# Met parachute helmet in the US



## Kinetic07 (Jul 23, 2011)

I searched the forum for info about the met parachute and where to buy it on the Internet and it seemed like most of them were kind of old. Would eBay be the best bet or would paying the premium at chain reaction be the safer way to go? 

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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

I got mine from CRC in four days, about 18 months ago. CRC is great to do business with. eBay has its risks.


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## ranier (Sep 9, 2003)

That's an interesting full face helmet.

@slocaus - how do you like it so far? what kind of riding do you do?


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

I'm an XC / AM rider. Ride 2-8 miles to the trail head, ride 20+ miles, climb and descend 2-5000 feet over smooth to very rocky terrain, ride home. The helmet stays on the whole time.

I got mine after a crash in a slippery technical stream crossing where I smacked my chin and nose, scared the ***** out of me, cracked my helmet in 8 places and left substantial blood in and on the banks of that creek.

I have five other friends who use the helmet to protect their face. One of them had some substantial oral surgery after a serious face plant. We are all climbers and descenders, but we have many very rocky trails where we live. If you are a mainly a gravity rider, then by all means get a regular full face helmet!









\This is on the 15 mile / 4000 foot climb to a 7 mile downhill run.


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## perttime (Aug 26, 2005)

Yep, it is NOT a DH/FR helmet. It is a XC helmet with a bit of extra to guard your face.


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## clydecrash (Apr 1, 2005)

I got mine from one of the ebay stores. Everything went smoothly. I think it would be pretty safe because most of the sellers have sold a lot on ebay with pretty good ratings, and may be just as safe (delivery- and customs-wise) as buying from CRC or some other sources across the pond.

They are all expensive of course, no matter who you buy it from. Cost much more than they seem they should. But they are the only xc type of full face out there (well, maybe Casco, but I found that was much more difficult to purchase). I wear it most of the time when I ride.

But, as already mentioned, they are not a "real" fullface helmet.


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## leokbm (May 26, 2010)

We ride all mountain in very rocky AZ terrain just up down. Most of the time the temperature is very high and this is the only full face helmet I managed to wear. I bought it first and then more and more people on our crew is getting one. Specially one fellow rider crashed and had a major face hit and the other needed some teeth reconstruction. If you bike has 7 inch of travel or more this is NOT the helmet you should be buying ... on the other hand this helmet is perfect !!!!!


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## perttime (Aug 26, 2005)

Getting a Parachute to try for fit may not be easy, and I hate sending stuff back or having to sell it as soon as I get it...

You guys who have it, what other helmets (Brand/Model/Size) fit you well?


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

Bell Sweep, both R and XC large, got the large Parachute, and fit is almost identical.


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## SparxFlyer (Dec 29, 2010)

The Met Helmets web site shows US and Canadian distribution as being in place...

Where buy Met-Helmets

I am going to try calling the Canadian distributor tomorrow.

After an all-to-close call yesterday where I endo'd coming off a rock garden / slab but managed to get my hands up to take the brunt of the fall and ended up with only a bruise on my chine (and hand!), I am determined to get one of these helmets.

The other reason is that I have a Sacred Rides trip to Utah lined up for next fall and I want to make sure my face is protected.


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

They are importing but not Parachute to USA at least due to liability. Canada might be different. I got mine from CRC. in Britain, good price, got it in 7 days. I know many who order from them, very reliable. 

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## pastajet (May 26, 2006)

slocaus said:


> They are importing but not Parachute to USA at least due to liability. Canada might be different. I got mine from CRC. in Britain, good price, got it in 7 days. I know many who order from them, very reliable.
> 
> Sent via Tapatalk


The US MET distributor has only a handful of models that will be sold in the US, due to certification issues. All Helmets sold in the US must be CPSC approved (Consumer Product Safety Commission), which is expensive, stringent and time time consuming.

Due to the design of the front jaw brace on the Parachute, it was unable to pass the standards, and so it will not be directly sold in the US, hence the backdoor method of going through another countries store.


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

slocaus said:


> They are importing but not Parachute to USA at least due to liability. Canada might be different. I got mine from CRC. in Britain, good price, got it in 7 days. I know many who order from them, very reliable.
> 
> Sent via Tapatalk





pastajet said:


> The US MET distributor has only a handful of models that will be sold in the US, due to certification issues. All Helmets sold in the US must be CPSC approved (Consumer Product Safety Commission), which is expensive, stringent and time time consuming.
> 
> Due to the design of the front jaw brace on the Parachute, it was unable to pass the standards, and so it will not be directly sold in the US, hence the backdoor method of going through another countries store.


Yup.

That is why I stated the quick thing I did, I know the full story but did not want to type it in like you did on my phone.  Your liability would be huge if you sold something here without CPSC approval.

I had a nice email exchange with MET before I bought mine, and at the time, they stated that the expense of testing was the biggest reason they were not attempting to import to the USA. If you cannot sell enough helmets to justify the cost of testing, then don't do it. They felt the Parachute was a niche item that would not sell enough numbers to justify the cost. Seems that changed and they tried (?), but the face guard did not pass as you state?


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## womble (Sep 8, 2006)

perttime said:


> Getting a Parachute to try for fit may not be easy, and I hate sending stuff back or having to sell it as soon as I get it...
> 
> You guys who have it, what other helmets (Brand/Model/Size) fit you well?


What fits me: Large MET. Any Large midrange Bell (i.e. Slant). But a Medium Sweep (not sure why, but I found that the Sweep was sized differently to other Bells).


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I think I'll be looking at this one for my next helmet. I mostly ride XC, but occasionally find that a little face protection would be nice. I think this helmet would fit that niche well. A regular full-face would be some serious overkill for me.


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## thrasher_s (Oct 5, 2009)

Why did it not pass US standards? That makes me nervous.


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## pastajet (May 26, 2006)

thrasher_s said:


> Why did it not pass US standards? That makes me nervous.


The US standards are brutally tough to pass, only Australia is more stringent than the CPSC. The helmet still passed the European standard, so I wouldn't call it unsafe? The chin guard on the Parachute is an oddity, and I think the tests sort of caused its anomalous characteristics to fail. I think in a crash, the helmet would do a fine job (conjecture), and save the face from an impact directly into the ground.

Does passing the CPSC mean it's a better helmet than passing the European one (European - EN 1078 / TUV GS vs US - CPSC)? Doubt it. Is passing either certification mean it is a safer helmet? Yes. Does it mean its the _safest _helmet? No, I think the tests are archaic and primitive, and don't replicate the real world human head.

Here was a piece from one of my reviews on helmets:

Helmet Safety
The safety standards for helmets include a retention system, and an impact test, the latter is done using a hard headform dropped vertically onto a flat and shaped anvil at specific speeds. The US standard is to keep the g forces registered inside the headform below 300 g. In addition, a side impact is done, and one with the helmet at a cold temperature.

The major components of a helmet, are the outer shell, the foam liner, the retention system and the padding. The hard shell helps spread the impact over a larger surface (specifically to the liner), accentuates sliding and prevents object penetration. The EPS foam helps prevent or reduce brain injury by managing the energy of an impact through its own compression or destruction, and it does that by converting a small part of the crash energy to heat. Its main duty is to slow the stopping process so that the head slows down during its inertial of the impact (deceleration).

The problem is that our heads are soft and malleable, and the brain itself moves around inside a gelatinous ooze (cerebrospinal fluid), so the testing with a hard headform may not be very appropriate for the human skull? One of the major things a helmet cannot prevent is the occurrence of coup-contrecoup (brain rebound) injuries, which can cause concussions, contusions, DIA's (diffuse axonal injury) and even epidural hematoma.

I am a strong proponent of wearing a helmet, and it has saved my life and alleviated severe injuries in a couple of nasty bike and kayak incidents. I think more research into new technologies needs to be examined to further along the current helmet model.


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## perttime (Aug 26, 2005)

pastajet said:


> Parachute is an oddity, and I think the tests sort of caused its anomalous characteristics to fail. I think in a crash, the helmet would do a fine job (conjecture), and save the face from an impact directly into the ground.


It would be interesting to *know* _in what way_ it failed.

Not knowing, I can only suspect it must be something about the chin guard or the way it is attached to the rest of the helmet: the guard is not as strong as the standard calls for, or something in the mechanism doesn't meet Sec. 1203.5 :

"unfaired projection extending more than 7 mm (0.28 in.) from
the helmet's outer surface shall break away or collapse when impacted
with forces equivalent to those produced by the applicable impact-
attenuation tests in Sec. 1203.17 of this standard. There shall be no
fixture on the helmet's inner surface projecting more than 2 mm into
the helmet interior."


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## Will Goes Boing (Jan 25, 2008)

I bought one brand new off ebay not so long ago and had no problems. As others mentioned the helmet is an XC helmet with more protection. It keeps you almost as nice and cool as wearing a regular xc helmet. 

In terms of fitment, I wear a medium Giro so I went ahead and got a medium for the Met. My head measures 57cm so I was bordering on medium or large. I got lucky because the helmet is a pretty tight fit. It fits JUST perfect, if it was a hair smaller it definitely wouldn't have fit. I reckon a large would have still fit if you added some thicker padding. The met's padding is extremely thin. 

I haven't crash tested it yet, but I can tell you that if you hit the ground hard enough, the chin guard looks like it could fail because it is two pieces held together by a nut/bolt right where the mouth is.


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## electrik (Oct 22, 2009)

I am wondering if anybody has positive crash experience? The only one i know of the chin guard simply folded up and some negative comment were made that the rider would not have been injured if he had on a real full face... i.e. the helmet is dangerous not because it's defective but because it encourages riding at a level that you should honestly be wearing a fullface...

I'd like to get one of these, but am also on the fence.


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## slocaus (Jul 21, 2005)

slocaus said:


> I'm an XC / AM rider. Ride 2-8 miles to the trail head, ride 20+ miles, climb and descend 2-5000 feet over smooth to very rocky terrain, ride home. The helmet stays on the whole time.
> 
> I got mine after a crash in a slippery technical stream crossing where I smacked my chin and nose, scared the ***** out of me, cracked my helmet in 8 places and left substantial blood in and on the banks of that creek.
> 
> ...





Heather858 said:


> That's an interesting full face helmet.
> 
> @slocaus - how do you like it so far? what kind of riding do you do?
> __________________


You missed the older post. 

I like it, the face guard means you get some hearing obstruction and wind noise at speed compared to an XC helmet. I have very limited experience with a full face, to it is probably nothing compared to that.

Think of it as an XC / AM helmet with a partial face guard, not as a full face helmet.


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## Will Goes Boing (Jan 25, 2008)

electrik said:


> I am wondering if anybody has positive crash experience? The only one i know of the chin guard simply folded up and some negative comment were made that the rider would not have been injured if he had on a real full face... i.e. the helmet is dangerous not because it's defective but because it encourages riding at a level that you should honestly be wearing a fullface...
> 
> I'd like to get one of these, but am also on the fence.


Lets just put it this way.... the met parachute will offer you more protection than an XC helmet but less than a real FF.

In terms of riding conditions, I'm sure a lot of you guys have trails where it's considered "aggressive trail riding". It's not quite gnarly enough to be considered AM/downhill, but it's definitely more aggressive than your average XC type of riding.

I think the parachute fits perfectly in that category of.... "aggressive trail riding".


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## protecthabitat (Aug 9, 2011)

MET parachute helmet for trade or sale here. This helmet is great, however I purchased a size large (rather than a medium). I'm a female and this would best fit a dude. It's matte black in excellent condition. I only used it on a few short rides and realized it was too big to safely wear. I bought it on Ebay for $200 within the past year. PM me if interested. I'm looking forward to getting my correct size.


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## cyclop (Jul 11, 2012)

protecthabitat said:


> MET parachute helmet for trade or sale here. This helmet is great, however I purchased a size large (rather than a medium). I'm a female and this would best fit a dude. It's matte black in excellent condition. I only used it on a few short rides and realized it was too big to safely wear. I bought it on Ebay for $200 within the past year. PM me if interested. I'm looking forward to getting my correct size.


Let me know if you sold the helmet? If not I can take it. Thanks, Paul.


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## dogdaysunrise (May 15, 2011)

I have a L in red for sale, located in the US.

2014 MET Parachute Large - like NEW - - Buy and Sell and Review Mountain Bikes and Accessories


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