Giro Sport Design has introduced a new helmet designed to give the world’s best alpine ski racers a distinct advantage. Dubbed the Avance MIPS (French for ‘go forward’), the new helmet features new safety technology that has been deployed to protect racers from a wider variety of impacts. Giro’s Avance MIPS helmet will be available in six sizes and four colors beginning in Fall 2016 and will sell through better snowsports retailers for $500.
“At Giro we’ve spent the past 30 years creating new paradigms for performance and safety,” said Giro Executive Vice President Greg Shapleigh. “Working in Giro’s Dome R&D facility, our Advanced Concepts Group leveraged all of the tools at their disposal to create the most advanced alpine ski racing helmet ever created.This helmet is a testament to a company that invests heavily in the best people and leading edge facilities for the advancement of head protection.”
Giro engineers created the Avance MIPS to attenuate four key hazards in elite alpine racing—high-energy impacts, rotational energy, multi-impact crashes, and gate impacts. To combat the high-energy impacts racers often experience, Giro’s Advanced ConceptsGroup developed a unique combination: a stiffer and stronger TeXtreme carbon shell and a more supple, low-density EP-Premium foam. EP-Premium, a type of polypropylene material exclusive to Giro’s Avance MIPS, isprized for its ability to reduce energy transferred during successive high-energy impacts as well as lower-energy gate impacts.
The Avance features MIPS Spherical—the next generation of MIPS and a design exclusive to Giro. MIPS Spherical features two layers of EP-Premium foam that redirect rotational energy from impacts at any angle. The result is a reduction in rotational forces without using the plastic slip plane featured in previous MIPS designs. This simple and sophisticated design also allows the opportunity for a custom fit. Using 3D scans of our athlete’s heads, Giro’s engineers can custom sculpt the interior of the Avance MIPS to fit the racer’s head precisely and without pressure points.
Recent research shows that gate impacts can transfer up to 70 G’s to an athlete’s brain. That’s a force greater than what you’d experience from a direct punch in the face by an Olympic-caliber heavyweight boxer. This fact led to the creation of the Avance MIPS’ unique ‘Hammerhead’ exterior shape. The Hammerhead Design strategically adds material to the areas where gate impacts commonly occur. Additionally, the unconventional combination of materials addresses these impacts.
