By Dan Satherley
Put off cycling because you don't like wearing a helmet? A new Swedish invention means there's no longer any excuse.
The Hövding is an inflatable "invisible helmet" that slips around your neck in a deflated state, leaving the head exposed.
It's equipped with accelerometers and gyroscopes that can detect when you're falling off your bike, rapidly filling a nylon bag with helium.
The Hövding then cushions your head from potentially brain-damaging impacts. It only takes one-tenth of a second to inflate.
Sweden made wearing bike helmets compulsory 15 years ago.
"To people like us, who wouldn't be seen dead in a polystyrene helmet, the thought that we might be forced to wear one by law was cause for concern," Hövding creators Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin say on their website.
"Producing a bicycle helmet that people would be happy to put on looked like a much better way to go than legislation forcing people to wear one or else."
Work on the Hövding began in 2005, and has cost over $10 million to develop. They cost around NZ$740, and only work once.
The Invisible Bicycle Helmet | Fredrik Gertten from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.
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