Best Bang for Your Buck MIPS Open Face Mountain Bike Helmet

Giro is one of the foremost names in mountain bike helmet design, and the Giro Chronicle MIPS helmet (and women’s model Giro Cartelle MIPS helmet) shows why, snagging our top spot for best MIPS mountain bike helmet for riders on a budget.

Compare to Similar Products

See Our Best Open Face Mountain Bike Helmet Review HERE!

Coverage, Weight, and Ventilation

While not providing the coverage of our top picks, the Giro Chronicle MIPS helmet still provides excellent coverage, coming down near the ears and over the back of the skull. This sets it apart from many budget mountain bike helmets, which tend to sit up on your head like a road bike helmet, providing you with far less protection from the trees, rocks, and awkward spills that mountain bikers face on a daily basis.

Furthermore, the Giro Chronicle MIPS helmet weighs in at only 369g, which is truly impressive for a high coverage, MIPS equipped mountain bike helmet at its price point.

The downside to this helmet is its ventilation. It is not one of the coolest helmets that you are going to wear. It is certainly not as cool as our top pick, the POC Tectal Race Spin, but it is less than half the price!

Safety Tech

Giro was one of the first mainstream mountain bike helmet brands to partner with MIPS, so it should come as no surprise that the technology is found in many of their helmets, including the Chronicle and Cartelle. Furthermore, unlike most brands that will offer a non-MIPS version of helmets at a reduced price, Giro’s MIPS equipped helmets are not accompanied by non-MIPS alternatives. Because of this, GIRO offers MIPS equipped helmets at a lower price point than most brands, resulting in the great value packed into the Giro Chronicle and Cartelle helmets.

Other features

Unlike some all mountain helmets at lower price points, the Giro Chronicle MIPS helmet retains a “moto” style visor, with a large range of easy adjustability, which can easily accommodate goggles under the visor on a long climb.

The Giro Chronicle and Cartelle helmets use the same ROC LOC 5 adjustable harness system as the more expensive Giro Montaro. However, the Chronicle features a smaller dial, which can be more difficult to feel and turn with gloves on.

The Giro Chronicle features a somewhat lower quality padding than the more expensive Montaro, but I think this is actually a fair trade, as it contains more of it than the somewhat skimpily padded Montaro.

The Bottom Line

At $100, the Giro Chronicle MIPS, and Women’s specific Giro Cartelle MIPS, is a great helmet at a bargain price. I know that some might not consider anything for $100 a bargain, but those people will only suffer getting knocked out once before they change their mind. Furthermore, select colors and sizes can frequently be found on sale for as little as little as $59.99.

The Chronicle MIPS not only provides virtually all of the safety features found in helmets at $50 and $100 higher price points, it does so while remaining just as light as its more expensive counterparts, if warmer than some.

If you are looking for the best bargain MIPS mountain bike helmet on the market, then you could not go wrong with the Giro Chronicle MIPS.

^ Back to Top ^