Helmets have long been plagued by an unspoken rule: Light weight, ventilation, aerodynamics—pick two, there's your helmet. As you can tell by now, though, we don't play by these rules—or really any for that matter. We'd rather turn standards on their head and create products that nobody ever dreamed of. And you needn't look any further than the new S-Works Evade helmet for proof of this. Straight up, it's the fastest road helmet out there.

We've teamed up with MIPS researchers to introduce MIPS SL—a new, ultra-light, and supremely comfortable version of MIPS that's available exclusively on Specialized helmets. With MIPS SL, we've essentially integrated MIPS technology within the helmet padding itself. MIPS SL's minimalist "watchband" attachment system provides 10 to 15 millimeters of rotation in every direction and offers the same brain protection benefits as other versions of MIPS, while also ushering in a new level of comfort and weight savings.

Beginning with the aerodynamic development, we basically lived in our Win Tunnel to create this Evade. Having our own wind tunnel allows us to develop our products with aero at the forefront of the design, rather than merely testing them there. With this, we carefully analyzed every aspect of helmet performance in the Win Tunnel, and with real world testing, to ensure that we left no stone unturned in the quest for performance. This makes for a helmet that has countless testing hours and years of development, and ultimately, this adds up to the fastest road helmet we’ve ever tested.

We not only took grams out of the drag, but we did it without sacrificing safety. In fact, we switched the construction to favor our Energy Optimized Multi-Density EPS that optimizes the foam type in different places. As far as ventilation is concerned, free-flowing air through the helmet not only makes the helmet cooler than ever, but it also decreases aerodynamic drag. Going hand-in-hand with this, ventilation and aerodynamics were both optimized in the Win Tunnel together, making for the best combination of aerodynamics and ventilation out there. Now, the exterior vents and interior channels have been carefully considered to make sure that the helmet draws in the maximum amount of air through the helmet for extreme cooling. And the result? The new Evade is just as cool as a bare head with no helmet, making it the coolest aero helmet on the market today.

Through this work, the Evade saves 50 seconds over 40km versus a traditional road helmet and roughly six seconds over the prior iteration of Evade. This means that it's not only as cool as a bare head, but also as fast. For road race helmets, there’s nothing that can match this performance.

Last, but most certainly not least, a fast helmet is useless unless it fits correctly. With this in mind, the new S-Works Evade has all the features you'd expect from a top-level helmet, like our Mindset HairPort 2 fit system with micro-adjustments, our soft webbing that won't stretch out, and a new Gutter Action brow pad that manages sweat to keep it out of your eyes. And to top it off, we've added a new magnetic buckle to the mix that makes buckling with one hand a breeze.

Complies with U.S. CPSC Safety Standard for Bicycle Helmets for Persons Age 5 and Older.