EU version ftw.
I will mention a few different things here. Coming from downhill skateboarding, which I’ve been racing since 2012 and getting into electric skateboarding and racing since 2021. I’ve seen a lot of different perspectives on many different things.
---------------------Helmets & Racing
To start, both Predator and TSG helmets have several ratings and have been used in downhill skateboard races that exceed 50mph for over a decade. Many other downhill helmets on the market have the same safety ratings. Now many of these races are professionally sanctioned with medical staff onsight and permits obtained from the city to hold these races. Full face helmets, full leathers, and slide gloves are mandatory in order to race. Outlaw races are not sanctioned and I’m not covering that here.
Now here’s a bit of history prior to production downhill skateboard helmets entering the scene, because prior to this nothing existed that catered to downhill skateboarders for decades. Everything up until this point was either custom (many still done to this day btw) or many skaters utilized paragliding helmets. After some time Predator helmets was the first to come up with a production downhill skateboard specific helmet and later came the rest. Keep in mind, many of the fastest and most talented downhillers use downhill skateboarding helmets exclusively. They aren’t some fashion statement and some may like to think that, but it’s actually a very functional piece of equipment that is specific to the sport of downhill.
Since Predator and TSG are the most common downhill helmets used in electric skateboarding. Here’s the breakdown on their safety ratings
Predator:
DH6-Xg & DH6-Xe
CE-1078 certified and meets the CPSC bicycle standard
RS-X
CE EN1078 and ASTM F1952 DH certified
TSG:
Pass Pro
EN1078 and ASTM F1952 DH certified
Pass Pro 2.0
EN 1078+A1:02 2013, ASTM F1952
No certification exists that specifically caters to downhill skateboarding, electric skateboarding, or electric unicycles.
----------------Electric vs. Downhill
Now there’s a few differences between electric and downhill, but in many regards there’s a lot of similarities. The reason why downhillers specifically use downhill helmets is because it’s completely necessary in order to compete and win races due to the nature of the sport being so heavily focused on aerodynamics. A motorcycle helmet is not only too bulky, but it also prevents skaters from properly tucking. When in a proper tuck, we need to keep our head as low as possible while using our eyes to look up as far as they can. We do this to be as aero as possible. A motorcycle helmet has no design in place to solve this and blocks the field of view above your eyebrows, not to mention the weight, angle of our heads, and limited visibility in most situations, especially when skaters are pushing up against you while performing slides. Knowing where your hands and feet are in relation to racers around you is critical, and in many cases to prevent crashing into someone in the first place. In addition many events are sanctioned with only skaters on the road with hay bales or foam bricks on the course. The same cannot be said for open road skating, but I’m not going to try to get into the safety between races and open road riding, both of which have different sets of dangers present, for now the focus is on sanctioned race events. That being said, many of these sanctioned events have safety barriers, hay bales, foam bricks, etc that are both present in both downhill and electric. Racers can collide with other racers and so can boards. I would argue that electric boards present a much bigger risk as they’re much heavier. Now in regards to aerodynamics, this is something that electric racers tend to skimp out on because we have a powered drive train, unlike gravity. In many ways this does open the sport up to potentially using a more bulkier safer impact designed motorcycle helmet for example because we don’t need to be as aero. Although this could possibly change as top speeds become higher for longer sustained periods of time. I will argue that finding a helmet that can achieve both the highest field of view and impact protection would be the ultimate sweet spot we should aim to look for as the sport moves forward.
---------------------Falling Technique
Now while many people point towards safer gear, particularly helmets, which I agree is a valid point, let’s also not forget what other parts of gear we’re missing and techniques for falling.
I see many riders, even experienced ones, that don’t rock full protection on their hands. Now if this is the case, what’s the strategy for falling? Many riders are used to the method of tucking and rolling. Personally I think that method should only be used in the event that a controlled forward facing slide cannot be performed or speeds are slow enough to tuck & roll with high levels of control. With the use of slide gloves or wrist guards on both hands, the focus should be on using them and avoiding tumbling if possible. I’ve experienced both types of falls at 50+mph and I can say tumbling sideways is the least graceful of them. A clean slide forward puts your head away from danger in most cases and it puts you in a better position to get up, avoid danger, and get back on your board. The greatest chance at this is to face forward and to stay low. The only other alternative I can see is keeping your torso upright and being completely on your knees. In most cases though, the forward moment will put you on your hands as well. I see many riders standing tall and standing sideways, sometimes we have to, but the goal for safety is to remain low and be prepared to shoot forward. Knock on wood, but I’ve been fortunate enough through technique and luck to keep my head from ever taking a real impact to the ground. Out of all my years skating I’m likely one of the few that can say this, so please take my words seriously. In person, I’ve seen way more skaters in the electric scene hit their head way more often than I’ve seen it happen in downhill and I’ve been downhilling for much longer overall and I think it’s largely due to technique and practice. In downhill in order to go fast you need to learn how to slow down. To slow down you need to slide your board. To slide your board you need to fail and fall a lot and use your slide gloves to save you. If there is anything I think we could all practice more to save our heads, is the use of slide gloves, or at least wrist guards, getting down low and practicing falling forward or better yet, get into downhill as cross training. Foot braking is also necessary in downhill and it becomes your emergency brake in electric. Now how many people know how to foot brake in case you don’t have brakes anymore? Now in electric I think it’s actually because of the use of brakes in the sport it tends to get people standing taller and avoid using their hands in the first place. Let’s not forget, taller also means greater impact force on the head if it does hit. All in all, think about how you fall and how you would like to fall at any moment when you ride, what would you do and where is your head going to go?
-------------------------More Gear
If the plan is to move toward more robust head gear, it would be great to see helmet companies come up with helmets that can cater to our specific needs. I do see this happening as this sport continues to progress and I do see many riders opting for better protection with the use of motorcycle helmets. If we do focus on better gear, I also think it makes sense to get gear that also covers our entire bodies like full leathers and gloves for both of our hands. In the far future it would be great to see the use of airbags in our suits for major impacts, this is already being implemented in MotoGP.
----------------------Summary
All in all, electric skateboarding is still growing as a new sport. We can take from existing sports that have developed before us and piece together what we can to create our own standard. As the sport grows, many companies will aim to develop new products to fit our needs. These kinds of conversations on forums like these are important and many people have different valid perspectives worth diving into. I hope this information is useful, because my aim is to broaden the perspective. Stay safe out there 
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New i owned a predator and hit a guard rail and the mouth piece broke lol, thankfully didn’t fuck up my face
Also new olders is huge and trusted in the downhill scene but they also just have some bicycle rating. I really want to get one of their aero lids though, they look so cool lol
Probably cause the DH6 is the only one on Ruxx’s list that isn’t ASTM DH Certified, meaning the chin bar isn’t actually rated for any impact protection. Though another thing not mentioned here is fit, I’ve seen way too many people ride around with helmets that are too large for comfort reasons. This ends up with higher risks of the helmet being ejected as well as the impact absorption not being able to work properly, and since the Predator’s one size + pads never actually got snug around my head and the TSG’s being too ovular I’ve ended up going to DH certified MTB helmets.
The only reason I don’t tend to wear a motorcycle helmet is because I very rarely ride past 30mph and motorcycle helmets may actually be more dangerous in low-speed crashes as they’re tested for much larger impacts and hence have to have stiffer impact absorption zones (basically just a higher chance of concussions at low speeds when compared to a DH MTB lid) as well as the possible neck injuries from a much heavier helmet.
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I was actually looking at mountain bike helmets after seeing pictures of ppl like u wearing them.
Maybe motocross (dirt bike) helmets are the best for esk8. They have better vision and are way more affordable for a light weight one than a traditional Motorcycle helmet.
And there’s really no advantage to being aero in esk8 unless you are trying to break a speed record.
Morgan‘s helmet is a MotoGP pro one but those are crazy expensive.
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I would love to fall forward and slide out most of the time, but I do think bindings mess that up a lot.
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Dudeee, what? That was crazy fast looks like maybe 20 mph when you crashed. Regardless, the front shouldn’t break. Yeah, it’s definitely tough to trust the Predator helmets.
Been looking at them too, @davidbonde wears a retro moto helmet (Shoei ex-zero - the last ece rating not the new one) which only weighs around 1000g whilst a lot of MX lids that are similarly priced are about 1200g+.
Morgan’s lid is probably around ~1400g (scorpions carbon lids are about that weight) whilst my DH MTB lid (ixs trigger ff mips) is sub 600g.
Yes it’s less protective when it comes to high-speed impacts but I’m able to see a lot more and keep my head on a swivel a lot easier, which hopefully helps me ride more preventatively. I do also have a Scorpion EXO 1400 Carbon but I basically never wear it on a pev cause of the weight and visibility.
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Awesome write up.
In regards to motorcycle helmets with more visibility an area for people to look is retro helmets styled after helmets of the 60’s and 70’s but with more modern tech.
Reason being is they have much thinner chin bars than the sport bike style helmets.
I haven’t snagged one yet but have tried a few different models like the bell bullitt, torc t1 and one other I can’t recall the name of. All similar style.
They provide I’d say 98% the same field of view as a TSG. I can see the front trucks without tilting my head down, something I feel is important in racing and casual riding.
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+1
I don’t puck down on turns, but run slide picks. Multiple times, they’ve turned what would’ve been nasty broken-bone falls into cool rockstar knee slides.
Even more times they’ve prevented a fall- I was able to reach down to the ground and push myself back onto my board.
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I took two nasty high-side falls in my new olders, great helmets. Never lost consciousness or saw stars. Probably going to be what I get to replace my preadator.
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I have a retro helmet too (Shoei Glamster). It is very nice for racing because it is lightweight with big field of view and has the latest certification(ECE22.06) . The only downside is that it has very small air vents so it gets a little hot in there
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That’s the other one I can’t remember the name of! Nice helmet for sure.
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Joe, SoCal Legend said this in a few of the Intro 2 Speed chats:
"After Reggie’s accident on Sunday, where his helmet got cracked, I’ve been discussing helmet safety with racers. I believe we should implement a buddy system where you keep an eye on your fellow racers. If you notice that your friend is dazed and confused, has wrecked, has a crack in their helmet, their chinstrap isn’t buckled, or their jacket isn’t zipped up, please step in and remind them that safety comes first.
I’d love to see everyone wearing a certified helmet, but I understand that costs can be a concern, and we’re all here for the sport and the hobby. However, at the end of the day, safety is my top priority. So let’s look out for one another and make safety a priority while having fun on the track. I’ll see you at the next race."
Unless there’s a different announcement, it doesn’t sound like motorcycle rated helmets will be a requirement for the next race.
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Personally I haven’t heard the safety issues about Predator from anyone I’ve skated with in years past when I skate downhill exclusively. If you got any major posts or discussions about it, it would be cool to see. Unfortunately Silverfish Longboarding didn’t survive, so I know a lot of info got lost out there.
Aside from that I know a lot of downhillers opt for aerolids and Predator doesn’t make one.
Also, I still see Maryhill posts with a bunch of people rockin Predator helmets. Ryan Farmer ranked #1 in street luge currently uses a Predator.
A lot of downhill skateboard helmets are mountain bike rated. That’s the ASTM F1952 certification. Style wise, we should be sticking with street with street. Seeing off road gear for pavement never made sense to me.
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Guardrails are no joke, glad you didn’t crush your face. Aerolids are definitely sick.
Thank you Ruxx for your insights.
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yeah, I went from predator to new olders three years ago and haven’t had any problems since.
Might pull up to esk8 con with one of these lol
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I mean the first popular downhill helmet was a bell drop haha. But dirt bike helmets really seem like best option for esk8.
I just love the aero lid aesthetic, I bought this aero lid from Daniel at Maryhill, but sold it last year
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