Looking for a more sustainable cycling helmet to protect your brain pan (and look good doing it)? We recently got our hands on the Bollé Eco React Mips helmet and are pleasantly impressed. Here are the deets and what makes it so eco-friendly.
The Bollé Eco React: The Deets
The Eco React is the first sustainable bicycle helmet from Bollé. How is it so sustainable, you ask? For starters, they’ve replaced some of the plastic and petroleum that usually goes into traditional helmets with recycled and organic materials in order to reduce the helmet’s environmental impact, all without sacrificing quality or safety.
Here’s how: They’ve added cork to the foam of the helmet, used recycled plastics for the shell, and natural fibers such as cotton and bamboo fiber for the lining and webbing. Here’s what it’s made of:
- 40 Percent recycled materials in the PC Shell
- 20 Percent cork EPS
- Renewable bamboo fiber used for the comfort lining
- 50 percent renewable cotton fiber in the strap
The helmet even includes a removable cork cap with a reflective line to help cut glare while also improving safety.
But what about adding cork and using bamboo makes this helmet more sustainable? Cork is the bark harvested from the cork tree. Harvesters peel off the bark without damaging the tree, then the tree then continues to produce more cork bark, which means not only do trees not have to be cut down, but cork uses massively fewer resources than, say, lumber production.
Bamboo, likewise, is extremely fast growing, can regrow once cut, requires less water than cotton, and can be composted once it’s reached the end of its life.
So yeah, the Eco React is way more sustainable than your typical bike helmet. But what about this whole MIPS thing?
MIPS Means Safety
MIPS is a revolutionary technology that offers more protection against rotational motion to the brain caused by angled impacts. It does so by being able to move and shift on your head so it can better protect you from all different types and directions of impact.
The Eco React MIPs also uses two different densities of EPS to create a helmet that performs against all types of impacts. High-density EPS ensures that high energy impacts are effectively absorbed and low-density EPS provides protection against less severe impacts. So however you get knocked around, you’re more protected.
The helmet also uses Bolle’s AViD liner technology, which is a fancy name for how those two different densities of foam are laid into the helmet and cut to provide ventilation and an overall lighter weight helmet.
Long story short, it’s better protection for your brain than a standard helmet that stays locked in one position on your head, causing direct impact and leaving your brain to fend for itself. And a jostled brain can easily mean brain damage, which is no bueno.
The Eco React Mips is also super stylish and sleek. It currently comes in one color–matte black with a mint green Bollé logo–and is perfect for urban cyclists, commuters, or just hitting the bike path on the weekend.
Bottom Line
Personally, we found the Eco React extremely comfortable, easy to adjust, and that cap is great to have to cut glare from the sun, especially when we realize we forgot our rad Bollé sunglasses. And while the MIPS technology isn’t something you actively feel or think about while riding around, it’s great to know that that extra protection is there.
So get yourself a more sustainable form of brain protection when you cycle and get out there and wander on.
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Alisha is a freelance outdoor journalist and photographer based in Ogden, UT. She loves backpacking, hiking, mountain biking, kayaking and snowboarding (even though she’s terrible at it). She’s also pretty sure she’s addicted to coffee. alishamcdarris.com