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Jun 15, 2021

This week we sit down with Brad Waldron, founder of Kali Protectives to take a deep dive into helmet tech and the new Grit gravel helmet.

Kali Protectives Web / Instagram 

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Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos:

Kali Protectives

Craig Dalton: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Gravel Ride podcast. I'm your host Craig Dalton this week on the podcast. We've got Brad Waldron from Kali. Protectives talking to us about helmets.

[00:00:15]Before we jump in just to reminder, The Gravel Ride podcast is sponsored by listeners like you and a select group of sponsors from the industry and outside the industry. We appreciate any contributions to the show's www.buymeacoffee.com/thegravelride. And when we do bring a sponsor on board, please make sure to check out their products because without their support, we couldn't continue doing what we're doing.

[00:00:40]

[00:00:40]With that said let's dive right into my interview with Kali. Protectives.     Brad. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:46] Brad Waldron: [00:00:46] Thanks for having me

[00:00:47] Craig Dalton: [00:00:47] I'm super stoked to talk helmets. It's interesting. It's one of those categories that. I haven't covered on the podcast thus far. So I figured going to an expert and talking about it will give the listener a lot of value about helmet technology for gravel, riding

[00:01:02]Brad Waldron: [00:01:02] looking forward to it.

[00:01:04] Craig Dalton: [00:01:04] Why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about your background and how Kali was started?

[00:01:09]Brad Waldron: [00:01:09] Sure. I was super lucky in a previous life career. I worked for an aerospace company working on military aircraft. So I was a carbon fiber R and D engineer. Mostly on the process side, not on the material side.

[00:01:22]I was fortunate enough to work on the B2 bomber F eighteens joint strike fighter, and then a few airplanes that had never made it, but just stuff you've made it and broke it to see what we could do. And this will give you the idea of my age, but I was at Northrop Grumman in between the first Gulf war and the second Gulf war.

[00:01:41] And they didn't want to put a lot of money in production at that time, but they want to put a lot of money into R and D. So I was just in the perfect place at the perfect time where you could almost do anything you wanted. If it made sense. I, one time my boss walked in and said, DARPA's going to be here next week.

[00:01:57] Think of something. Go back to my desk and I, without five different projects and the next week sit down in front of these generals and you. Present these ideas in here I'm, in my late twenties, early thirties, somewhere in there. And they're like rubber stamping, all of them and oh shit.

[00:02:12] Now I got, I do, so I got to build a $12 million milling machine and then just things like that. So that's where my real just try it. Mentality came from, when you hear are, you can't do that. And get into some of the things that people told me we couldn't do at Kali. It's let's just try, and that's been like theme sentence.

[00:02:30] So I worked that and through some changes in life, I went to work or another aerospace company and didn't love it, so I was down in the Southern California area, working there. And then I moved back up to Northern California where I was born and raised. And I was in R and D at this satellite company and it just wasn't everything I wanted.

[00:02:49] And lo and behold, there's this ad for the big red S in the paper. And so I put on my suit and went to my interview. Nobody's wearing a suit, got called back for a second interview and go, what do I wear when I knew I wore the suit? Yeah. So I guess it worked, they offered me a job as the Pumps and locks, designer, something like that.

[00:03:09]And I was so happy to take my 25% pay cut to be in the bike industry. And there was, and then on my first day they said, Hey, you know that job, we offered you the helmet guy quit. And would you rather that job on the helmets over locks? Hell yeah. But the ironic thing was they, at that time, specialized was still assembling the helmets at, on a site and.

[00:03:32] We tested our helmets and they said, there's the test lab. There's 10,000 helmets sitting over there that can't be shipped. So you say they're tested and Don, w oh, and by the way that the helmet technician quit at the same time. And so I walked into this test lab with this equipment I never seen in my life and go, okay, what did we do here?

[00:03:50] And fortunately somebody who's become a good friend and who I trust in testing. Dr. Terry Smith came and trained me how to run the equipment. The best thing I did was I tested all the helmets at specialized for the next year. I didn't hire another technician. So getting that lab experience and seeing how these helmets broke personally, not just people come and say, Hey, look at this, here's your, reading reports and stuff it's was a great launching point for

[00:04:17] me.

[00:04:18] Yeah, absolutely. I can imagine just having your hands on that many. Tests to see how these helmets are performing just was like training by fire.

[00:04:27]I tell people frequently that I'm a mediocre engineer. I'm really a better technician. I just somehow wiggled my way to get my degree, but mostly I just love being in the shop.

[00:04:36] If you saw my office next to me as a drill press on the other side of the bandsaw, just being out there with my hands is the way

[00:04:44] Craig Dalton: [00:04:44] I work. And did you have a background at cycling when you were in the aerospace industry?

[00:04:48] Brad Waldron: [00:04:48] I had started cycling with some friends and just, around the LA area.

[00:04:52] And if, I lived in first and Palmdale. When I first moved into Palmdale, I walked into a bike shop and this long hair blonde guy walks up and says, can I help you? And I said I'm new to the area. Can tell me where some trails are. And he's I'll pick you up Saturday morning at nine, it turned out it was insane.

[00:05:10] Wayne crows Dale. So my first ride was insane, Wayne, and he there's a long story on board with it all, but he basically rode a wheelie up the fire road next to me, up and up. And, but we had a, the time rode with Wayne A. Little bit and then, got into riding there. And then the transfer down further.

[00:05:29] Into the depths of LA, where you have to drive an hour just to get to the dirt. lot of people around me were riding and that's where I really got started riding was during that.

[00:05:39] Craig Dalton: [00:05:39] Yeah. Right on. And you brought that to specialize and obviously specialized has a big riding culture down there in Morgan hill.

[00:05:45] Brad Waldron: [00:05:45] Yep. Yeah. We're actually about 500 meters from them. Our building is they actually have to pass us to get to their building. And so we painted big ass Cali letters all over the building. Just to annoy him.

[00:05:58]Craig Dalton: [00:05:58] So then at some point you decided I'm going to jump off and do this on my own. What, was there a particular market opportunity that you saw?

[00:06:05] Something that you felt wasn't being done at the bigger companies?

[00:06:08] Brad Waldron: [00:06:08] No, not yet. That's not really where it happened. At the time when I was in special ed, so I had moved on from helmets and eventually became the head of engineering that specialized for everything for bikes. Mostly. What I concentrated on was the carbon fiber projects.

[00:06:22]The the, I worked on the tarmac and Robi mostly on the layups and things like that. Other guys who had much better frame experience than I did you know, the geometry? So I would go the factories and work with the carbon layups and things like that. And we would make it and break it. I still have, I have tarmac frame, number two, doesn't look, anything like what went to production.

[00:06:43]It had a split top tube who knew that was UCI illegal, but so my re people see it all the time. It doesn't say special. I didn't say anything on it. So it's got carbon, top tube and chains and seats tubes, and and then the underbody is aluminum. So the idea was it was going to be nice, crisp, feel of the aluminum, but where your body touches, you're going to have that forgiving carbon fiber Conceptually feel.

[00:07:09] And so I still have that bike when people see me out on it I'm not a big roadie. I don't ride a lot on the road, but they're like, what the hell is that? Because it's totally unrecognizable, but it's pretty cool. So I actually left specialized primarily because they were going through some transitions at the time they had wanted to transfer a lot of the engineering to Taiwan.

[00:07:32] And I wasn't interested in that job. I had my first kid, I didn't want to travel, did not want to travel at all. And so I actually resigned from the position. It was a great experience. It took me nine months to leave. Because I didn't have another job. I hired my replacement. I finished those two bikes and then just started consulting a little bit.

[00:07:52] So I consulted. A little bit with true beta worked on their first carbon bars. With Jared Smith, they're headed for engineering their first carbon cranks, things like that. And it bounced around a little bit. Then somebody came to me and said, we need a carbon fiber factory in China to feed these other factories.

[00:08:12] And I just quit specialized cause I didn't want to travel. And they came to me and said, Hey, can you help us start the Stackery? And I'm like, how many times a year will I have to come? Then they were four times. I'm like four, okay. Talking to a non traveler. Now I said, I can come for four times a year. I spent no less than 150 days a year for the next seven years.

[00:08:33]I just couldn't let it go, try to get the thing up and running and working the way. And we made things like skid plates and pipe bards. KTM was one of our biggest customers. But one of our customers was a helping it factory. So they came to us to make a motorcycle helmet shell, and they, we looked at this thing and we made the shell, we sent it over.

[00:08:52]And they knew I also had some testing background. They were showing me these test results. And I was seeing some things that I didn't like. Basically I was seeing a double spike in G-Force and what that meant to me, it was inside your school or your brains just slapping around. Cause you're seeing a double impact.

[00:09:10]That was happening because as the impact hits the outer shell was so stiff that if you forced a spike up, then as the shell breaks down, they start to fall. Then you hit the foam and they spike up again. I'm like okay, what's doing, that is the gap between your foam and my shell.

[00:09:27]Let's get this thing tighter. Arrive, for example, really prides themselves on the fact that they designed their foam and shell to fit so well. Not everybody spends that much time on it. Then I had this really, according to them, stupid idea. He said, why aren't you in molding these like the bike helmet?

[00:09:43] And they're like, that's impossible. It's a processing problem. You'll never make it work. And that's where that let's just try it thing came in. So we went in and we tried it. It took a couple of years to finally get it to work, but we started in molding motorcycle helmet. So now you're eliminating that gap between the farm and shop.

[00:10:03] Then on top of it, you start to learn, oh, I don't need that much shell. I can thin the shell down because I've got the phone, backing it up. And by the way, I don't even have to have as high of DPS density. I can lower that too. So now I'm finding out that when I have the impact, instead of having that double spike and G-forces, I've got this nice smooth curve that spreads the load much more efficiently, then I got less shell.

[00:10:29] I got lighter foam. I got a much lighter helmet. And I always liked to tell people I never start a project with a weight goal. I think that's not a good way to start a project that, that compromises safety in my opinion. But that process was helping us make a much lighter helmet, which in the end is simple physics force equals mass times acceleration, reduce the mass.

[00:10:51] You're going to reduce the force. So we started, Perfecting this process showing these results around, tried to sell the patent. I did not. I was not looking to start my own company. That being a CEO, being in sales and marketing, not my favorite thing. We had a few people who were really close to buying it and then backed off.

[00:11:11] And then somebody who somebody came along a golden investor, essentially. Came along and said, you got to do this and I'll back you. And so I've got one silent investor in his company has been nothing but amazing. Always allowing me to make safety decisions first over simply. What are your sales today?

[00:11:30]Craig Dalton: [00:11:30] You mentioned that's amazing. You mentioned that you started with that motorcycle helmets technology did Cali launch where the motorcycle

[00:11:39]Brad Waldron: [00:11:39] we did and nobody cared. Literally we, we went to the Interbike of Moda, which was Indianapolis. There was in Indianapolis motor sports show and we got our booth and I'm standing there my first day.

[00:11:52] And you could hear the yarn from the industry. Nobody cared, had the cutouts, you could see. So the second day I'm like, I spent all of my money to get here. I stood in the aisle and made people pick up the helmet. Cause it was significantly lighter. Then what people were used to, and, know, you get the response, like that's it's okay.

[00:12:09] But I guess just put it in your hands and if you don't want to talk to me, move on and then you put it in their hands and go, what is this? And then through that, the rest of the next few days, I only had one guy actually put it in my hand and walk on. Everybody else said, all right, what's going on?

[00:12:22] And then we would explain what was happening with the in molding process and why we could do what we could do and, and show the results of the

[00:12:30] Craig Dalton: [00:12:30] testing. Was it always in the back of your head to move into the cycling market?

[00:12:35]Brad Waldron: [00:12:35] I was more of a cyclist than I was Moto. When I started doing good, if I get involved with something, I want to get into the sport.

[00:12:41] So when we started making skid plates and pipe guards, I went and bought motorcycles, started riding dirt bikes. Now I ride a Ducati and in a fixer and and but cycling was definitely more my heart. But it, so it wasn't that I was necessarily looking to do that, but we had found a way to build full shell helmets that I believe in, I drank my own Kool-Aid that when you put that on your head using that technology, you were putting on a safer product on your head.

[00:13:11] So the next thing of course was to do a full face download on it. So we did that and immediately the bike industry was. More welcoming. Yeah. The motor industry is great, but it's complex. It's the distributors have all had their own helmet brands. So in our industry, we've got the different distributors BTI, K Chaz QBP, all these different guys.

[00:13:34] They don't have their own brands. When you start talking about Modo, they all have their own Hammad brands. If you think. The answer for example, is open owned by a company called  Rocky. There's just the complexity of getting past the house brands where, when you were finding people were interested in our conversations.

[00:13:51]We'd go to Interbike and people wanted to talk to us. They wanted to hear about what we had and yeah, and that's where we really started taking it off is when we were having these one-on-one conversations, it wasn't through any advertising. We did it. Wasn't through. The talk, it was meeting people and just showing them what we did and answering questions.

[00:14:10]And that philosophy is still super important to us today. You call Kelly today. You better get somebody on the phone, somebody better to answer the phone. Cause that's our, we want to talk to people and respond. And that's an important part of who we are. So

[00:14:24] Craig Dalton: [00:14:24] is it safe to say that the sort of signals the bike industry was giving you around the full face helmet suggested, Hey.

[00:14:30] We need to lean into this and create a range of helmets for cyclists.

[00:14:34]Brad Waldron: [00:14:34] Yeah. It came into, when you started talking to shops and what their needs are it's one thing to walk in with one helmet, it, when you're going up against, but let's be honest, you're going up against track, specialized, giant Cannondale, Scott, these guys all have, all their products behind them.

[00:14:52]And they all have helmets and there's incentives to bring in those helmets. You get a discount if you bring that in. Then the only, other, not the only, but the other big boys would in are, bell Jiro who do have a complete range, that doesn't leave a lot of room for a lot of other people.

[00:15:04] So expanding your range and it's something that makes sense for a shop carry. I still love bike shops. I still love walking in and smell the rubber. And still today Over 90% of our sales are still two independent bike dealers. Our, the amount that sold online is small. And that's a whole nother, probably podcast to talk about how that continues.

[00:15:29] But our main focus is still to, to maintain those relationships with those independent bike shops.

[00:15:35] Craig Dalton: [00:15:35] Interesting. So when you develop that range and I guess we can slip into the. More road and gravel helmets that you guys have been releasing over the few years. What features were you leaning into at that point?

[00:15:46]You talked about how originally the differentiator turned out to be the weight and the technology around protecting the head and maybe a different way than had been done. Where did that go to for the road slash gravel helmets?

[00:15:59] Brad Waldron: [00:15:59] Sure. Really what's what continues to drive us as technology.

[00:16:02] We're always looking for stuff that can help us make. The next step. And we started with a technology from a guy from Australia called conehead, where you got the geometric shapes inside these helmets and they crushed the, but to get more specific to answering your question, some of the difficulties, when you start talking about road, helmets is ventilation is so important, right?

[00:16:24] So getting big vents, getting air flow through. When you do that, you have to  really crank up the density of the foam to get the enough to stop the impact according to the standards. When you do that let me put it another way to start with this. I believe all helmets are too hard.

[00:16:41] We're hurting people by the foam densities. We need to get the foam densities down. It's based on how the interpretation of the standards are, which are built to take the worst of the worst crashes. We're not doing enough to deal with them. Where the majority of crashes are, which are according to a study at the Imperial college of London.

[00:16:59]80% of all bicycle accidents are below 160. G's, yet all I got to do to pass a test and sell you a helmet is go to the test lab and make sure it doesn't go over 300 GS. Now 300 GS is close to death. Alrighty. How do we address both of those big hits? But also the majority of those hits.

[00:17:21] And so that's where, that's where a lot of my time gets focused on. It's not specifically for a genre of helmet per se, but how do we lower the density of the foam? How do we put stuff next to your head? That's softer. How do we start reducing impact at zero G's? So now I jumped back to the question of how do we deal with the gravel helmets?

[00:17:45]Again, now I'm battling. I got to put a lot of foam in a small space, which means I got to Jack up the densities. What's cool. Even though a lot of people don't know about Kali, we're known within the industry and the other helmet companies know each other. But getting a reputation is it somebody who wants to try technology?

[00:18:03] We get people coming to us all the time saying, Hey, you want to try this? And my answer is always the same. If it works right, you bet. I'm going to try it. W we were approached initially by Don Morgan, that physicist from Australia with the corn head later, we were approached with a from a chemical company out of Italy that had this carbon nano to acrylic based material that they were trying to pitch as a multi impact material.

[00:18:27]It didn't work as multi impact, but it works. So now I can bind the code ed and EPS. And I'm finding I'm able to lower the density in the helmet that we're probably going to talk about, which is the grit. And so much that I was shocked at the first round of testing that I was expecting the typical results where I got to put it way too hard, the higher density, if I'm in a place that I don't really want to put it, but by putting the right materials in the right combinations I'm getting better results then than I expected.

[00:19:03]Craig Dalton: [00:19:03] And so did that sort of Eureka moment happened early in the process and allow you then to pursue different elements of the design?

[00:19:11]Brad Waldron: [00:19:11] It wish she was at easy. We actually took, originally took that structure that I talked about and put it in an Aero helmet. And the other way I can go with this stuff is I can.

[00:19:24] If you look at our Tada helmet, it's an Aero helmet. I think I've sold a hundred of them, so I don't think you've seen it. Probably. I think we have it on the Danish road team. So unless you've been there Copenhagen lately, I'm not sure you've seen this helmet, but if you actually look at it and you look at cross-section of it, it's one of the finished how much you've ever seen.

[00:19:43]Which was interesting. For me as an engineer, that I could actually get this thing to work and pass the test. But because passing the test is not my goal. My goal is saving lives. Maybe cheeky about that, but it really is what we give a shit about. We want people to get on their bikes and ride more.

[00:20:04]I want to get on my bike and ride more. I've been helicoptered off the hill before we want that to happen, but when I went back to more. Realistic thicknesses and I could drive those foam densities down. Now I'm getting the results I want and not only on linear impacts, but rotational impacts and I'll skip back.

[00:20:24] We're doing a lot of testing and outside labs. So we took some of our helmets. We put in MIPS in it. We put in what we call Rian, which is our low density layer. That's Material developed by a professor out of London. We put in like five different anti-rotation systems and we tested them against each other.

[00:20:42] And they all do an interesting job. A little better here, a little better there. Sometimes this system works, sometimes this is the work better. What consistently worked better was we threw in a. Helmet with extremely low density in it. It's actually a homophobic. We sell in Europe, but can't sell here because the density is too low and that helmet consistently performed way better in rotational forces.

[00:21:06] So all these systems that we put in help, but what really matters is put softer shit next to your head. Let's get these things to be more crushing and more the pillow's a little bit overrated, but just get that stuff that will crush next to your head. So when I'm talking about using the nano material in the Coneheads structures, I'm basically talking about a way in a much smaller area to get the foam density down where it's really making a difference for you during that crash.

[00:21:37] Craig Dalton: [00:21:37] Is that right? A way to articulate upon impact how a Cali helmet performs versus kind of maybe a major brand helmet in terms of how it crushes how the materials work?

[00:21:48] Brad Waldron: [00:21:48] Sure. I don't know how to say it. It's that I can say, I'll go continue to go back to that foam density thing. Most people don't put as much energy as we do in trying to find how to get to that lower density.

[00:22:01] So basically if the density is too hard, that thing you're going to smack and it's going to crack cracking is fine and a big hit on the helmet cause that's releasing energy. But what I really want is I want it to crush. And I wanted to crush equally. And then by having those, like those geometric shapes in that center, it's actually, if you look at it, it looks like an Oreo because the nanomaterials white, you've got the black DPS around it.

[00:22:25] And as that outer side crushes, then you hit another material that's meant to crush and send the energy laterally away from your head in those geometric structures. Rather than a smack and a crack, you're just seeing a progressive crack with multiple different materials there  to help dissipate that energy.

[00:22:44] Craig Dalton: [00:22:44] Yeah. That resonates with me. And it's, it's hard to visualize in a conversation at times for the listener potentially. But if you think about that, just the, I think the pillow analogy works for me where it's just progressively becoming more and more supportive as my head is unfortunately impacting the ground or dirt, wherever I'm riding.

[00:23:01]Brad Waldron: [00:23:01] And, a lot of your impacts are small. And so you don't even get into the part, but it has to really, get harder and harder to stop that big hit. And that's my kind of, my complaint with the way that our testing is that, we're only testing for those big hits.

[00:23:16]When we have, a lot of hits, we're actually hurting people by doing it the way we're doing it. So w we just got to look at it from all aspects, rather than just. Th there's one test that we do in the test lab. Yeah.

[00:23:27] Craig Dalton: [00:23:27] I managed to ring my own bell, this pandemic on a gravel ride. So I've it's resonating with me that having a look, it wasn't a super devastating crash, but I had one of those impacts that I definitely rung my bell.

[00:23:41] Definitely like maybe it was not concussed, but needed to be escorted home by a friend.

[00:23:47] Brad Waldron: [00:23:47] Some level of brain trauma happened there. It might've been like, but something happened. Yeah. It happens at a surprisingly low amount of G-forces and that's why I keep talking about, we need to start managing those impacts from all levels, not just from the highest levels.

[00:24:06] Craig Dalton: [00:24:06] Yeah. And you said that you said before, like the testing is just very. With the tests, one thing, and it's easy to design around that one thing without really thinking about the athlete and the impacts.

[00:24:17] Brad Waldron: [00:24:17] Yeah. Our tests are based on tests that were done in, in, in 1973 where we dropped cadavers on their heads and measured for skull fracture.

[00:24:27] Cause we didn't know enough to measure the brain trauma. And at that time we terminate that it took 300, G's a helmet. It head took 300 GS to crack the school. So that became. Where that 300 GS came from it's cracking your skull, and that was fine at the time, but we've moved on. We have better technology and people are trying, people are trying to make changes.

[00:24:46]People ask me about MIPS and I always say, I respect them. What Dr. Haller did was taught us about rotational forces. And we've learned a lot about those rotational forces. I happened to have a different philosophy on how to manage those. Then what MIPS does, because I want to start with something softer next year, head, they use a slip plane thing that is between your head and the EPS that needs.

[00:25:12] Yeah, I was going to

[00:25:12] Craig Dalton: [00:25:12] say, I think a number of listeners might be familiar with MIPS as a technology because it has been pretty heavily marketed and it's that little plastic frame inside the helmet that is designed to move. Yeah.

[00:25:23] Brad Waldron: [00:25:23] Yep. Yes. And in my test it works. It's a technology that, that works.

[00:25:28]Again, I, it, I think there's another way to attack it and we do by using something that crushes more immediately and then it gets off the rotation, but I'll even go beyond that. Forget my systems, my low density layers versus MIPS versus somebody else's. What I found in my tests at the university of Strasburg and that dynamic research and other labs that we use our own labs is the lower you can make the foam, the lower density.

[00:25:56] You can make the foam the better it performs in rotation as well. So that salt. What's off your shit next to your head

[00:26:05] Craig Dalton: [00:26:05] keeps coming back to that, Brad, doesn't it

[00:26:07] Brad Waldron: [00:26:07] really what it comes down to, it's not as simple is that right? Otherwise we just put something, we go use those old ProTech helmets that just, had the soft stuff in it.

[00:26:14]Those bottom out and they do bottom out at a low number you're in trouble. So we have to, we're trying to manage, all the impacts and that's, what's hard. I had somebody at MIPS. Tell me once. Those are two different helmets and I'm like, You guys invented the anti-rotation thing.

[00:26:29] We're smarter than that. We can do this, just different philosophies. Yeah. So

[00:26:33] Craig Dalton: [00:26:33] all this culminated recently in the grit helmet, coming to market, is there anything you want to mention about that helmet that we haven't covered?

[00:26:40]Brad Waldron: [00:26:40] Yeah. The grit was it, there's pressure that pressure.

[00:26:45] There's a lot of requests from our distributors, especially in Europe that. So look at the road side of things. I'm I'm a dirt guy through and through. And we the grit got the name. We actually started, the name was called the nickname was the dirty road. And we saw that as something that was much more Cali.

[00:27:04] Then if we said, oh, we're going to go try and put a helmet on it on a tour de France rider. We got a couple of helmets that are in that category that they the UNO and the grit, the UNO is like a hundred dollar helmet. It's nice. It was actually designed by Hildegard Mueller.

[00:27:20] Hilgard was the head of design for JIRA for, he was a Gero for 20 years. I don't know how long he was head of design, but. And then, and he freelances now and he helped us with that design. Because as you know is primarily amount biker. And when the lights, gravity a lot our line had led, leaned that way for a long time.

[00:27:38] And then the grit was designed by Alan O Kimora who I've worked with quite a bit. And he's former bell specialized worked on several specialized road helmets. But we really worked on these thinking more towards the gravel market than the road market, because it fit us and who we are more than you're saying, like I said, we're going to, we're going to go sponsor.

[00:28:03] I was like saying sky because they're dead and they're not a team anymore, but it's just, something like that and more to, to what we are. Yep.

[00:28:11] Craig Dalton: [00:28:11] And you certainly have some great athletes riding the helmets on the gravel scene, former guest and friend of the pod. Amanda Nauman is a great friend of Cali's.

[00:28:21] Brad Waldron: [00:28:21] She's just super chill and rides like a monster. You know what she did at the XL. Just shows that and, just a great attitude and somebody that's fun to just watch and see her progress.

[00:28:33] Craig Dalton: [00:28:33] Yeah. Yeah. It was a great racing debut for the helmet. For sure.

[00:28:37]Brad Waldron: [00:28:37] Appreciate that.

[00:28:39] Yeah.

[00:28:39] Craig Dalton: [00:28:39] Cool. Brett, I appreciate the overview. I hope the listener got a bit out of this in terms of the type of helmet tech that they should be looking at. I think I'm probably guilty of not looking at my helmet enough and saying, Hey, it's time for a new one time to replace it. So this is a good reminder, this conversation to to think about what's hanging in the garage.

[00:28:58]Brad Waldron: [00:28:58] Yeah. Do you want to keep that thing for us, especially if you're using it a lot. And it's not saying that it's not always has to be a Cali there's other helmets, there's other people making helmets they're out there like me that. Give a shit that want people to do well.

[00:29:11]We have our philosophy and like I said earlier, I drink my Kool-Aid. I think what we're doing is right on and on target. But yeah, make sure that you're, taking a look at what you're putting on your

[00:29:19] Craig Dalton: [00:29:19] head. Sure. And I'll make sure that the listener knows how to find you.

[00:29:23]Brad Waldron: [00:29:23] I appreciate that.

[00:29:24]Craig Dalton: [00:29:24] So that's it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you learned a lot more about helmets than you did prior to listening. I know I did.

[00:29:33]It's an area. I probably should be thinking a little bit more about given the state of my current helmet. 

[00:29:38]Thank you for spending a little bit of your week with me this week. If you're interested in giving us any feedback or joining our community, please visit the ridership it's www.theridership.com. Until next time. Here's to finding some dirt under your wheels