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Full-face helmets offer the best level of protection for mountain biking, but are often cumbersome and lack the ventilation needed for anything other than downhill. Enter the Stage Mips Helmet from Tr more→oy Lee Designs. An impressively low weight combined with extensive ventilation make the Stage Mips our choice for enduro-style riding or racing, where technical descents worthy of a full-face helmet are mixed in with climbs and long transfer stages. It's still downhill certified, ensuring it can hold up to high-energy impacts if you're riding DH or bike park, but the lightweight and highly-ventilated design make it much more enjoyable for the rides when you have to earn your descent first.

The Manifest Spherical Helmet premieres Giro's revolutionary Spherical Technology for enhanced safety on the trail. Powered by MIPS, Spherical Technology utilizes a similar slip-plane design as MIPS f more→or greater impact absorption at angular crashes, except Spherical opts for two layers of foam with a slip-plane between the two, instead of a plastic liner. This redirects impact energy by rotating the exterior liner independently from the interior liner, and it enables greater ventilation for a cooler time on the trail as well as a safer one. Giro geared the Manifest for sweaty riding in hot weather with nineteen Wind Tunnel vents, all amplified thanks to Aura's reinforcement around the arch. XT2 …

Smith's road helmet lineup has never been one to disappoint, and this year is no different, with the bar being moved a little higher once again with a new helmet in the mix — the Trace MIPS Helmet. Th more→is pinnacle helmet in the road collection features all of the tech you would expect from Smith, like its Koroud protection that fully surrounds the helmet to provide next-level protection, while teaming up with internal air channels so intake as much air, and keep your scalp feeling cool when you're challenging yourself up new climbs, and soaring down canyon roads. The Trace features 18 large vents that are strategically placed to create an intake and exhaust system, pulling cool air in, and giving it…

Slashing through singletrack or just riding the fire roads, our go-to half-shell helmet is the Smith Payroll Mips Helmet. The Payroll Mips Helmet uses three different methods to manage impact forces a more→nd is a highly-certified helmet for most types of mountain biking. The internal EPS foam absorbs impact energy, the Koroyd technology helps to spread the impact forces across a wider area, and Mips technology acts as a slip-plane between the helmet and our heads, reducing rotational forces during an angled impact. The VaporFit adjustment system allows us to dial in the perfect fit, and a 3-position adjustable visor allows us to rest our goggles on top of our helmet as we are climbing.

Light and low-profile, the Smith Vantage MIPS Helmet keeps weight down and safety up. Built with rotation-reducing MIPS and energy-absorbing Zonal Koroyd, this piece of protection calms our nerves on more→tight tree lines, while the low-bulk, ventilated build keeps us comfortably cool while charging hard.

We live for the all-day rides, carving our way up dramatic canyons, cruising through miles of wild vineyards, and along coastal highways — but admittedly, we're not always so lucky to have the time. O more→ften times we're limited to our daily commute to get in the weekday miles, and crave equipment that is versatile enough to bounce back and forth from one to the other. Designers at Smith seem to have received our asks, and answered thoroughly with the Smith Network MIPS Helmet. All new for 2018, the Network Helmet finds an uncanny balance of style, versatility, and performance, packing in MIPS and Koroyd technology to protect, with modern design and ventilation to keep you looking, and feeling co…