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The Helmet That Saved My Life
Courtesy of Leatt, I had the chance to test the new Leatt 8.5 helmet during my trip in the beautiful mountains of Western Canada. In addition to looking great, with its beautiful turquoise colour that caught my eye at first glance, Leatt is known for offering products that focus on the safety of the user. That’s perfect, because this user has a few concussions under her belt, and must focus on safety if she wants to continue enjoying her passion of backcountry snowmobiling. I had the opportunity to test the product to its fullest, under a variety of conditions. The mountains of Revelstoke and Sicamous were my playground to test this product. I did about 20 days of backcountry snowmobiling, at about 7 hours a day, or approximately 140 hours. Here is an account of my experience with the Leatt 8.5 V21.
Bonus Goggles
Leatt offers the Velocity 5.5 goggles with the purchase of his helmet. That’s two products for the price of one! While backcountry riding, my number one problem is definitely fogging goggles. At first glance, the goggle molds well to the curves of the helmet, allowing no air to pass through other than through the nose. The 8.5 V21 helmet doesn’t offer a nose guard, which can be advantageous in milder temperatures like in the West (between 0 and -10 degrees Celsius), but this can be a negative point in colder temperatures. Without a nose guard, the vapor of breathing dissipates well without automatically fogging the goggles. The pink tint offered me a beautiful vision of the terrain’s relief, and above all, embellished the magnificent sunsets in the mountains! In short, I am pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the goggles!
Comfort and Look
In all honestly, this is probably one of the most beautiful helmets I’ve seen on the market, 10/10 for the choice of colours! Beyond its beauty, it offers remarkable comfort and fit.
Backcountry riding is an extremely physical sport, which leads riders to be extremely hot: ventilation is therefore essential to evacuate the humidity that our head produces. Leatt has put his money where his mouth is with the numerous air intakes for air circulation and moisture evacuation.
For me, the weight of the helmet was an issue, because of my previous injuries. Despite the fact that it is very light – clocking in at 1250 g (plus or minus 50 g) – it was unfortunately too heavy for my physical condition. However, Leatt offers the same model in a carbon version!
Safety First: 360 Technology
Now we get to the good part: what really makes the helmet stand out! We may have different opinions about comfort, look, specifications, but the role of a helmet is to protect you and reduce accident-related injuries. Despite the difficulty of reproducing accidents, evaluating and comparing impacts, Leatt managed to innovate a technology that probably saved my life: 360 turbine technology. It consists of several blue discs inside the helmet that absorb the energy of different impacts. This technology reduces rotational acceleration by 40% and cerebral acceleration by 30%, in addition to having the visor that separates the forces transferred to the head and neck to reduce brain injuries. In the event of a major accident, the helmet is designed to be able to safely remove the side pads without compromising the neck.
I like to push my limits. However, I may have pushed too far, and surpassed the limits of what the machine could take… and by “machine,” I’m referring both to the snowmobile and to my poor body.
On the 14th day of my trip, in Sicamous, I was feeling extra motivated, and was accompanied by a photographer (Gabriel Lalande: he’s very good, you should go see his pictures). The result: I wanted to go touch the sky in memory of a friend of mine who, fortunately, was there in the past to anchor me to Earth. I did a misstep in my maneuver, and the snowmobile climbed to about ten feet. Of course, everything that goes up must come down… and that’s exactly what the snowmobile did… on me! I had time to see the machine in the air, and to position myself in the fetal position, to protect myself from the impact that was going to be violent. Fortunately, I only had minor injuries and the next day I was ready to go again. Usually, the slightest shock to my head causes me migraines, but I had no symptoms as a result of this accident. However, I got to put the helmet to the test a second time…
A few days later, while exploring a new terrain, the dangers of Western Canada quickly caught up with me. I found myself above a low rock wall that forced me to jump to limit the damage. Unfortunately, there was an icy path further down, so my body absorbed the shock of a fall from several feet, my head was smashed on the steering wheel, and I was ejected due to the rebound of the impact. The injuries and damage this time were much more serious: broken helmet, broken snowmobile, broken Caro. I had to stop snowmobiling for 14 days due to a crushed vertebra and symptoms of a concussion. I can’t even imagine the damage to my head without the 360 turbine technology. Thank you, Leatt!
In short, I loved the experience of the Leatt 8.5 V21 helmet, and I’m especially grateful to have preserved my head with their remarkable technology! Unfortunately, following my accident, I had to change my helmet, as a precaution, due to the shock it received. All in all, Leatt offers an excellent product, which needs a few small adjustments to develop the backcountry market, but they’re definitely on the right track!
Thank you, Leatt!!
