this technology, usually in a proprietary design.

Ventilation

Because cycling is a highly aerobic sport, good ventilation is a necessary component of any helmet to help manage heat. Helmets with ventilation holes allow fresh air to pour over the head, cooling you as you exert more energy. How important ventilation is to you will likely depend on your environment, the intensity at which you ride, and your tolerance for heat and humidity.

Well-designed ventilation, like that of the Giro Aries Spherical or the Trek Velocis MIPS, is a godsend in hot and humid environments. That said, riders should be mindful of eschewing good coverage for good ventilation if they are riding aggressively. Fortunately, you don’t really need to these days, as most modern helmets successfully provide good ventilation and a high level of protection.

Rotational Impact Protection

Innovations in crash protection, like MIPS (multidirectional impact protection system), have been shown to reduce rotational forces on the brain in a crash. Helmets with this kind of protection may cost a little more, but it’s our brains we’re talking about here, so we feel it is worth the extra cost.

In a crash, a bicyclist can experience an angled impact, which causes rotational motion. When you hit the ground, the brain will continue to travel through space until it hits the skull. In addition to the impact force, the shear force can pull brain tissue, causing trauma. While CPSC certification guidelines account for vertical free fall, they don’t address angular collision.

MIPS is a Swedish-based company that specializes in helmet safety and brain protection. It specializes in a polycarbonate plastic layer that creates a slip-plane to allow the head to shift 10-15 mm relative to the helmet, with the goal of reducing the rotational forces on the brain.

MIPS now comes in many different forms, but they are all intended to work similarly to the classic liner system. The evidence certainly shows MIPS reduces brain trauma when you hit the ground at an angle. Good marketing has awarded MIPS gold in the headspace. Check out more about MIPS here.

While MIPS was first on the scene, over the past decade or so, other brands have poked at the problem with their own solutions. Bontrager uses WaveCel, Kali developed its Low-Density Layer, Lazer uses KinetiCore, and other brands have developed similar systems. All of them work to achieve the same goal of reducing rotational impact forces transferred to the brain.

To be clear, all bicycle helmets are built with a layer of stiff foam materials that crushes, expands, or collapses to absorb energy in a crash. To measure their impact protection, helmets sold in the U.S. must meet the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) bicycle helmet standard. Your best bet is to look for the CPSC sticker label inside the liner, certifying that the helmet meets safety standards.

Is MIPS the best? As Vibram is to outsoles, MIPS is to helmets. As a consumer, expect to pay a little extra for the yellow sticker.

Price & Value

Helmets vary somewhat dramatically in price, with the models included in this guide ranging from $75 up to $300. While it might seem like spending more guarantees a safer product, that isn’t necessarily the case. Studies have shown that price and protection don’t have a direct correlation in bike helmets. That said, spending more often gets you improved aesthetics, lighter weights, better ventilation, more features, or all of the above.

Budget

If you don’t have a lot of money to spend, you can still get a quality protective helmet for under $100. In fact, we were shocked by the comfort and performance of our favorite budget options. For mountain bikers, the Specialized Camber MIPS ($75) looks nearly identical to its more expensive siblings, yet it costs a fraction of the price. Still, it earned a 5-star rating in Virginia Tech’s independent helmet testing, and the only real concessions it makes are a slight increase in weight and a reduction in ventilation.

For the roadies, the Lazer Tonic KinetiCore ($80) is lighter and arguably more comfortable than many helmets that cost double or triple the price. It may not be the most stylish or best ventilated, but it also scored 5 stars in Virginia Tech’s testing, so we know it does its job. For commuting, either of the abovementioned helmets will get the job done, but if you want something styled a little more for urban riding, the Outdoor Master Goat Helmet ($50) is a solid and even more affordable choice. This helmet has a more subtle aesthetic and includes a rechargeable rear light to make you more visible to motorists.

Mid-Tier

As we climb up the bike helmet price ladder, we often find improved aesthetics, increased ventilation, reduced weight, cool features, or a combination of these things. The Thousand Chapter MIPS ($145) commuter helmet is a good example. While it looks somewhat similar to the Outdoor Master Goat, it is much lighter, comes with a MIPS liner, earned a 5-star Virginia Tech rating, has a magnetic chin strap buckle, and the rechargeable rear light is removable. If you’ve got the means, this is the commuter helmet we recommend the most.

Other helmets, like the Smith Network MIPS ($170), lean more toward the road and gravel side of the spectrum. This helmet is fairly light, well-ventilated, and strikes us as one of the most versatile options on the market. We love it for gravel riding when using the removable visor to shield our eyes from the sun, but it’s equally at home on XC mountain bike rides or your daily commute.

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Premium

At the highest end of the price spectrum, we generally find helmets that prioritize ventilation, weight savings, use more expensive versions of MIPS, or have more complex designs. Both the Giro Aries Spherical ($300) and the Giro Manifest Spherical ($260) are impressively light, very well-ventilated, super comfortable, and top the charts for their impact protection in Virginia Tech’s testing. This is due in part to the brand’s use of MIPS Spherical, a more complex design that employs dual shells connected by an elastomer with the aim of dissipating rotational impact forces.

Similarly, the POC Kortal Race MIPS ($270) is a high coverage half shell mountain bike helmet that carries the Dutch E-bike certification. It has special safety features like an adjustable breakaway visor, aramid bridges, and it uses MIPS Integra which has MIPS integrated into the padding so it doesn’t impede any airflow. Likewise, the top-of-the-line Trek Velocis MIPS ($300) is a featherlight, low-profile road helmet that employs MIPS Air for maximum ventilation along with a BOA adjustment system.

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Frequently Asked Questions