This Ruroc Helmet Ruined My Ski Holiday
“I don’t like I’m talking to you while wearing this. It’s intimidating.
A friend told me this and he’s not kidding. His name is Stuart. Stuart is as affable a person as anyone could wish to meet, and we have skied together three or four times. But now he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t upset him, we’re on good terms, but he hates what I have on my head. At the end of the week, me too.
The intimidating helmet I wear is the Ruroc RG2. It is, according to Ruroc, the world’s only full-face winter sports helmet – and now I can completely understand why, although I initially thought it seemed like the perfect cover to replace my aging POC. On paper, the RG2 should be a winner, despite a starting price of $379 (which makes it more expensive than almost all of WIRED’s picks in our ski helmet guide). Only when you wear it do the disadvantages become clearly evident.
The RG2 is actually an ISPO award-winning headset. It has a built-in Twiceme NFC chip, allowing you to store critical medical information easily accessible by first responders in an emergency. To protect your noggin, it’s lined with Rheon, a breathable, energy-absorbing polymer (originally designed from a NASA project to replace space shuttle foam) that is flexible in its natural state but instantly stiffens on impact.
For even more spending, there’s an optional JBL-powered Cardo communications system that lets you stream music, take calls, connect with a GoPro, and chat with up to 15 other equally intimidating Ruroc users over a mesh network.
The RG2’s big advantage over the original RG1, however, comes down to a simple tweak to this updated design. In the RG1, you attached the bottom faceplate using plastic clips that slid, usually reluctantly, into place. It worked, but any supposed cool factor for the wearers was immediately ruined when others watched them attempt to put these clips in place without useful mirrors on hand outside your average ski lift or mountain restaurant. The solution? Magnets. Ruroc Finally launched this call after sifting through “15 years of direct comments”.
Gone are the plastic clips and here comes the magnetic mask system, which “allows users to easily remove the helmet’s chin strap while wearing gloves.” The problem is that removing the chin strap has never been a problem. The problem was putting the damn thing on. Still, this new magnetic system is definitely simpler, but it’s by no means foolproof, and you’ll probably still have to make two or three attempts to lock it every time you want to add it to the headset.
