Sweet Protection

Grimnir TE Helmet

When Sweet Protection released its Grimnir TE Helmet to North American markets for the first time last year, the growing Norwegian company garnered attention the likes of which it hadn't yet seen from this side of the world. The helmet's lofty price tag certainly sets it apart from more mainstream models, but what really earned it notice is its success at quelling a common, but serious, safety issue in helmets: POV action cameras that go rogue in a crash, morphing from shiny gadget to dangerous weapon when you're careening down a slope.

By molding space for two removable camera mounts into the Grimnir's carbon fiber shell itself, Sweet Protection found its solution to the problem. It tested, and retested, the helmet to ensure that a camera wouldn't be able to slice through the helmet's shell on impact the way some are able to do. Unlike many after-market mount additions, the Grimnir TE mounts can be removed on mediocre days, thus taking away the possibility of a mount and camera catching on rock or snow as you fall and causing greater injury.

The mounts may be a big part of the Grimnir TE's story, but they aren't all of it. Each Grimnir carbon fiber shell is molded by hand, taking about one hour to produce, with the carbon layup engineered to flex to different degrees throughout the helmet's body. By fine-tuning the flex this way, Sweet Protection hopes to beef up coverage for softer areas of the skull, while allowing for more flex in tougher spots that can handle it. It also included the added protection of MIPS inside the helmet. First developed by Sweet Protection's neighbors in Sweden, MIPS refers to  a thin inner basket that rotates upon impact to minimize brain-damaging rotational forces created by certain side impacts.