If you’re tired of bulky helmets ruining your carefully manicured style, 2 Swedes have created a product you may be interested in – an invisible bike helmet.
The Hövding helmet was the brainchild of Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin who, after studying bicycle accidents, came up with the fashionable and safe alternative to traditional bike helmets. While safety was a serious consideration when designing the product, keeping one’s style intact was the main driving force behind the idea:
“I don’t want anything on my head,” said Alstin. “I don’t want my hair to be destroyed.”
The pair began working on the device in 2005 and spent the next 7 years perfecting the Hövding.
If you can’t see the helmet in the picture above, don’t worry, you’re not going blind. It’s actually the collar around the model’s neck which only inflates just before impact.
“If it senses a collision, a small gas canister held in the back of the collar inflates the protective cover within milliseconds. Haupt added that the air pressure remains constant for several seconds allowing a cyclist to withstand multiple head impacts during the same accident before it starts to deflate,” according to NBC.
But these helmets won’t come cheap – prices go as high as US$536.
Check out this video to get a better idea of how the ingenious ‘helmets’ work.
