Mary Louise Schumacher | Art City

Design Ideas

Designers take invisible bike helmet out for a spin

The Hövding air bag bike helmet is hidden in a collar.

This is the story of two women who designed something that seemed like an impossibility, that seemed to be the domain of men (according to some) and that was inspired by the ugly, bulky, mushroom-like look of almost every bike helmet in the world.

Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin were studying Industrial Design at Lund University in Sweden. At that time, in 2005, there was a national debate about making helmets legally mandatory.

This inspired Haupt and Alstin to explore the idea of creating a helmet that people would happily wear. Their thesis project was the concept of an air bag helmet, which attracted awards, $10 million in venture capital and, after seven years of development, produced what's being called "The Invisible Bicycle Helmet."

My significant other came home from work one day recently and sat me down. I had to watch this video he had seen that day thanks to a local artist who had shared it on Facebook, he said, hitting play before I could argue.

"Look, she's has it on right now," he said, as I watched a woman ride along, seemingly helmetless. The "ah-ha!" moment comes at the end of the three-minute documentary (and I apologize for spoiling that experience for you with a picture). It seems so simple, so revolutionary.

"People wonder how girls could invent anything this technical," they say in the video.

The helmet company, Hövding, studied cycling accidents and re-enacted accidents to distinguish the kinds of jostling and bumps associated with normal cycling from accidents.

An air bag is tucked inside a collar that will deploy into a hood-like shape that protects most of the head, that is able to withstand several impacts and that won't rip. It was developed with Alva Sweden, an air bag manufacturer in Sweden, and has been tested extensively.

If the Hövding gets deployed, there is a black box inside the collar that records 10 seconds of data about the cyclists' movements that the company sometimes finds useful in its ongoing research. The helmet cannot be used once it has been deployed.

Sure, the cost of the helmet will set you back a bit at about $536, or 399 euros, but with any luck it's a one-time purchase that you'll never need. And some insurance companies will cover the cost of some or all of replacing it if you do, the company says on its website.

So much of the world is wresting itself from its car-dependent ways and looking at biking as the form of urban transportation of the future. Perhaps an invisible helmet is a sign that this could be true, that great design has a way of making the impossible possible. For information, see the Hövding company website at


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