A Vancouver startup has taken the top spot in Virginia Tech's helmet safety rankings with a design that departs from how most cycling helmets handle impact. Pikio's Si Oblik road helmet scored 4.61 on the university's STAR ratings, well ahead of the previous leader, the Canyon Deflectr, which scored 6.82. Lower scores are better in the Virginia Tech system, where 10.1 or below earns a five-star rating. The result puts the relatively unknown company ahead of established competitors in a market where premium helmets commonly score between 7 and 10 points.
Virginia Tech launched its STAR ratings, short for Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk, in 2018 to test helmets beyond the legal minimum and measure both linear and rotational impacts. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission still evaluates helmets primarily on direct impacts, even though research links rotational movement to concussion and other brain injuries. The cycling industry moved ahead of the regulator on its own, starting with the Multidirectional Impact Protection System, or MIPS, which reached the market in 2007. Of the first 30 helmets Virginia Tech tested, only four earned five stars, but by 2025, 167 of 272 reached that mark, prompting the university to tighten its grading.
The Si Oblik uses a safety system called Oblik. Instead of a single block of expanded polystyrene foam, the design breaks the foam into independently mounted sections attached to a base layer at flexible connection points. Those sections can move separately or detach during a serious impact, and dual-density foam absorbs direct hits. Pikio founder Daniel Abram said the system deforms, deflects and detaches depending on an impact's intensity, location and direction, addressing both linear and rotational energy rather than compressing material in one direction.
Competing approaches differ. MIPS, now common on premium helmets, uses a low-friction layer that moves 10 to 15 millimeters in the first 5 to 10 milliseconds of an impact. MIPS Spherical nests two liners that rotate against each other, 6D's Omni-Directional Suspension floats one liner inside another, and WaveCel relies on a cellular structure that flexes, crumples and glides. The Release Layer System on Canyon's Deflectr and the 3D-printed Hexr Miden RLS redirects rotational energy using external shell panels on polycarbonate ball bearings.
Abram's background includes 18 years of impact protection research. After studying mechanical engineering, he worked on helmet research at Simon Fraser University, helping develop BrainShield, and later founded the helmet technology company BiaGuard, whose patents and intellectual property MIPS acquired for about $1 million in 2022.
At $379, the Si Oblik costs $219 more than the second-ranked Canyon Deflectr RLS. Abram attributed much of the price to manufacturing complexity: a standard cycling helmet has roughly eight to 10 parts, while the Pikio Si uses about 80 components. The company offers a 30 percent discount on a replacement if it receives a damaged helmet, and Abram said four helmets have been returned and replaced so far.
The helmet weighs 279 grams in medium and carries 17 air vents. Pikio plans a second design early in the new year. Whether the company becomes a major helmet brand, a technology supplier or both remains to be seen.
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