POC’s New Ventral Is As Fast As It Is Stylish

A much-needed makeover for Swedish helmet brand's aero road offering.


Joe Lindsey |

Model Name: POC Ventral
Weight: 284g (medium)
Sizes: Small, Medium, Large
Style: Aero road helmet

Secondary air intakes near the rear of the helmet help create a pressure gradient that pulls air through the helmet. Photograph courtesy of POC

What Is It, Who’s It For?

A significant push in aero road helmets lately has been for better ventilation. Swedish protective gear and apparel company POC joins that rush with its new helmet, the Ventral. The Ventral bears a strong familial resemblance to POC’s all-around road helmet, the Octal. It should provide an aero option across a wider range of temperature conditions, without sacrificing the aerodynamic efficiency gains of the Octal Aero.

What’s New for 2018?

The Ventral is an all-new helmet, which adds everyday ride-ability to the Octal Aero in POC’s line. We breathe a sigh of thanks for that. The aesthetics of the regular Octal can inspire some polarised views, but the Octal Aero was an unfortunate piece of industrial design. The single front vent and bulbous curve were positively cetacean-like appearance; when sponsored athletes like the EF-Education First team wore it along with a pair of POC’s signature square-ish sunglasses, they looked less like bike racers and more like something out of a Jacques Cousteau film – a dolphin wearing dive goggles.

POC’s new aero road helmet features a five-fold increase in frontal venting compared to the old Octal Aero Photograph courtesy of POC

The Octal Aero was also hot, with just that single intake vent and a pair of exit vents. The Ventral is positively riddled with holes by comparison: five large intake vents on the front and two on top, matched by five capacious exit vents on the snub-tailed rear. The vent size and placement is not random. Like most helmet makers, POC has figured out that intake and exit volume have to be balanced (with more exit volume, which helps create the pressure gradient that moves air). And the helmet also features deep internal channels so that air can move across the head rather than getting trapped.

Here’s POC’s computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for airflow on the Ventral. The blunt trailing edge actually decreases aerodynamic turbulence, according to the brand. Photograph courtesy of POC

Despite the additional vents, POC claims that the Ventral is still “the most aerodynamic helmet possible” which suggests it has lower drag than the Octal Aero. That blunter trailing edge uses Kamm Tail style shaping to reduce turbulence, for instance. POC did not release specific aerodynamic data.

POC was the first cycling helmet maker to address rotational energy impacts, by incorporating MIPS liners in its helmets. But POC is starting to move away from MIPS in favour of its own technology, which it calls SPIN, an acronym for Shearing Pad Inside. SPIN is a series of interior helmet pads with a silicone core that can shear laterally on impacts to dissipate rotational energy in crashes. (It also, in our experience with other SPIN-equipped helmets, makes for pads that are comfortable and less prone to breaking down over time.)

POC’s new SPIN technology uses silicone pads that shear on impact to manage rotational energy. Photograph courtesy of POC

The Ventral gets a one-handed adjustable fit dial system with 360-degree coverage, and comes in small, medium and large. There is a wide range of colors, from conventional white or black to fluo pink and fluo orange, and several matte finishes as well. Our size medium tester weighs 284g. That’s more than POC claims for the European version, but US-certified helmets are typically slightly heavier, and the Ventral is competitive on weight with aero helmets like Specialized’s new Evade II (269g in a small) and Giro’s Vanquish MIPS (305g claimed in a medium).
This article originally appeared on bicycling.com.

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