When you have some of the world’s best gravity racers on your team, it’s important to keep them safe. That’s also a two-way street as those top riders can also help you develop the next generation of gear. For the newest Specialized full face helmet, names like Loic Bruni and Finn Iles have helped with the development, leading to an impressive new helmet – the Dissident II.
Photos c. Lear Miller/Specialized
Specialized claims that modern automotive design had a big influence on the external shaping of the helmet. Take that how you’d like, but it’s a good-looking helmet with muscular lines and just enough angles to keep it interesting.
Those angles also help hide the vents which should keep your head cool. Stating that they focused on better vents, not more vents, the external vents are mated to internal channeling to help draw fresh air in from the front of the helmet and help it exhaust out the back.
More important is what’s on the inside: rather than using a single piece of EPS foam, the Dissident II gets a 5-piece EPS construction. That allows the helmet to use different densities of foam in different locations for better protection based on the types of impacts associated with different helmet zones. That EPS foam is part of a three-layer construction with a carbon shell and layer of polycarbonate in certain sections.
Hidden beneath the thick helmet padding is the MIPS Evolve liner. The liner is designed to move slightly under impact to mitigate rotational forces, but the system uses fabric pockets on the inside to eliminate “bobblehead” and creaking. The padding itself has an Ionic Plus antimicrobial treatment, and the helmet includes a replacement crown pad as well as two sizes of emergency-release cheek pads.
A standard D-ring buckle and emergency-release cheek pads are found underneath.
In spite of all of the different protection elements, Specialized kept the weight of the Dissident II impressively low: our medium sample checks in at 915g (25g less than claimed).
Offered in four shell sizes (S-XL), the Dissident II includes a premium travel bag and the replacement crown pad plus two cheek pad sizes. At the time of writing, pricing was TBA.
