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The
KDMax and KDPro helmet is designed with the vaulter in mind.
The carbon and e-glass composite shell provide the stiffness and
strength while an EPP liner provides the impact protection while
weighing only 500 grams.
Impact
Absorbing Shell Features
The features on the shell serve a real purpose besides looking great. They have
been placed in a manner that increases the stiffness of the shell and acts as
crumple zones during an impact. With most of the impacts focusing on the rear
portions of the shell these features help to reduce the level of impacts.
Duct Venting
Our venting system pulls air from the brow and over the ears
into channels running through the interior of the liner,
exhausting through the rear edge of the helmet. Vaulting is a "burst" event
so the helmet will never be worn for an extended period of time. In order
to keep the exterior smooth, all venting occours from the
edge of the helmet. An added feature is that our air intakes over the
ear also allow clearance for sunglasses to be worn without effecting
the wear position of the helmet.
Clearance For Plant Arm
In our meetings with the pole vault community, plant arm clearance
was often a topic of discussion. We reacted to those comments by creating
scallops in the shell that align with the plant arm and assures that
the positioning of the helmet is not tilted or tweaked mid-vault by the
plant arm while engaging with the plant box.
"No Snag" Ultra-Smooth Exterior
No external vents and smooth transitions from one feature to
the next along with the stabilizing retention system create a helmet
without snap or catch points. The smooth polished shell slides easily
over the landing materials, assuring that the helmet does not grab or
lock onto the pit during landing, causing injury.
Lightweight
The KDMax weights less than 500 grams, which is only 1.1 pounds — the
same or lighter than a standard bike helmet. This close-fitting helmet
comes with a full range of fit pad thicknesses to customize the sizing
for each vaulter. With the retention snug and helmet worm properly you
will hardly know its there.
Aero
Shape
This is a smooth, sleek shape with little drag and no whistling while running.
Similar to a swimmers cap through water, this new shape glides through the air.
Carbon
Fiber Super Stiff Shell
A stiff shell is very important when impacting non-flat surfaces. The stiffness
of the carbon fiber shell is able to best spread the load of an impact to the
entire liner surface, away from the point of impact.
Plastic is much less expensive but also does not provide the same
degree of protection because it is too flexible. Picture in your mind
a smooth stone sitting on a flat surface; we can represent a plastic
shell helmet with an inflated balloon and our carbon shell with an inflated
basket ball.
If you were to push the balloon down onto the stone it will stretch
and change shape until the stone is almost completely surrounded by
the balloon and while also touching the ground surrounding the stone.
We now try the same exercise with the basketball. With a fully inflated
basketball the stone may cause a slight depression in the ball but will
never let us compress enough to surround the stone or even come close
to compressing enough to touch the ground as with the balloon.
This exercise helps us understand these two different types of shells
and what we are asking the liner to do during an impact. With the soft
shell the liner must try to absorb the highly-focused impact area while
the stiff shell spreads the impact to soften the blow.
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