The production version of the Kask Protone road helmet will go on sale this month for £195 / US$300 / AU$TBC / €235 following a lengthy testing process with Team Sky, which has resulted in tweaks to the final version.
First seen at the 2014 Tour de France, we’ve already had a close-up look at a prototype version of the Protone, which earned a glowing review. Working with Team Sky, Kask has refined the helmet’s aerodynamics, strength and comfort.
The Protone was CFD-designed to offer the best of both road and aero helmets. Kask claims it features one of the lowest drag coefficients of any vented helmet on the market and among the best heat dissipation rates too.
The helmet features Kask’s 3D Dry padding, ergonomic Octofit adjustment system, which Kask says “guarantees a perfect fit to any kind of head shape”. The Italian brand’s Multi In-Moulding Technology to join the polycarbonate shell to the polystyrene cap, strengthening the helmet and improving shock absorption.
It’s light too – its claimed weight is 210g, as opposed to the 251g size medium prototype we tried.
The Protone follows in the footsteps of the Mojito, Bambino and Infinity helmets, which were also designed in collaboration with Britain’s star team. Team Sky head of technical operations, Carsten Jeppesen, says: “The key reason for developing it was to further to bring down the aerodynamic drag of the helmet, while keeping the weight and the heat dissipation as close as we could to the Mojito.
“We know for a fact that the reduction in drag from the Mojito to the Protone puts it on another level.”
We’ll revisit our review of the Protone once we’ve got some miles in with the production version of the helmet.