Suburban Assault

Bike accessories are expensive. You spend a lot of money for state-of-the-art, super tough, super light, super high-tech materials that keep you safe, cool, dry and comfortable while riding. High-end helmets are no exception to this expense – even though most of their cost comes from better fit, design and graphics and not so much from better safety (read more here). In my opinion, a comfortable helmet is an expense well worth the price.

What I don’t like is paying a lot for an accessory that doesn’t last. Before I go too far on this topic, please note that I have unreal expectations for the things that I use. My Giro Hex is no exception. Sure, the helmet fits well, looks good and, for four years, kept my skull protected. However, like most helmets, it’s age is starting to show in the padding.

No, I didn’t expect the padding to last forever and four years is actually quite a long time. I just feel that, for the amount of money that you pay for these things, an extra set of pads would go a long way at making the helmet a better value. Is that asking too much?

Giro does offer inexpensive replacement pads that you can purchase from their customer service department for about $4. They’re so cheap that the shipping was almost as much as the replacement pads. This leads me to believe that the cost of producing them is minimal. Would it really set them back too much to toss in an extra set of these pads to go with a $90 (suggested retail) helmet?

As a side note, my pads were lost in the mail. I don’t think that my chances are good for recovering them, but I’ll save my rant about the US Post Office for another post.