your brain cells that then result in concussion. It’s equally important to have both.
What sectors are you currently working in? Chaika: So we’re widely in the sports area, this is where we’ve been born, so we’re producing body armour for motorcycling and MTB, and in the helmet game we’re covering everything starting from cycling to motocross and moto helmets. Rheon also is an energy absorbing layer in NFL helmets and that creates another revolutionary technology of multi-impact helmets, because these helmets are impacted more than 30-40 times during each game, that results in over 1,000 impacts in a given season. So if you’re working with moto helmets you’re designing the system for a 1% likelihood of crashes, when you’re designing the NFL helmets you know it’s going to be hit, you know it’s going to be hit multiple times. How do you design it to sustain repetitive impacts? For example, to validate that technology, the loading on each particular helmet
Rheon protective lining in a Kali Cascade helmet
SO EXPECT A FEW DIFFERENT THINGS, THOSE TYPES OF PRODUCT DESIGNED FOR TOUCH POINTS, VIBRATION CONTROL, SADDLES, GRIPS, THESE KINDS OF THINGS ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO BRAIN PROTECTION AND MUSCLE CONTROL.
was simulated 10,000 times to just estimate over the lifetime of the product, how it will behave. After 10,000 impacts the performance will be the same as if you’re starting fresh.
What brands are you currently working with in the cycle industry? How did those partnerships come about? Scott: [California-based helmet brand] Kali on the helmet side and brain protection, then Rapha looking more at apparel and softgoods [particularly Rapha’s MTB knee pads, which contain Rheon padding]. We can expect to probably see a few more in the space of the next year. I think they’re a bit of a mix. So the Rapha one: it’s about people that we believe share our vision for innovation and rethinking stuff. So we’ve met these people through different trade shows and community events. So Dan [Plant, Rheon founder] and Brad [Waldron, Kali founder] met at a trade show where they just had the shared vision for brain protection and that’s where that relationship evolved from. With Rapha our commercial director came from Rapha so he knew a few people there anyway, so that’s where it was born from that. Really they are just two companies that share our vision, that really want to push the boat out and that’s, I think, where these things always start and where they grow when you have that like- minded vision.
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Are you looking for new partners in cycling? What do you look for in your partnerships? Scott: The answer is: Yes. We want to find partners that share the vision, and those problems that we really think Rheon can change the game in and there’s still a lot that we see coming. We’re trying to push the technology more into that control, the full spectrum. So expect a few different things, those types of product designed for touch points, vibration control, saddles, grips, these kinds of things all the way through to brain protection and muscle control. There’s plenty of things we can do. We want the partners we have or other people that just share our vision to push them out and create something new. Collaboration is the buzzword we use, so understand our role. Someone like Rapha, they’re the absolute experts and they understand their riders perfectly. Even when they went into mountain biking, which is a new step for them, the weight of research they put into the consumer - all these things that we could have guessed and had a go at, but that’s their area. Our role is the energy absorbing energy control. We understand that, data-driven, how you can have the most optimised product for that, and it’s really I think the magic is where that comes together, isn’t it? And that’s what we’re trying to do, find those intersections with partners and then hopefully the product is the sweet spot in the middle that comes out of it.
November 2022 | 47
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