I’ve stopped looking for the best vented helmet personally. Check out the link to my discussion with Brad at Kali if you’re interested.
The Coles Notes are that the best vented lids (road lids for the extreme example) need to use harder foam - or rigid skeletons - to pass testing which can mean they don’t do their jobs (sacrifice themselves to save our noggins) in the lower speed crashes that make up a lot of banging our heads on mountain bikes.
I used to wear an S-Works lid (light, great venting, Carbon skeleton) until I did a header into a stump and despite having a bunch of physical ailments the helmet was 100% as new. Speaking to Brad it was like an alarm bell in my head. It’s amazing how many lids use some kind of reinforcing skeleton to make for larger venting.
Anyways, to sort of answer your question I think the DBX 2.0 is the best of all worlds on the market. At a higher price so love the Kali Interceptor (it has better passive venting than the Leatt, BOA, adjustable visor but at a $$$ premium). Both are good by the standard of Enduro open-face lids but not compared to the road/XC lids I used to wear.
July 26, 2018, 5:24 p.m. - Andrew Major
I’ve stopped looking for the best vented helmet personally. Check out the link to my discussion with Brad at Kali if you’re interested. The Coles Notes are that the best vented lids (road lids for the extreme example) need to use harder foam - or rigid skeletons - to pass testing which can mean they don’t do their jobs (sacrifice themselves to save our noggins) in the lower speed crashes that make up a lot of banging our heads on mountain bikes. I used to wear an S-Works lid (light, great venting, Carbon skeleton) until I did a header into a stump and despite having a bunch of physical ailments the helmet was 100% as new. Speaking to Brad it was like an alarm bell in my head. It’s amazing how many lids use some kind of reinforcing skeleton to make for larger venting. Anyways, to sort of answer your question I think the DBX 2.0 is the best of all worlds on the market. At a higher price so love the Kali Interceptor (it has better passive venting than the Leatt, BOA, adjustable visor but at a $$$ premium). Both are good by the standard of Enduro open-face lids but not compared to the road/XC lids I used to wear.