Mammut Wall Rider MIPS Review

The Wall Rider MIPS is a relatively lightweight foam helmet made of EPP foam with a hard plastic top piece that partially covers the outside for greater durability. It has a lightweight and minimalist webbing harness system to hold the helmet securely on the head. This system is adjustable, but not nearly as much as helmets that have plastic slider bar or click wheel tensioning systems. It is essentially the same helmet as the Mammut Wall Rider, but with the MIPS technology added inside and with a different color scheme.

MIPS Brain Protection System is a thin, mostly free-floating piece of plastic that serves as an additional, but pretty much unnoticed harness system inside the helmet. Basically, when your head takes a lateral blow (it doesn't do much for a straight-on shot to the top of the dome), the MIPS harness allows the helmet to move on the head, deflecting a large percentage of the impact forces that would otherwise be absorbed by your head and potentially brain. The research cited on the MIPS website claims that it is proven effective at reducing the likelihood of brain injuries from lateral impact. There was no way for us to verify these claims independently, but we can say that one tester took an upside-down fall, banging his head and sustaining a concussion while wearing a different helmet, so the need for this technology in the climbing helmet market clearly exists.

Performance Comparison

The Wall Rider MIPS is a lightweight helmet made of EPP with a white plastic shell covering the top and front. It is the first climbing helmet to ever incorporate MIPS technology, which cuts down the probabilities of suffering brain injuries from direct blows to the head.

Comfort

This model is a comfortable, lightweight EPP foam helmet that relies on its shape for comfort. The insides cushion with thin foam pads that rest against the top and front of the head, and replacement pads come with your purchase so you can swap them out if they become too funky from sweat or flatten out over time. The shape of this helmet is fairly circular, and not as elongated. It is also shallower fitting and doesn't sit on the head as deeply as the Petzl models.

Whether this is the most comfortable helmet for you or a close second largely depends on the shape of your head. For our lead tester, it was more of the close second, not fitting as well as models with an oblong shape. He found slight pressure points on the back of the head and in the forehead, although these were virtually unnoticeable when climbing.

The inside of the Wall Rider MIPS has felt pads that cushion the head from the helmet and work to absorb sweat. You can also see the yellow MIPS system, which is a piece of plastic that allows the shell of the helmet to move with an impact to deflect some of the force of a blow.

Adjustability

This helmet uses a straightforward and minimalistic webbing harness to hold it firmly on the head and to preserve the low weight. It's adjustable in the back by two webbing buckles which can rather easily be pulled tighter once the helmet is on the head if you know where to grab. While allowing for minimal adjustability, it is nice that there are two buckles to help keep the helmet centered, rather than just one.

The positioning of the chin strap along the v-yoke is effortless and easy to adjust with a sliding buckle, and likewise, the chin strap itself can easily be adjusted. These adjustments are far more user-friendly than the buckles found on all of the Black Diamond helmets.

The adjustment system in the rear of the helmet is a simple strap, shown here, that is adjustable by pulling on the tabs on either side that run through the yellow buckles. This is a pretty simple system and it's easy to adjust even while wearing the helmet.

Weight

Our size large helmet tipped the scales at 9.0 ounces, which is 0.5 ounces heavier than the version of this helmet without the MIPS. So, for added brain protection technology, you only add 0.5 ounce of weight, which seems like a very fair trade in our opinion.

Despite this, the helmet is not exactly featherweight for using EPP foam. The harder plastic top piece adds some weight when compared to polycarbonate models, and so this helmet is merely average, rather than lightweight.

The Wall Rider MIPS weighs 9.0 ounces, which is fairly light for a helmet, but isn't nearly as light as the lightest in this review, the Sirocco or BD Vapor.

Ventilation

This model is fairly well-ventilated, perhaps even aided slightly by the MIPS harness on the inside. There are 16 vents scattered about on both sides, the rear, and even two in the front to allow air flow through the helmet. Despite being small, the vents in the front seem to add to the feeling of coolness as any breeze directly cools the forehead region.

This helmet has a lot of ventilation holes on the sides of the head, including two in the front over the forehead region, as well as plenty in the back. While it isn't the single "coolest" helmet we reviewed, it is still one of the best.

Headlamp Attachment

To accommodate a headlamp, there are two small plastic clips on the front of the helmet. There is also an elastic bungee held in place with a small hook in the back. This layout is essentially the same as those used on other top lightweight models, and is meant to be versatile for use with ski goggles as well, which require the rear elastic band to be held in place easily.

While we found that both headlamps and goggles are effectively held in place by this system, we also noticed that the underlying tension in the front clips is far higher than on other helmets and seemingly greater than what is necessary to accomplish its purpose. We find it hard to slide the headlamp band up under them. This issue is very minor, but enough of one to differentiate between the best performers and ones who aren't quite perfect.

The yellow headlamp clips shown in this photo are effective at holding the headlamp strap in place, but are a bit too tight compared to the competition, forcing us to work sorta hard to slide the strap up underneath them.

Durability

The helmet is made entirely of EPP foam, known for being lighter, more resilient to taking multiple blows without cracking, but not quite as solid as EPS foam. To help add to the durability, Mammut covers the entire top and front of the helmet in a rather burly shield of hard plastic. While the exposed foam on the sides and rear can handle a little abuse, it is best to be careful how you treat this helmet in your pack or on the ground for best longevity.

We can't comment on how many blows this helmet can take before needing to be retired, but it is EN certified as a climbing helmet. We have spent plenty of days tossing it around at the crag, and have not seen any adverse wear that suggests that it needs to be excessively babied.

Since it is so light and comfortable, the Wall Rider MIPS is one of our favorite helmets for wearing while sport climbing, as we hardly even notice that its there.

Value

This helmet is the most expensive climbing helmet that you can buy currently, quite a bit pricier than the second priciest helmets in our review. Of course, it will always be impossible to tell whether it will, or has, saved you from a potential brain injury or not, but the truth is that the difference in price could be seen as pretty cheap insurance. For its potential benefits alone, we think it is an awesome value, and think that MIPS technology aside, it's still a pretty great helmet.

Rappelling back to the base of a climb while wearing the Wall Rider MIPS. We felt that the extra $60 for this version of the helmet was well worth the investment considering the extra protection it gives.

Conclusion

The Mammut Wall Rider MIPS wins our Top Pick award because it's the first climbing helmet to incorporate the potentially brain protecting MIPS technology. We expect to see many more companies follow suit soon to offer this technology as well. While it costs more than any other climbing helmet we have tested, we think its potential to prevent a potentially disastrous injury is worth the small bump in cost, and highly recommend you give this helmet a shot.

Wearing your helmet is always a good idea, as it can't help you if you don't wear it. For the runout bolt-protected faces of Smith Rock, it not only adds protection but a bit of confidence.