The straps

When one thinks of all the technology that's gone into making bicycle helmets, sometimes I get the impression that one of the fundamentals has been overlooked. After all, there has been a heap of research and development (probably at considerable cost) used to make them lightweight, durable and aerodynamic -- aimed at increasing the comfort factor as much as the functionality of the device. So it's somewhat startling, that something as fundamental to the comfort aspects as the helmet strap could have been just totally forgotten about.

After all, this is basically just a bit of webbing that holds the rest of the machinery in place for however long the wearer intends. Yet this is the bit that seems to cause the most consternation to the wearer. A strap that's twisted can get very uncomfortable after a while, and often requires a good 30 minutes or so (if it's really twisted, as mine currently is) to straighen it out. Of course, it twists itself in such an incidious way that the wearer doesn't notice until it gets really uncomfortable -- particularly if they spend as much time wearing it as I do.

Now I don't claim to be an expert here, but to me it seems that a twist-resistant strap should be one of the easier things to get right. Certainly, it shouldn't require the same brainpower as coming up with a design so aerodynamic that even the UCI could ban it from the TdF. Guess we'll have to wait for siii-iiiimon or raa-aalph in marketing to take a strap to the engineers -- so to speak.