How our ratings have changed since 2024

HIPER published its first ratings for 30 helmets in 2024, on a star scale. From 2026, every helmet we test receives a medal and a Protection Score out of 100. This page explains what changed and why.

What stays the same

The test itself has not changed. Every helmet is dropped onto a 45° angled anvil at 6.5 m/s, at four locations (front, rear, side and front-side), with three repeats at each location. These conditions come from our review of real-world cyclist collisions.

We still measure how the head moves in each impact and turn this into two injury risks: linear risk, for skull fracture and bleeding on the brain, and rotational risk, for diffuse brain injury. These are combined into one overall injury risk, weighted by how often each part of the head is hit in real crashes.

What changed

1. The headform

Our 2024 ratings used a prototype headform. From 2026 we test with the production headform built to the new European standard for helmet test headforms, EN 17950. Because the headform changed, results from the two rounds cannot be compared directly. The 2024 ratings are therefore kept separately, in their original star format.

2. How results are shown

	2024 ratings	2026 ratings onwards
Headline rating	Stars, from 0 to 5	Medal: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum or Diamond
Number	Star score to two decimals, e.g. 3.82	Protection Score out of 100 to one decimal, e.g. 75.2
How it is worked out	Stars = 5 − (overall risk − 0.10) ÷ 0.05, between 0 and 5	Protection Score = (1 − overall risk) × 100
Year shown	Not shown	The year the helmet was tested, on the medal

Why we moved to medals

Every helmet we rate has passed the safety standard it is sold under, and every one protects the wearer. Stars did not show that well: a two-star helmet looked like a poor product, even though it had passed the same standard as the rest.

In September 2026 we held a workshop with helmet brands, retailers and cyclists. We agreed to give every rated helmet a medal, from Bronze to Diamond, and to show a Protection Score alongside it. The medal gives a quick read of protection. The score separates helmets within the same medal.

The medal boundaries

Medal	Protection Score
Diamond	85 and above
Platinum	80 to under 85
Gold	75 to under 80
Silver	70 to under 75
Bronze	Below 70

A helmet scoring within 0.1 points below a boundary is given the higher medal, marked with an asterisk. Every laboratory test has a small measurement margin, and a score this close to a boundary is within it.

The boundaries are fixed. A helmet’s medal depends only on its own result, never on which other helmets were tested. They are set high enough to stay meaningful as better helmets come to market, and we expect to keep them for several years.

See the current ratings or the 2024 star ratings.