Hövding

Leave it to the Swedes to use modern design to turn a classic fashion faux pas – the bicycle helmet – into a comfortable new breed of safety wear – meet Hövding. Unlike helmets, clunky things that tend to crush ears, flatten and sweat soak hair on the way to work, often weigh a ton, and are sometimes hard to hear through, these futuristic inventions are totally ergonomic. They look just like a scarf, and come in multiple styles.

Though the concept is simple, anyone who has been in a nasty biking accident might have a hard time believing it. Create a helmet that is just like an airbag – one that can sense when an accident is happening and inflate fast enough to save those involved. But the time between you being attached to your seat and being flipped over the handlebars – an accident that I’ve seen result in injuries from shattered teeth to broken arms, but can also result in death – seems too quick, it’s really only a few seconds. Hövding has an answer – the helmet complies with all the necessary laws. Using accelerometers and gyros, motions are understood to be either normal or not. And since they have done hundreds of tests beforehand, there is no need to worry about randomly setting off the sensors when you lean down to pick up your grocery bags or tie your shoe.

Hövding began as the master’s thesis project of Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin – but could help to make biking more accessible to those of us who don’t appreciate helmet hair. Bikes are already ingenious design at its best, so why not have a helmet that is every bit as inventive and attractive?