For the past few days, a new “invisible bike helmet” has been making the rounds on the Internet. It’s innovative! It’s unusual! It’s Swedish, making the Hövding not only exotic but adorable—that name, those accents!
It may just be a glorified airbag for your head, but clearly it is the perfect bike helmet for erstwhile New Yorkers. Currently, there is a backlash to a proposed law that all New Yorkers wear the damn things. After all, who wants to look like a dork or a wannabe pro athlete, and is there anything worse than helmet head? Not even a cracked cranium can justify such a fashion faux pas.
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Which is why the Hövding is perfect for New York it is, or pretends to be fashionable. It comes from a hip foreign country with all the hallmarks of design-forward eccentricity. And best of all, the helmets are many times more expensive than most of our beater bikes. At 3998 Swedish kronor, the helmet works out to about $598. Goes perfectly with those $450 Prada cycling sneakers you just bought.