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Pro cycling is entering its weird era, and I hate it

Everything aero is getting out of hand—mostly with those stupid helmets

Published May 14, 2025
Pro cycling is entering its weird era, and I hate it

Sirotti

I mean, it’s all a bit much, innit? Sure, the aero bikes look cool. And yes, aero socks/kit/gloves look slick. They obviously make riders go faster, too. But some of these helmets are outta control. Before you know it, every single rider on every team is going to be wearing a time trial lid in a road race and the coolness factor of pro cycling will be gone.

The weird factor began with TT helmets — you know, the ones you actually wear in a time trial.

Remember the Specialized headsock thing that debuted in 2023? Thankfully, the UCI (for once?) did the right thing and got rid of the darned socks. And along came more ridiculous helmets. EF Education already quite (in)famously had its giant mushroom POC Tempor TT helmet. But then, Uno-X said hold my øl, check this Sweet Protection aero helmet which is anything but sweet.

There were a whole bunch of bonkers new TT helmets at the Volta ao Algarve

Visma – Lease a Bike went on to  win the competition for stupidest-looking helmet ever. Giro—the same company that made helmets cool back in the days of Greg LeMond—came out with a brand new Aerohead II that looked like should be worn on Predator’s head.

There’s another new aero helmet and yes it’s weird

At the first TT of the Giro d’Italia, plenty of new helmets showed their faces—I mean, hid riders’ faces. Scott has something that is the closest lid yet to the Spaceballs Dark Helmet. And yes, the rider’s last name below is Vader.

Sirotti

Undoubtedly much R&D has gone into these helmets—wind tunnel testing, and making sure that it makes riders fast. If you see a profile of a Visma rider with the god-awful Giro helmets, the frontal area between their hands and helmet is completely covered up. So yes, of course they are faster.

But it’s not just the TT stuff. The worst trend is wearing aero helmets in road races. Wearing TT helmets began in endurance races on the track. Now, pros on the road are too. EF is wearing a POC helmet that looks like it should be used in an individual pursuit, not a road race. The helmet looks especially awful for smaller riders—their head looks like something out of the Peanuts cartoons.

Yes, of course every rider wants every gain possible. Speedsuits, aero socks and gloves are ubiquitous. If your competitor is using a fast helmet, you will want one with as few vents as possible. But dayum, cycling is starting to look goofy. Picnic–PostNL’s Casper van Uden summed up the compromise between aesthetics and performance after his win of the 4th stage of the Giro: “Maybe it doesn’t look the best, but I don’t care about looks, and we also said if we win today, then nobody will care,” he said to Cycling News. It is fast… Fast is maybe not always the most sexy or the nicest to look at, but if it makes me fast, then I’m wearing it.”


For me, growing up seeing a guy like LeMond wear slick Oakleys and a Giro Air Attack made me want to be like him. “For years — up until quite recently, I’ve found — the look of a pro cyclist was something you admired in a magazine or on a website. Fast bikes, cool kit, and sexy helmets. In fact, guys like LeMond wearing helmets that didn’t look as goofy as some of the earlier lids in the ’80s most likely encouraged more people to wear them. But from his era until just a few years ago, helmets generally looked pretty darn cool. For both time trials or road races.


But now, just imagine if you’re an aspiring kid and you see this:


You might say, “yeah, I’m gonna stick to hockey and baseball.”

It’s time for the UCI to enforce regulations on aesthetics, and make cycling cool again.