Helmets
Browse BMX helmets for sale from riders across the UK. Two shapes dominate: the full-face with a fixed chin bar, worn for racing and dirt jumps, and the round open-face skate-style lid favoured by park and street riders. Both are sized on head circumference, generally 54cm to 62cm, and both meet EN 1078 when sold in the UK.
Full-face or open-face for BMX?
Full-face if your front wheel leaves the ground at speed. Racing and dirt put your face first in a crash, a chin bar is the only thing covering it, and most race meetings will not let you on the gate without one — usually alongside body armour and goggles. Park and street riders take the open-face skate helmet for vision, hearing and heat, and accept the trade. Troy Lee Designs, Fox, Bell and O'Neal build full-face lids; Pro-Tec, TSG and Bell are the familiar names on the round ones.
How is a BMX helmet different from a road helmet?
Coverage against airflow. A skate-style BMX lid has a smooth continuous shell, sits lower over the back of the head and the temples, and carries a handful of small vents; a road helmet is a vented skeleton, lighter and far cooler, and is not built for the repeated low-speed head knocks a park session produces. Some skate lids are dual-certified to a multi-impact standard alongside EN 1078, which is what makes them suitable for a session where you fall a dozen times.
How should a BMX helmet fit?
Measure around the head a centimetre above the eyebrows and start from that number. A skate-style lid should sit level with the brim about two finger-widths above the brows, grip evenly on the sizing pads and stay put when you shake your head with the strap undone. A full-face should be tight enough that the cheek pads push your cheeks up, since the padding beds in; a helmet you can pull off by the chin bar is a size too big. Goggles need to seat in the eyeport without lifting the helmet, so try the two together.
When does a helmet need replacing?
After any real impact, whatever the shell looks like — the polystyrene absorbs energy by crushing and does not come back. Multi-impact skate lids cope better with repeated knocks but are still finished by one big hit. Short of a crash, the parts that go are the strap webbing, the sizing pads and the retention cradle; pads are usually replaceable, a cracked cradle generally is not.
How much should you spend on a BMX helmet?
Enough for a shell that fits and a certification you can read on the label. Above that, the money buys weight — a carbon full-face can be several hundred grams lighter than an entry-level fibreglass one, which is a real difference by the end of a race day — plus venting, washable pads and a rotational-impact liner. For park riding, put the money into fit and into the rest of the kit rather than into a lighter lid.