The Whole Helmet Concept™: POC’s approach to cycling helmet safety
By maintaining a focus on shaping protection that works every day, providing comfort, security and performance, POC's Whole Helmet Concept™ is a product development system that ensures all parts of a helmet are considered in unison to ensure they work together as one for your safety.
The helmet you choose to wear is the one that keeps you safest. With that philosophy, we created our Whole Helmet Concept™, a way of developing our cycling helmets that focuses on ensuring real-world user benefits rather than performance in a lab. Developing individual parts together, making sure that everything works as one, is central to the Whole Helmet Concept™, and the results are helmets that provide comfort and security in a package that always puts the user first.
The reasons for the Whole Helmet Concept™
Our Whole Helmet Concept™ is driven by the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: that a helmet can be more effective if everything works together as one, so that it can provide comfort and performance, and deliver protection that works long before, during and after any impact is felt, helping to enhance your safety.
If a helmet is too hot, heavy or uncomfortable, its protective features become a burden for the user. The Whole Helmet Concept™ ensures we always develop helmets from the user's perspective, balancing advanced safety with the real-world performance needs of ventilation, low weight, and a precise fit. It is an approach where every component is engineered to deliver ultimate usability.
Maintaining safety
Safety is the primary purpose for any helmet, and this underpins every design choice at POC. But we understand that helmets need to be usable as well as safe. Passing official safety certifications is never our sole objective; instead we work to create products that provide impact protection for real-world crash scenarios, while still offering features that make the helmets more usable for specific styles of riding.
Our development process is driven by the reality of cycling where factors like rider fatigue, varying conditions and a range of impact scenarios play a critical role. Because the safest helmet is the one you choose to wear, and wear correctly, we believe safety cannot be separated from usability. This is why our Whole Helmet Concept™ treats protection as a holistic system. We ensure comfort, ventilation and fit are always seen as essential components of the safety equation, understanding that bike helmet safety performance in a lab must translate to practical performance on the road or trail.
Integrating technology
A central tenet of the Whole Helmet Concept™ is the seamless integration of technologies to enhance rider safety. POC always looks to integrate different proven technologies, considering how each element contributes to a unified system of protection that works before, during and after a potential incident. This means looking beyond impact absorption to consider structural integrity, optimised fit, and even post-crash communication.
We integrate a range of specialised systems to solve specific problems. To manage dangerous rotational forces, many of our helmets feature Mips. For structural strength without a weight penalty, we use Aramid bridges integrated into the liner. Our ventilation systems, which can use the Venturi effect for superior airflow, enhance comfort and reduce fatigue. A 360° fit system ensures the helmet remains precisely and securely in place. To provide support after an accident, select helmets include a RECCO® reflector to aid search teams and an NFC Medical ID chip that can store vital information for first responders.
Independent testing
Independent bodies provide vital, unbiased assessments of helmet performance beyond official standards. The Virginia Tech Helmet Lab is one of the most respected, having developed the STAR (Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk) evaluation system. The STAR protocol evaluates a helmet's ability to reduce both linear acceleration and rotational velocity across a series of impacts at various locations and speeds, providing a score that correlates with a reduced risk of concussion.
The lab’s public ratings have empowered riders to make more informed decisions since their initial release in 2018. For POC, data from independent labs like Virginia Tech is a key part of our research. It allows us to understand how our designs perform in a wider range of scenarios, enabling us to create better real-world protection.
The Whole Helmet Concept™ in practice
The Whole Helmet Concept™ is a philosophy that sees safety, performance and design not as competing trade-offs, but as interconnected parts of a single system. A helmet that is uncomfortable, poorly ventilated, or heavy is less likely to be put on before a ride, compromising your protection. True safety is achieved when a helmet performs so well that the rider can focus completely on the ride, secure in the knowledge their protection is an integrated part of their performance equipment.
This integrated approach is visible across all our helmet series. Every design choice is deliberate and user-focused, bringing real-world user benefits that extend beyond protection. Ultimately, a secure and correct bike helmet fit is the final, critical piece of this puzzle, ensuring all the engineered components can do their job effectively. You can learn more about how a helmet should fit properly in our piece on comfort and protection where the helmet meets the head.
The engineering of a helmet is never static. As our understanding of materials, aerodynamics and rider physiology evolves, so too will our designs. The goal remains constant: to engineer a complete system where protection, performance and comfort are so seamlessly integrated that the rider can focus on the ride ahead, confident in the equipment that supports them.
It's POC's integrated approach to helmet design, where every part of the helmet, including the shell, liner, fit system, and rotational impact technology are engineered as one unified system to provide superior protection, comfort and performance.
Traditional standards like CPSC and EN 1078 primarily test a helmet's ability to withstand direct, linear impacts. Traditionally, they have not measured or addressed the protection needed against rotational forces, which are prevalent in angled impacts. Updates to these standards are currently being developed.
When a cyclist falls at an angle, the head can experience rotational motion upon impact. This twisting can cause the brain to shear inside the skull, increasing the risk of concussion or other brain injury. Managing these forces helps provide more comprehensive protection.