Rudy Project Venger first ride review
The Rudy Project Venger is a relatively light helmet with plenty of ventilation, and needed no adjustments out of the box.
Basics
The Rudy Project Venger features 22 cooling vents, is light weight, easy to adjust, and was ready to ride out of the box with minimal adjustment.
Pros
light, well ventilated, updated shape enhances comfort
Cons
lacking MIPS or similar tech to project against a TBI
Our Thoughts
The Rudy Project Venger is a moderately priced road helmet offering ample ventilation, easy comfort, and subtle style. While this helmet doesn’t include technology like MIPS to mitigate rotational force impact dissipation, it does tick nearly every other box for the latest features for a road cycling helmet.
Medium
271g
$199
Rudy Project
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My first ride in the Rudy Project Venger was on a hot and humid summer day, with nearly no wind. This was the perfect environment for testing the helmet’s 22 vents, and how it channeled airflow to keep me cool and comfortable for a few hours under the sun. Sixty minutes into my ride, my kit was pretty damp, but I was not overheating. The minimalist brow pad was moist but effective at keeping sweat from my eyes. And nearly two hours later, the ventilation still helped me keep my cool.
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One of the most notable things about this helmet is the shape: Rudy Project abandoned the pointy-top spine of its helmets from just a few years ago. And the fit — how the helmet sat on my head — has been improved, I think, because of this.
Features
The Venger is a basic road cycling helmet that arrived without a protective case or transport bag or eye shield. I pulled it from the box, removed a tag, swapped out the bug net for standard padding, and was ready to ride a few moments later with minimal adjustments needed.
Fit
The Venger helmet has an updated shape from other Rudy Project road cycling helmets — it felt slightly more round than the Boost01, and the Spectrum — which seemed to take the pressure off the contact point where the helmet sat on my forehead. The straps were comfortable right out of the box, and required virtually no adjustment. And this too was noticeable, compared with other models of Rudy Project helmets which needed some finagling to get comfortable.
The retention system is dial-actuated, and it was easy to get the helmet comfortable before a ride, and also readjust fit mid-ride. The internal frame which suspended the helmet on my head was adjustable to different depths, presumably to accommodate different size and shape noggins. I left this as it arrived, with the greatest depth possible for a size medium, and this worked just fine for the shape of my head. And this is where I again noted the improvement with how Rudy Project helmets fit.
The Rudy Project Venger is a relatively light helmet — 271g on my scale — with plenty of ventilation is great for all-conditions riding.
We’ll have a full review of the Rudy Project Venger helmet after a few more hours and kilometers of use.