Bern Brentwood review

There are a few simple truths about people on bicycles:

1. Not everyone on a bike is a racer.
2. Cycling equipment manufacturers appear to believe that everyone on a bike wants to look like Lance Armstrong.
3. People don’t wear helmets nearly as often as they should.

While many people on bicycles often choose to eschew a helmet for the same reason they don’t buy patch kits, chain lube, or even a quality bike to begin with, often the lack of helmets on heads is due to the fact that it’s difficult to find a well-fitting helmet that doesn’t look like it belongs on the hood of a spaceship.


Bern Unlimited, long known as a leading manufacturer of quality skate helmets, is seeking to solve that problem by producing a line of skate-inspired cycling helmets. Bern’s Sink-Fit design offers a low profile, full-surround fit that makes the helmet sit on the wearer’s head more like a motorcycle helmet than your typical “race” style lid. Fit can be adjusted with the extra-long chinstrap webbing, traditional cantilever clasps at the ears, and a single Velcro strap in the rear. The nice thing about the rear adjustment is that it’s designed so that the fabric underneath the Velcro folds under itself, rather than bunching up. This makes for a very comfortable fit, even for those like me who tend to fall between traditional helmet sizes. Oh, and speaking of sizes, did I mention that these go up to XXXL?


One neat feature of Bern’s cycling helmets is the incorporation of removable liners attached to the inner shell. There are several liners to choose from – the included “visor” style, which comes with a baseball-cap styled brim, a brimless “sweatband” style, and two styles with earflaps (one with a pocket for headphones, and one with an integrated skullcap for the winter months). These removable liners are easy to clean, and give the rider a great alternative to wearing a skullcap or helmet cover in the winter.



There are a couple of design choices made by Bern that are, in my opinion, a little iffy. First, there’s a little patch sewn onto the chinstrap, where it splits to attach to the helmet behind the left ear. This patch makes that part of the strap a bit stiffer, and it tends to not want to lie flat. I managed to solve this with a surgical application of my pocket knife, but it can be a little scary cutting into a brand new helmet. Secondly, I can’t use the sunglass channels (located directly above the front part of the chinstrap) with my Oakley Flak Jackets. In fact, I’m having a hard time trying to find a pair of sunglasses that work with these channels at all.


Forget about ventilation while wearing this helmet. While there are many more vents molded into the  Brentwood (the model tested) than some of their other offerings, due to the shape and fit of the helmet, they do very little to get airflow down to the wearer’s scalp. Given the type of riding in which a typical Bern owner would engage, I doubt that any amount of venting would make much of a difference in terms of cooling. That said, if you’re looking for a comfortable, all-season lid that doesn’t make you look like a complete dork, you could do a lot worse than a Bern. Their helmets offer a great balance of style, functionality, and comfort in an affordable package, no matter what your budget.

-Derek Werner