Canyon HUD helmet for road riding

https://media-centre.canyon.com/en-INT/266866-new-canyon-heads-up-display-helmet-could-be-a-safety-gamechanger-for-road-riding/

by zh3 • 1 month ago

109 137 1 month ago

media-centre.canyon.com

chadrs• 1 month ago

HUD won't protect from a driver texting and running you over!

recursive• 1 month ago

Neither will anything else, so that's not really a competitive disadvantage.

Zambyte• 1 month ago

Well, a wall will. It might even dissuade them from trying.

Scoundreller6• 1 month ago

Thanks to LaWs, people do this with their phone on their lap instead of held up with a forward field of view. Yay?

rustcleaner• 1 month ago

What will protect is taking bicycles off motor vehicle roadways, and laying down new, much narrower bicycle-exclusive roads all over instead. It doesn't make sense to mix the slower and vulnerable bicycle traffic with the faster and safer motor vehicles!

drjasonharrison• 1 month ago

We could also slow down the motor vehicles to the speeds where drivers can react to pedestrians and cyclists.

And improve education all around for road users, including pedestrians, to widen the understanding of how individual decisions affect the community. For example, starting to cross the road at the end of the crosswalk signal leads to fewer cars able to turn right, which leads to more congestion, etc. Trying to make it across the intersection when traffic is moving slowly and blocking crosswalks and cross traffic. Opening the driver's side door with your opposite hand to look in the side view mirror or blind spot for cyclists.

wxw• 1 month ago

So I started biking recently and was hunting for helmets.

And turns out Virgina Tech does a bunch of helmet impact testing and maintains a ranking list https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/. The latest helmets have a releasable layer that absorbs (converts rotational energy?) more impact.

This HUD is pretty slick. In a way, it's more preventative (avoiding accidents) vs. reactive (absorbing impact in an accident) safety which sounds nice.

mft_• 1 month ago

And turns out Virgina Tech does a bunch of helmet impact testing and maintains a ranking list https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/

Thanks for sharing. Interesting to see my Giro (with MIPS) has... 3 stars. Hmmm.

carabiner3• 1 month ago

I'm pretty convinced mips is just marketing. Hair will do the same thing. That's why in rock climbing world, petzl hasn't even bothered with it when they're usually very forward thinking about their designs (first company to do side impact testing).

Scoundreller6• 1 month ago

MIPS is a liner that makes the same helmet a bit better.

A crappy helmet with MIPS is a slightly less crappy helmet that may still be worse than a great non-MIPS helmet.

Like upgrading a 1960 motor vehicle death trap’s 2 point seat belts to 3 point. It’ll help, but it’s still a death trap.

Rebelgecko3• 30 days ago

Fwiw they changed their ranking system a year or two ago in a way that moved a bunch of formerly 5 star helmets to 3 stars.

Too many helmets hit the old five star threshold, so to differentiate it's now based on relative performance (the x% best helmets get 5 stars) instead of static thresholds.

mmooss6• 1 month ago

Last I knew, several years ago, Virginia Tech tested for concussion prevention and the layer that 'slips' on impact was called the MIPS layer. (Please correct me if that's changed.)

That is important and useful, and is best used in combination with other testing: Bicycling also has many other and more serious risks to cyclist head, including skull fractures, brain damage, and death.

Consumer Reports is another great source (better one IMHO); in their labs they do empirical testing for other outcomes of ~150 helmets, and provide a comprehensive guide to buying helmets:

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bike-helmets/

In Consumer Reports’ tests, we strap helmets onto “head forms” that simulate the size of a human head, then drop them 14 mph onto a flat anvil to find out how well they withstand impact. An electronic sensor inside the head form monitors the force that would be transmitted to a rider’s skull in an accident.

To ensure the helmet will stay in place during an accident, we test the strength of the chinstraps, attachment points, and buckles by dropping a weight that’s 8¾ pounds and 2 feet so that it yanks on the straps to simulate the force of a crash.

Our testers also evaluate each helmet for ventilation, fit adjustments, ease of use, and other features.

dominotw2• 1 month ago

oh yea skiing and mountian biking helmets have had mips for years

neves5• 1 month ago

T Schumacher, the fórmula 1 champion, would be alone if he was using a MIPS helmet

tonymet3• 1 month ago

MIPS is great but every layer is a tradeoff with venting. without MIPS the vents allow air onto your scalp. with MIPS you effectively have a plastic shower cap over your head, beneath the EVA foam insulator.

I'm anti MIPS

ctidd• 1 month ago

There are multiple MIPS systems. The early ones were like you described, with a distinct feeling of too much plastic. Newer ones (e.g. Integra) are much more seamless. There are also other companies doing different types of rotational tech, like Lazer with an integral foam-based shearing design.

If you have only tried first-gen MIPS, I recommend giving it another shot.

PpEY4fu85hkQpn• 30 days ago

I'm looking at my 2 MIPS helmets right now and your comment is complete nonsense. If anything the MIPS layer will allow for more breathability.

Drunk_Engineer4• 1 month ago

99% of bike fatalities involve car crashes. There is no styrofoam helmet which will protect against that, and the VaTech test notably does not model that type of crash.

To my knowledge, the only group that tried to test bike helmets against a car is Volvo -- and all helmets failed.

usrusr2• 1 month ago

The key service performed by a cycling helmet is not turning a death situation into a permanently maimed situation (they do that, but that's a very rare occurrence), it's turning a life changing injury situation into a situation of some fractured bones that will be almost forgotten two months later. The life and death part is overrated.

I guess one reason people are so focused on that is because it's easy to quantify.

jibal4• 30 days ago

https://www.facs.org/about-acs/statements/statement-on-bicyc...

Helmets reduce the risk of head injury by 48%, traumatic brain injury by 53%, facial injury by 23%, and fatal injury by 34%.2 Pediatric non-helmeted bikers have a 3-fold higher risk of serious head injury compared to helmeted bikers;3 one study suggests that helmet use may reduce the risk of head injury by 83%.4

Bicycle-related head injuries and deaths have decreased in states that have enacted bicycle helmet laws.5

Larger effects are found when legislation applies to all cyclists than when it applies to children only. 6

Theodores• 30 days ago

The helmet business is amazing, and proof that one is born every minute. It deserves to be shown how many logical fallacies there are. Top of the list is anecdotal evidence, everyone with a mouth can tell you about someone that had their life saved by magic styrofoam.

There is a grain of truth to the anecdotal claims. But, even then, this is very much an imagined grain of truth. What makes it fun is if you work for a specialist bicycle shop or up the chain, distributing thousands of helmets. With customer interaction at the showroom level, fitting hundreds of helmets, then selling gazillions at B2B, the question has to be asked, where are the broken ones, the one sent back for money off, as a replacement discount?

Indoctrination into the polystyrene club is also very easy. Customer buys new bicycle, customer gets upsold a helmet, as an easy win. The far more practical high vis jacket costs $5 and you make no profit on that, whereas the $50+ polystyrene is just money for the taking.

The testing was originally to a SNELL standard, but the helmets were too heavy. So manufacturers switched to the lame self-test consumer testing, 'trust us bro'. This became the new benchmark, anything aiming at SNELL or other meaningful test just did not survive the market.

Hence I keep it simple. If cycling for conspicuous leisure purposes (fitness, racing, stunts) then get the helmet and make sure the straps are tight. You will need it for organised events so you might as well get used to wearing it.

If not cycling for conspicuous leisure purposes, but merely for transport, whether that be the commute or errands, then you don't need a helmet. Get the lights, mudguards and high vis instead.

I am learning the counter-logical-fallacies, so I can counter the life saved anecdote with quality nonsense that has the same logical fallacies. For example, "I know a true Scotsman that has been cycling every day for fifty years without a helmet. Once he got hit by a car and his life was saved because he was not wearing an ill-fitting helmet, he would have been strangled by the straps had he been wearing a helmet, plus the driver would have given him less room, so the accident would have been far worse."

I digress, as for the article, the helmet is excellent for conspicuous leisure cycling. Now give me your money!

robin_reala• 30 days ago

99% of bike fatalities involve car crashes.

US or globally? Got any stats to link to on that?

adammarples• 30 days ago

Looks like 99% of the bulletholes are in the wings here...

CobaltFire• 30 days ago

I've posted that to HN before and it never gets traction. It's too bad; it's an excellent resource.

affyboi• 29 days ago

Big shoutout to this study! Highly recommend donating if you get any value from these lists

The latest helmets have a releasable layer that absorbs (converts rotational energy?) more impact.

MIPS? Or is there something newer

KeplerBoy3• 1 month ago

Kind of surprising this stuff still is little more than a concept. 12 years after google launched and scrapped it's glasses there are still no well established alternatives for cycling, which is such an obvious market. Everyone is wearing glasses, everyone has a computer mounted to their handlebar, let's integrate them together already.

freejazz2• 1 month ago

That's a solution in search of a problem that does not exist. This would, at best, be useful for someone doing a time trial. I don't see road racers using it in any other context.

loeg6• 1 month ago

It might make more sense to put this in the glasses than attached to the helmet, which is ultimately a consumable. But I basically agree with sibling comment that no one really wants this. (I race bikes and know a lot of other racers.)

Scoundreller6• 1 month ago

I’ve the same opinion between heated gloves and pogies.

Pogies are great but don’t do you any good off of your bike.

KeplerBoy3• 30 days ago

Well the helmet is also a consumable (you should swap them every few years and of course after every crash). But having the visor integrated in the visor is awkward.

tokai• 1 month ago

With UCI ruling on bike computer sizes in the name of reducing rider distractions, I bet that HUD glasses would be outlawed with post hast if they became a thing in the pro peloton.

this_user• 1 month ago

And everyone will bully you on the group ride if you show up with this.

jeffbee3• 30 days ago

There are HUD glasses for triathletes, and have been for years. That's why the ANT+ "extended display" profile exists. These HUD glasses have been on the market for at least 15 years. UCI rules prohibit them, which is why they are marketed to triathletes.

nntwozz• 1 month ago

Oh no I forgot to charge my helmet.

Also, helmets are meant to be replaced every couple of years as the materials deteriorate (UV/heat) and the protection dissipates.

As we like to say, dentist helmet.

Scoundreller6• 1 month ago

UV

How can I get people to stop laughing at me for tinfoiling my helmet?

supertroop2• 1 month ago

I’m so done with technology’s “answer to a question nobody asked.” Like bluetooth derailleurs. Utter garbage. The only down side is that this wave of technocrap wipes out shelf space for analog cyclists. Hard enough to find a decent triple front derailleur, let alone 48-spoke hubs with a cartridge. Now this crap.

Gigachad2• 30 days ago

Wasn't the triple front derailleur basically obsoleted by putting more gears on the rear? All the talk has been around single front gears and 12-13 rear gears. None of that has to do with electronics.

MezzoDelCammin• 28 days ago

I'm not sure about the "question nobody asked". Bluetooth is perhaps a gimmick, but in all seriousness an electrically actuated derailleur is a blessing for anyone doing audax / long distance. I have my wrists damaged enough from sitting at a keyboard all day. I don't have to add to it whenever I need to shift gears on a bike.

I see the point of it being a potential e-waste in 10 years, but I'm not sure the mechanical route was much better in that respect (looking at you, shimano shifter-derailleur-brake compatibility table that currently runs a few pages long even before adding all the Di2 stuff)

BTW - "what" do You need a 48-spoke hub for? Are You building cargo bikes in Your spare time? I'm not trying to be snarky - the "all our bikes load limit is 120kg bicycle included" has long been bothering me as well (100kg rider), so... kinda curious about Your side projects

neves5• 1 month ago

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/bike-helmets/when-you...

Not necessarily:

But if you really like your old helmet—and it’s in good condition—one scientific study tested older helmets and showed that holding on to one for longer won’t necessarily put you at significant risk. Randy Swart, executive director of the nonprofit Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute and former vice chair of the helmet and headgear subcommittee for ASTM International, a nonprofit, voluntary standards-setting organization, says that his own helmet is “much older than that,” though he adds that there may be other good reasons to get a new helmet, such as more protective technology included in some newer models.

Gualdrapo• 1 month ago

The title is a bit confusing imho, it seems it fits more for time trialing rather than general road riding? I can't see no vents whatsoever, my incredibly sweaty noggin would soak tons of sweat into that thing

loeg6• 1 month ago

It's not intended to be a real helmet. It's a prototype / marketing exercise. It is inevitably too expensive and/or heavy to be a practical helmet.

blacksmith_tb2• 1 month ago

As someone who commutes in traffic daily, this is not what I need or want. First up, it looks heavy and badly-ventilated, and then there's the potential for distracting info blocking my view of the actual road in front of me. Even if it was really good info (which would take really good sensors, plus a lot of compute to cram onboard), I am skeptical it'd be better than, you know, paying attention to your surroundings. I like ADAS functionality in modern cars just fine, but it seems like a stretch to try and bring it to bikes. What we all could use is some kind of ad hoc network between all road users, so the car that was thinking about turning in front of me could ping my helmet / bike and understand that it should wait and turn behind me instead.

bdavbdav2• 1 month ago

I get the impression that this is not where it’s aimed.

dmurray2• 1 month ago

What information would your bike send to the car in this example that would help?

We're closer to having lidar in all new cars than this mesh network, so "There's a bike behind you travelling approximately X speed" is something the car already knows. "The cyclist requested you not to turn in front of him" - why would anyone ever send anything else?

Perhaps the car can send you a message instead "I'm going to cut you off and there's nothing you can do about it" but even if that might actually improve safety I don't think it's the change you'd want to see.

bboozzoo3• 30 days ago

"There's a bike behind you travelling approximately X speed"

Funny how garmin varia gives the exact same information but on cars. "There's a car behind you travelling approximately X speed" (which is most often over the speed limit anyway)

blacksmith_tb2• 29 days ago

The idea would be more like the car, not the human behind the wheel, would realize that if it right-hooked me that would be bad (read insurance-increasing, citeable offense, etc.) and wait, where the driver would just keep flipping through their playlist and crush me.

needSomeCoffee• 1 month ago

I also did many miles commuting and riding in the city. A key, absolute rule after too many close calls was to never cross in front of a car about to enter or cross-over the road I was on unless I could see the driver looking at me. No matter how clear my right-of-way was or how obvious I thought I was. One close call about every 10K miles or so was enough for me to realize only purely defensive riding in the city would keep me uninjured (or worse). Sure a lot of riders rail at bad drivers, but that doesn't help in the end if you get t-boned. Hope this helmet helps with that.

cobbzilla• 30 days ago

+1 to this. I always make eye contact with the driver in any iffy scenario. If you’re going to commit vehicular manslaughter on me, you’re gonna have to look me in the eye while you do it!

msandford• 1 month ago

This really seems like a solution in search of a problem. Maybe it would be useful for pro tour riders, but I would guess it'll be banned as not in the spirit of cycle racing. Recumbents would really change the game in the pro tour for speed but the UCI doesn't allow them for the same reason.

nradov2• 1 month ago

The target market is more likely to be affluent amateurs rather that pros. The pros will typically have a team car or radio for navigation, and aren't as dependent on metrics like power or heart rate for training.

Recumbent bikes might be fun to watch in time trial races but would be ridiculously dangerous in a peloton. Visibility is bad enough on a regular bike when you're at the back of a group, and the lower perspective on a recumbent would make mass crashes even more likely. Yikes.

loeg6• 1 month ago

The target market is media (and social media). This won't be sold.

freejazz2• 1 month ago

And recumbents on descents? Yeeeucchhh

Skidaddle• 1 month ago

This is unfortunately how I feel about AR in general, despite having worked in the space for a while.

jeffbee3• 30 days ago

These things are already banned by UCI. Any kind of display has to be attached to the bike.

I can see a HUD (not this one) for non-pro club riders, though. It might be nice to be able to see your stats while holding a wheel at 20+ MPH, without having to look away.

andreareina• 30 days ago

Except I've not heard of anyone using them, either online or IRL. If I'm holding a wheel my head unit is close to where I'm already looking, and the focus shift is similar to (or less than) going from the wheel in front of me to infinity where HUDs typically put things at.

nradov2• 1 month ago

There have been a few attempts at devices like this before such the Everysight Raptor and Garmin Varia Vision but none of them ever found mainstream adoption. In principle a HUD with navigation cues and key cycling metrics would be nice to have. But the devices have always had problems such as poor integration with bike computers or discomfort on long rides or incompatibility with prescription lenses or just looking goofy. Road cyclists aren't necessarily shy about wearing stupid looking kit but there are limits, and this new Canyon helmet looks like you're cosplaying as a stormtrooper.

airstrike• 1 month ago

I feel like this would work better if it were cheap enough to serve Uber Eats delivery workers instead of pro riders.

bdavbdav2• 1 month ago

I’m not sure they need any more distractions

KeplerBoy3• 30 days ago

Having the route in your fov without taking the eyes off the road seems like a win. But we all know it would end up with people watching tiktok instead.

chollida12• 1 month ago

I use a Garmin edge bike computer and a Garmin tail light with lidar that shows cars as they come up from behind on you on the computer screen and give audio alert as well.

That works well enough for most road riding. I wonder if having a reverse view mapped onto my glasses would be an improvement or take away from my focus.

1shooner• 1 month ago

So about the lidar: what does that actually do for you? Or I should say, what do you do in response to it? Do you yield more road space if it tells you a car is approaching? I've been trying to understand what good such an alert actually does for an otherwise attentive rider.

chollida12• 1 month ago

The lidar shows me:

- if a car is behind me

- how many cars( I think up to 8) are behind me

- what speed they are coming up on me by way of animation

To answer your question about what to do, mostly yes, yield the road if I'm on a country road and get over to the shoulder if there is a good paved one.

It's a valid question if you've never ridden on a country road with cars. You want all the notification you can get if someone is coming up behind you so you can plan what to do

limitedmage• 1 month ago

I use a [mirror](https://takealookactive.com/), it adds so much more confidence and safety that I'll refuse to ride without it. Helps me make left turns, avoid aggressive cars, and make sure I'm not dropping my friends. No fancy electronics, no battery to charge, and it's inexpensive to replace.

mc33012• 1 month ago

I've been commuting with a mirror for 5 years; it feels SO dangerous the odd time I commute with my non-mirrored mountain bike.

akersten• 1 month ago

No mention of a built in camera makes this a total non starter for me. If I'm going all in on an AI helmet it better be able to record front and back so my next of kin can get a payout from whatever pavement princess flattened me in the unprotected bike lane.

tracerbulletx• 1 month ago

Its part of a whole prototype system, the cameras would be on the bike, it also mentions radar and all kinds of things. Basically just building a whole sensor suite into a bike platform. Idk how serious they are about it. https://media-centre.canyon.com/en-INT/266864-futuristic-pro...

supertroop2• 1 month ago

Not even a rear-view mirror. Which is the second most important piece of safety gear after a helmet.

Rebelgecko3• 30 days ago

I'm surprised it doesn't tie into taillight radars. I've been intrigued by those but I don't want to deal with also buying a bike computer to see its output (plus the brand that's considered the "best" still uses micro-usb)

coredog64• 1 month ago

I didn't see anything in the press release about notifying riders that they're not a quantum superposition of vehicle and pedestrian that can collapse into whatever legal domain they feel is most convenient.

ethagnawl• 1 month ago

I'm sure I'm just being a crotchety old graybeard but I ride my bikes to get away from this crap. I do use Strava to track my rides on my watch but I don't even look at it until the ride is over.

reaperducer• 1 month ago

I'm sure I'm just being a crotchety old graybeard but I ride my bikes to get away from this crap.

Don't apologize for being a human being. The world needs more of them.

mc33012• 1 month ago

I don't have strava or anything. I don't even know how long my rides are, my best times, my altitude. I just go for a ride; successfully capturing the exact feeling of riding since I was a teenager.

klaff• 29 days ago

Amen

dieselgate• 29 days ago

I personally find strava culture to generally be toxic and annoying, though the above poster seems to use it in a genuine way. 8A is similar in the climbing community. Similar to Github: what starts out as an honest need for tracking and documentation turns into a social-media-showboating circus.

radley• 1 month ago

Smart ski googles have had this for a while.

mvkel• 1 month ago

I'm not sure who this is for. It's a time trial style helmet, but isn't very useful for time trialing. And it's not a commuter helmet. And it's not a road riding helmet, as it has no breathability. Is this a defensive patent thing?

notatoad• 30 days ago

it's just a thing to show off in their trade show booth.

maybe there will be some engineer on the project who learns something useful while working on this that can be applied to some actual project, but this is pretty clearly not an actual product that they intend to sell in anything more than single-digit quantities

merelysounds2• 30 days ago

Note, they say it is based on their existing helmet[1].

[1] https://www.canyon.com/en-de/clothing/helmets/canyon-cfr/can...

neves5• 1 month ago

There are a lot of new safety bike tech gadgets. It's difficult to spot nice ones, like MIPS helmets, from the useless.

Do my fellow hacker news readers recommend some useful tech for bikes?

SequoiaHope3• 30 days ago

To anyone who wants to ride more safely I cannot recommend enough this simple $20 mirror which I find so valuable that I buy extra and hand them out to friends and strangers to help keep them safer. A mirror mounted on your glasses or a similar mirror affixed to your helmet (close to your eyes and mounted on your head) allows for a large field of view that you can easily steer to see behind you.

I ride on the streets of Oakland every single day and situational awareness is critical. The single biggest thing you can do for safety is watch each car as it approaches behind you for its speed and trajectory. Anyone approaching too close or too fast is a bad sign and with a mirror you can more easily avoid them.

These are also available on Amazon and I am not in any way affiliated I just think they’re good life saving technology:

https://takealookactive.com/

EsotericAlgo• 30 days ago

I’ll second this, it’s absolutely a game changer. I’ve used handlebar mounted mirrors and the like but I’ll never willingly go back.

I tend to prefer helmet mounted and I glue them on which isn’t my favorite thing to do on a new helmet. It’s also a bit frustrating when you find yourself cycling in a country that drives on the opposite side.

I do find that on very long tours the week following I’m looking where I’d expect the mirror to be when I want to look behind me.

laluser• 30 days ago

Obviously the mirror gets the job done, but I use Garmin Varia radar hooked up to my bike computer and you can see cars behind you and their velocity is displayed as different colors. It’s way more expensive, but amazing for road biking.

belZaah• 30 days ago

Radars do this better. They can warn you from much further away and do not require for you to keep an eye out - there’s audible cues.

SequoiaHope3• 28 days ago

Do they also show bikes? I use the mirror not just to monitor cars but see where my friends are. If a friend breaks down and is on the side of the road I want to see without having to fully turn my head around.

bboozzoo3• 30 days ago

This looks like a choice is a serious eye injury if you roll is something you're looking for. Why not buy a handlebar mirror like this one https://cateye.com/intl/products/accessories/BM-45/ I have one on each of my bikes, road/gavel/fitness. Dirt cheap, gives very good rear visibility and very compact size.

SequoiaHope3• 29 days ago

Handlebar mirrors won’t give you as much field of view and you can’t steer them with your head.

eff_kaufel• 30 days ago

As a cyclist myself. I’m not sure I could wear something like this.

merelysounds2• 30 days ago

I wish they showed videos with a human model or the retractable mechanism.

At first glance the visor seems large enough to cover the face, but based on the HUD simulation I guess it only covers the eyes.

foo12bar• 30 days ago

Its primary function – setting it apart from other eyewear data systems – is to provide instantly visible alerts about the behaviour other road users (e.g. such as brake light activation, *crash detection*, etc)

Just what I need, when a car nearby me crashes into a physical object, my vizor helmet is shouting "Bonzai!!!" with lighting bolts everywhere.

contingencies• 30 days ago

See also https://minimis.life/ which is an Aussie startup with a foot in California trying to do a cycling-focused AR smart glasses solution (ie. no helmet integration).

Wicher2• 30 days ago

Hmmmmm, a visor? I suppose it'll get steamed up pretty easily when hillclimbing on a cold damp morning.

oflannabhra• 29 days ago

While this is cool, I’m really surprised that eyeglass or sunglasses manufacturers haven’t doubled down on simple HUDs. In swimming there are the FORM goggles [0], but everything in the sunglasses space is focused on voice and cameras (looking at you Meta).

I really just want a basic, simple HUD that can display speed, distance, pace, HR from other sources. I don’t care about it being standalone, I already have a bike computer, phone, and watch.

- [0] - https://www.formswim.com/products/smart-swim-2-lt-goggles

Canyon HUD helmet for road riding

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