# Remove MIPS on TLD???



## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

I'm guessing this has been covered but a quick G-search shows nothing and I need to grab a deal before it's gone...

Can I remove the MIPS liner from a TLD A1 MIPS?

Found a deal on one locally but the fit seemed better on the non-MIPS. Can I convert if needed without hacking it up?


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

based on all the mips helmets I've seen, removing the mips liner will involve some hacking if you want to remove the liner and all the little attachment points to the shell. plus transferring the pads from the mips liner to the foam.

Wouldn't be hard to do, but it would be a hack.


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## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

Harold said:


> based on all the mips helmets I've seen, removing the mips liner will involve some hacking if you want to remove the liner and all the little attachment points to the shell. plus transferring the pads from the mips liner to the foam.
> 
> Wouldn't be hard to do, but it would be a hack.


Thanks. Don't mind modifying but don't want to end up with small bits poking into my head. Was hoping it was a simple "kit" to be installed or removed.

I'll buy (or not) expecting to keep it as MIPS.


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## Forest Rider (Oct 29, 2018)

Something maybe worth consideration.

Helmets theoretically have a life span. Is the A1 nearing end of life already -they haven't been made for a few years now.


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## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

Forest Rider said:


> Something maybe worth consideration.
> 
> Helmets theoretically have a life span. Is the A1 nearing end of life already -they haven't been made for a few years now.


Well that could be. I see 2018s for sale but who knows what the manufacture date really is of those. Plus they still have them on the TLD website. I assumed those are 2019 s. Maybe those are just old stock.

At any rate, the helmet I just replaced was 10 years old so I'm not too worried about it. But yeah, theoretically I get what you're saying.

On a side note, my local REI has a ton of A1s, I can't imagine they're selling stock from several years ago. Last year stock yeah I could see that. But who knows. when I get a chance this week I'll stop by and see what the manufacture date sticker says on those.


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## mtnbkrmike (Mar 26, 2015)

Forest Rider said:


> Something maybe worth consideration.
> 
> Helmets theoretically have a life span. Is the A1 nearing end of life already -they haven't been made for a few years now.


Is this a fact? I have never heard this before. Impacts? Obviously. Sitting in a box unpackaged? Never heard of a helmet deteriorating on its own in this fashion. It's plastic. That **** will be around when all there is left are cockroaches. Or at least I would have thought.


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## mfa81 (Apr 1, 2011)

mtnbkrmike said:


> Is this a fact? I have never heard this before. Impacts? Obviously. Sitting in a box unpackaged? Never heard of a helmet deteriorating on its own in this fashion. It's plastic. That **** will be around when all there is left are cockroaches. Or at least I would have thought.


some brans recommend replacing after 5 years or after a crash, this is also common for ski helmets, but that's 5 years of use.


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

mtnbkrmike said:


> Is this a fact? I have never heard this before. Impacts? Obviously. Sitting in a box unpackaged? Never heard of a helmet deteriorating on its own in this fashion. It's plastic. That **** will be around when all there is left are cockroaches. Or at least I would have thought.


You can decide on your own.

https://www.helmets.org/up1505a.htm


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## fredcook (Apr 2, 2009)

eatdrinkride said:


> I'm guessing this has been covered but a quick G-search shows nothing and I need to grab a deal before it's gone...
> 
> Can I remove the MIPS liner from a TLD A1 MIPS?
> 
> Found a deal on one locally but the fit seemed better on the non-MIPS. Can I convert if needed without hacking it up?


You could probably hack it, but you'd need to consider how that resizes it. Need to account for the added space after removing the MIPS _stuff_. And... would it at that point, fit the same as the current A1 non-MIPS?



Forest Rider said:


> Something maybe worth consideration.
> 
> Helmets theoretically have a life span. Is the A1 nearing end of life already -they haven't been made for a few years now.


I think they're still making them. I recently bought an A1 MIPS with a MFG date tag indicating 2019. They're still a current model at TLD.

As for life span... I never bought into that myself. After all, it takes Styrofoam like a million years to deteriorate. But, I usually damage them before they are out of fashion.


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## sturge (Feb 22, 2009)

RS VR6 said:


> You can decide on your own.
> 
> https://www.helmets.org/up1505a.htm


Love it...Facts vs marketing hype!


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

Does the MIPS liner really take up that much room? It’s the thickness of what, two sheets of paper?


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## Forest Rider (Oct 29, 2018)

Good to know that they are apparently still being manufactured. I purchased an A2 in early 2018, assumed it replaced the A1, not was made in conjunction with.

Thanks for clarifying.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

mtnbkrmike said:


> Is this a fact? I have never heard this before. Impacts? Obviously. Sitting in a box unpackaged? Never heard of a helmet deteriorating on its own in this fashion. It's plastic. That **** will be around when all there is left are cockroaches. Or at least I would have thought.


Plastics DO degrade over time, especially with UV exposure. They don't easily break down chemically. They mostly break up into ever smaller particles.



RS VR6 said:


> You can decide on your own.
> 
> https://www.helmets.org/up1505a.htm


I'm not a fan of that website and whoever runs it. It sets off my "strongly-worded agenda that pretends to be science-based but makes leaps that I feel are bigger than the evidence actually warrants" radar.

I looked up the actual paper referenced by them.

https://asmedigitalcollection.asme....aterial-Properties-of?redirectedFrom=fulltext

The writeup on helmets.org doesn't line up with what was written in the abstract of the paper. Different number of helmets tested. The researchers themselves said that they took CORES of the helmets and tested those cores. No word in the abstract about testing done on whole helmets, or under the CPSC standards or anything like that. Unfortunately, without the full text (which I'm not buying for $25), I can't see their charts or additional details about their methods.

I think THIS is the article that helmets.org actually meant to link, as the abstract lines up with their writeup.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10439-017-1842-4

And honestly, even just reading through the abstract (not buying this one for $40, either), I feel like the helmets.org people went too far with their conclusions. The authors of that study DID find, at least for some helmets, a statistically significant and measurable increase in headform acceleration with age. What it comes down to was that they found other variables to introduce larger differences than helmet age.



> The age-related differences were also less than the variability observed between different helmets after accounting for style, size and certification effects.


Oh, and also:



> other helmet features that may change with age were not evaluated in this study.


Here's the thing, though. When I'm shopping for a helmet for myself, the size of that helmet is going to be pretty consistent. So I can throw that variable out. Certifications, sure. If a more modern helmet is tested to more rigorous standards than an older one, that alone is a good reason to buy a new one. It's also worth noting that the only "styles" they tested were "BMX" helmets and "traditional" helmets. We all know here that there are other shape/style differences in modern mtb helmets. Shame they didn't actually consider other shape variations.

Further with the style thing, there are multiple different types of technologies on the market these days that are attempts to improve helmet safety. Some of those might degrade with age, others may not. But this study didn't look at those.

There's a lot going on with the range of possible helmet impacts that those standard CPSC tests don't address. This study covers some of them in detail, mostly with just a single helmet type as its model (and pretty restricted to looking at road crash scenarios).

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.855.1293&rep=rep1&type=pdf

As for me, I'm going to look for helmets that don't stop at the CPSC tests. An effort to test for oblique impacts, an effort to address other real-world mtb crashes, etc.

Lots of things can happen to a helmet over time. While I wouldn't be so concerned about a helmet that's a few years old, but brand new otherwise, has anyone measured how sweat affects helmet liners? I sure didn't find anything on a quick search.

I did find information about photo-oxidative degradation of motorcycle helmets, but could not find any similar studies of bicycle helmets.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2016.1203428

There's a lot of potential research that could be done to fill gaps in understanding, and I feel like helmets.org pushes too strongly considering what's actually available.


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## fredcook (Apr 2, 2009)

Nat said:


> Does the MIPS liner really take up that much room? It's the thickness of what, two sheets of paper?


The liner itself is pretty thin. Not sure how much the attaching hardware adds to it.


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

Who even wants to use the same helmet for decades???


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

Nat said:


> Who even wants to use the same helmet for decades???


I think I'm getting close to a decade with my Prevail. I still have a new one from the same year sitting in my closet.


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

RS VR6 said:


> I think I'm getting close to a decade with my Prevail. I still have a new one from the same year sitting in my closet.


Maybe in 20-30 years you'll get around to using that other one?


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

Nat said:


> Maybe in 20-30 years you'll get around to using that other one?


That's where it looks like its headed. I recently got some new pads.


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

fredcook said:


> The liner itself is pretty thin. Not sure how much the attaching hardware adds to it.


Here's a TLD helmet with MIPS. The hardware is comprised of rivets that are recessed in the channels of the helmet so they don't take up any room between your head and the contact points.


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

RS VR6 said:


> That's where it looks like its headed. I recently got some new pads.


That's wild. I've been mountain biking 30 years and I can't even recall how many helmets I've gone through. Some broke on impact, some got funky from sweat and salt, some decayed in little bits getting bounced around during transport and some just disappeared.

My first bike helmet looked like this guy's:








My most recent one(s) looks like these:

















I couldn't imagine having used the same helmet for the entire time.


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## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

Stopped by REI today, they have about 10 A1s mips. Looked at 5 of the manufacture dates and they were either from August 2018 or November 2018.

Decided today after retrying the mips that there would be no need to consider removing it. It's plenty comfortable even with it. One of the most comfortable helmets I've ever tried, but the non mips just seems to fit a tad....more perfect, for lack of a better term. I think it's just snugger because it doesn't have that sliding shell. 

Even though I just bought a new helmet, I don't think I can pass up the TLD with mips for $50. Most importantly is it's a different color than my current helmet so I'll have fashion choices, cuz it's all about the fashion.


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

I usually replace my helmet when I can't handle the funk anymore. I just check the manufacture date on the Prevail and it said May 2011. I think I bought it towards the end of the year when Specialized does blowouts on the IBD site. I don't see a need to really replace it.

I went and checked all my MTB helmets (three of them)...one is 2015 and other is 2012. I can't find the date on my full face without pulling out all the padding...but I got that warrantied through Kali maybe two or three years ago. That was a fairly expensive helmet that sees little use. There is no way I'm going to ditch it after three years. All my MTB helmets are from Kali. They have some kind of crash replacement on their helmets. They'll send you a new replacement if you happen to crash yours.


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

eatdrinkride said:


> Stopped by REI today, they have about 10 A1s mips. Looked at 5 of the manufacture dates and they were either from August 2018 or November 2018.
> 
> Decided today after retrying the mips that there would be no need to consider removing it. It's plenty comfortable even with it. One of the most comfortable helmets I've ever tried, but the non mips just seems to fit a tad....more perfect, for lack of a better term. I think it's just snugger because it doesn't have that sliding shell.
> 
> Even though I just bought a new helmet, I don't think I can pass up the TLD with mips for $50. Most importantly is it's a different color than my current helmet so I'll have fashion choices, cuz it's all about the fashion.


As long as the helmet is comfortable...that is the most important part. The Mips shouldn't affect the overall fit of the helmet. It just makes the outside a bit larger...since its a layer between the foam and the shell.


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## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

RS VR6 said:


> As long as the helmet is comfortable...that is the most important part. The Mips shouldn't affect the overall fit of the helmet. It just makes the outside a bit larger...since its a layer between the foam and the shell.


Agreed.

My Kali Maya 2.0 I have now is super comfortable but I have a few things I don't like about it since I've had it a few months now. one is the retention system, it's a dual slider type deal and it's very hard to get both sides to move, usually only one tightens up so that's a bit frustrating. The second thing is it has a full-pad running across the front which really just acts as a sweat drip system. The A1 is set up a little differently in regards to the forehead padding so I'm hoping it doesn't gush as much. My old helmet never dropped sweat in my eyes but to be fair it was so old the padding probably didn't absorb anything.


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## Shartist (Aug 15, 2018)

Nat said:


> Who even wants to use the same helmet for decades???


Antonio Brown, and quite badly apparently.


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## Nat (Dec 30, 2003)

I don't know who Antonio Brown is.

Have you guys tried Fidlock buckles? I hope all helmets start using those. They're such an improvement.


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## eatdrinkride (Jun 15, 2005)

Nat said:


> I don't know who Antonio Brown is.
> 
> Have you guys tried Fidlock buckles? I hope all helmets start using those. They're such an improvement.


I prefer Swagelok or Fumoto valve.


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## RS VR6 (Mar 29, 2007)

eatdrinkride said:


> Agreed.
> 
> My Kali Maya 2.0 I have now is super comfortable but I have a few things I don't like about it since I've had it a few months now. one is the retention system, it's a dual slider type deal and it's very hard to get both sides to move, usually only one tightens up so that's a bit frustrating. The second thing is it has a full-pad running across the front which really just acts as a sweat drip system. The A1 is set up a little differently in regards to the forehead padding so I'm hoping it doesn't gush as much. My old helmet never dropped sweat in my eyes but to be fair it was so old the padding probably didn't absorb anything.


I have a V1 Maya. I do agree about the sliders on the helmet. Most of the time only one side would move. I wish they would switch to a dial type of retention adjustment. I also have a Maraka XC...with the same ratchet adjustment. I deal with the adjusters because the helmet fits my head pretty good.


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## Mr Pig (Jun 25, 2008)

I sprayed insect repellent on my last helmet and it melted it! Not Wizard Of Oz level damage you understand but it made enough of a mess of it that I felt the need to replace it.


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