Top Bike Helmets & Accessories Review

It should come as no revelation that over the course of a triathlon, your body will be tested. Simply put, you need every advantage that you can get, and when you’ve exhausted the channels of apparel and lightweight bicycle components, it’s time that you take a look at your aerodynamic position. An aero piece like the Lazer Tardiz Helmet can literally shave your time off of the clock. Don’t believe us? Ask Julie Dibens if the Tardiz played a role in her shattering of the bicycle course record at Kona? We think that you already know the answer. Let’s get down to brass tacks — you’re wearing an aero helmet for aerodynamics. So, you’re probably wondering, ‘what is the Tardiz helmet going to do for me?’ Luckily, that’s an easy question to answer. Lazer designed the Tardiz around what it calls Dual Layer Aerodynamics. Looking at the profile of the Tardiz, you’ll notice that the construction takes on two different textures — smooth and glossy at the front, top, and sides, and dimpled at the rear tail. Two textures are used in order to treat the air differently, depending on where the flow comes into contact with the surface of the helmet. So, the smooth texture moves the flow back to the dimpled tail. The dimples, like that of a golf ball, creates a slight turbulence directly above the surface called an artificial boundary layer. This layer forces the laminar boundary layer to become turbulent, which enables airflow to remain attached over more of the helmet for a longer period of time, thus providing a lower level of integrated drag. The drag that dimples creates is also called skin friction drag, and although it becomes increased, pressure drag (which is ten times higher than skin friction) is thoroughly decreased. For retention and security, the Tardiz features Lazer’s Rollsys retention system. The patented Rollsys is a fully integrated mechanism that completely surrounds the head.