[maon]

My 14 yrs son had a crash at a pumptrack with some serious consequences: concussion, maxillary sinus bone broken, his right eye is impacted. He is ok now, in positive recovery. He had the brand new Fox Proframe, bought a week earlier.

I sent a message to FOX RACING customer service a week ago, not response whatsoever.

My question is: How is it possible that chinbar can be broken the way, its moving inside helmet and crushing the face bones? At a pumtrack, NOT downhill ride, and by 110 pound boy.

I have a huge doubts about the design of mounting of the chinbar to the main body of helmet. It didn't do the work, and even more, I have no idea how this design could stand it. The chinbar/helmet joint is very weak. The integrated chinbar is patent pending, is it really well tested?

Any thoughts ?

Some more helmet pictures are here. Take a look how weak the chinbar mount is. https://photos.app.goo.gl/sE1wW5NckkvdewCZA

 

[riyadh]

WOW, thats hectic. glad your son is doing ok.
Would love to know what fox has to say.

 

[ninjichor]

On the TLD Stage, there's also a seam there, between the chin and main helmet. Only 1 small difference, is that the outer shell has a tiny bit of continuity between the chin and the front edge area of the eyeport, forward of where the chin strap is riveted on. Not sure what's behind the upholstery inside the chin bar, but it's pretty compliant, with something hard under it. Be pretty interesting to see how it's made; it feels pretty solid to me.

On a DH helmet I have, Urge Down-o-Matic, it's just straight woven fiberglass without seams, also with a 1 piece shell bonded to the entire structure. Only seam is between the internal upholstery. Looked at an old TLD D2 and it's similar (LOL @ the glue holding the velcro, which hold the cheek pads, coming off, due to age).

Definite design difference between enduro FF and DH FF, based on TLD Stage, your pictures, and what I've seen.

Honestly, the only must have design difference that the enduro FF has, over the DH, is the extra large unobstructed port in front of the mouth, because I like to be exhale without fogging up my goggles or sucking it up back through my nose. Also allows me the opportunity to drink and spit with less effort.

Thanks for informing us. Learned more about how the helmets are constructed. Looks like the Proframe's chinguard is just the plastic shell and that elastic internal part, with questionable connection between it and the rest of the helmet.

 

[plummet]

That is concerning. I have a Proframe and love it for riding. Now i'm a little concerned.

Perhaps the design if more centered around frontal impacts rather than side impacts?
Either way thats not good. I'm interested to hear the response from Fox.

On a side note. Pump tracks can be hard and unforgiving. A crash on a pump track could equal or exceed the forces of a dh crash.

 

[d365]

Fox probably forwarded your email to their lawyers. Hope your son makes a full recovery. Good luck.

 

[maon]

I agree with @plummet, in my view the hit was very unfortunate for this type of design. It looks like it is protecting for a more frontal impact. I'm really surprised, how light this connection of chinbar is. You expect the side impact won't make such a huge damages. Still, looking at the @ninjichor photo, i think FOX could design something more reliable. I was between Proframe and Bell Super 3R, i choose FOX because I thought a FF with a fixed chinbar will be more safe.

 

[atarione]

Fox probably forwarded your email to their lawyers. Hope your son makes a full recovery. Good luck.

This.... I would if it was me and my kid had been injured in this manner.. I'd probably contact fox via my attorney at this point.

 

[Streetdoctor]

wow. I have a proframe and race in it frequently but I've always said the idea of a "light" fullface is B.S. If you need full face protection there's no substitute for a real full face. I'm glad your son is relatively ok and on the mend! Interested to hear Fox's response as well.

 

[ninjichor]

Fox brags about passing the ASTM F1952 - 15 ("Downhill") standard. Using the testing Bell showed in this video for context, to see what these things are designed for, I see the chin guard deflecting enough to smack the headform's chin in that linear impact test.

It's like having someone at Fox Head swinging a baseball bat, made of that rubbery stuff they used for their Proframe's chin bar, and making a game out of it to get it as close as possible without touching. That's the weight weenie game in a nutshell...

Well, I guess I feel better that I chose a Stage over a Proframe, seeing that square shaped bar that seemingly extends from the chin to ear, to cover this kind of impact. I figure that it spreads the impact over more material, adding the foam from the main section to absorb some of it. I don't know for sure, but I speculate that the Proframe is just secured by a plastic tab that perhaps gets attached at the chin strap rivet. Probably just relies on being flexibility of the rubbery stuff, and the stiffness of the plastic to spread the impact out along the rubbery stuff.

Edit: apparently, the DH rating for the chinbar is: 5kg weight dropped from 0.4m, not to deflect the chinbar by more than 60mm.

 

[Nat]

I guarantee you that Fox is lawyering up right now. Their customer service isn’t going to say a thing. Sorry about your son.

 

[Picard]

I am concerned about this helmet after reading your post.

 

[Streetdoctor]

I'm sure Fox has a attorneys on retainer and doesn't need to "lawyer up". Their customer service is sometimes pretty lacking, at least on the suspension side.

 

[Jayem]

And you haven't served them notice of anything, as in you've not sent a return receipt letter stating the facts and giving them 10 business days to reply. And not just a reply, but hopefully what you believe is the correct outcome. Even if they didn't reply, if you stated your case well in the letter, with a return-receipt, this would show in court that Fox was well aware of your inquiry and decided not to respond, which may look bad, depending on how well you worded your letter. Often times this act alone gets a company with any kind of competent legal department/retainer to do the right thing. Otherwise, their legal counsel may advise them to not respond and see you in court, if it comes to that. In most cases, the competent lawyers are going to recommend this when they are pretty sure they are in the right. If fox is really in the wrong though and you are just "Joe Public" sending an email to fox or leaving message, they are likely going to advise to just ignore you. In other words, having not served them legal notice, it's as if no communication has actually taken place. Serving them, you can at least show "hands down" that they got something and decided to ignore it.

 

[127.0.0.1]

not every crash can be accounted for in helmet design

the design may be intentional to absorb energy redirect energy or whatever

I agree pumptracks are brutal. my worst injuries were taking diggers on pumptracks.
crashes in woods so far have been easier than pump track crashes
pump track is ....brutal

 

[plummet]

That's some cool testing by bell in the vids. Looks like the design intent of the chin guard is to dissipate force from a frontal impact. Side impacts will be less able to be dissipated due to the reduction in material at the point.

Jeese you Americans are litigious. Quick sue them.. send in the lawyers .......

 

[Austin-nc]

No replacement for an actual full face if you are after protection that a full face offers, if you're somewhere you'd normally wear a half shell then yeah maybe the lightweight helmets are better but I see too many people wearing them at parks and such just doesnt seem worth it. Also I'm not sure there is many cases where a helmet company would be liable for a broken helmet during a crash.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

 

[maon]

This Bell video is really great. I think you should be able to see a similar ones when you purchase this type of product

 

[maon]

I'm not an expert neither about helmets & crash tests. And yes, the design might be intentional. And probably is. Now my question would if any of helmet owners are aware about such design principles ? I was not. This might be a big differentiator.

 

[maon]

My questions are about safety and selection of the given product over the others.

 

[maon]

Yes, I'm not a lawyer, I'm only a frustrated and worried father. And I guess that probably I can't do about much about it. But at the same time, I believe everyone deserves an honest response. And I need to think about the next steps. Also i need to more carefully think when buying this type of products.