Lance Armstrong will benefit from Giro’s latest time trial helmet

The twisting streets of Monaco will make for a fantastic Prologue in the 2009 Tour de France this Saturday, but the riders will be focusing less on the huge yachts in the Marina and the plush hotels and more on how they can eke out every possible little advantage.

To help its sponsored riders, Giro has developed an all new time trial helmet, and will be first spotted around the streets of Monaco, most likely on the heads of the Astana team. It’s actually still in development and not ready for release yet, a name hasn’t been decided on even, and it’s going under the project code of G-284-TT.

The new helmet adopts a much shorter and stubbier shape than the current Giro Advantage, and an integrated visor should further increase the slipperiness of the design. One key design consideration is that the helmet suits the many different positions adopted by different riders, so it’s adaptable to give each rider the maximum benefit from the new design. There’s no point a helmet being fast on a stationary model in the wind tunnel if any aerodynamic benefit is negated the moment a rider gets down low on their time trial bicycle in a real world situation.

There’s some video action of the helmet being tested in a wind tunnel in Kirsten, US, and interviews with the designers responsible for the new design. www.giro.com/en-us/media/#/asset:59/category:default/type:default.

More at www.madison.co.uk and www.giro.com