The helmet one is murky as you've laid it out. I haven't seen a lot of what you could call fear-mongering with respect to the marketing of helmets. Is there conflicting information/uncertainty about what the 'best' helmet is? Yes.
But using MIPS as an example, if there is evidence that it works, and the up-sell is ~$30, that is a legitimate incremental safety gain. Not the same as misidentified safety as you laid out in the SUV example. Not the same as the difference between an SLX and an XT brake.
Maybe I'm being persnickety, but helmets are a big time outlier to me, compared to almost everything else. Yes, they're profitable. Yes, there are big time marketing dollars at work. But it's still different than almost everything else.
Oh, and an S7 at 130 is faster because it won't fly off the road if it hits a corner at that speed ;)
May 30, 2017, 5:48 p.m. - Pete Roggeman
The helmet one is murky as you've laid it out. I haven't seen a lot of what you could call fear-mongering with respect to the marketing of helmets. Is there conflicting information/uncertainty about what the 'best' helmet is? Yes. But using MIPS as an example, if there is evidence that it works, and the up-sell is ~$30, that is a legitimate incremental safety gain. Not the same as misidentified safety as you laid out in the SUV example. Not the same as the difference between an SLX and an XT brake. Maybe I'm being persnickety, but helmets are a big time outlier to me, compared to almost everything else. Yes, they're profitable. Yes, there are big time marketing dollars at work. But it's still different than almost everything else. Oh, and an S7 at 130 is faster because it won't fly off the road if it hits a corner at that speed ;)