Fox's New Rampage RS and the Art of Making a Better Helmet 14

Fox already had a winner on their hands with the outgoing Rampage Pro Carbon (RPC), which begs the question: how do you make a great helmet even better? I learned a ton about helmet design, testing, and safety from the folks at Fox during their recent product launch in Leogang, which helped put their new top-of-the-line gravity full face in context. Read more to learn how Fox improved on an already popular helmet and my thoughts after two months in the new Rampage RS.

Highlights

• 250 grams lighter than previous RPC helmet
• 880 grams for XS, 1100 grams for XXL (+/- 50 grams)
• Now features MIPS Integra Split multi-directional slip plane tech
• Meets EN 1078, CPSC 1203, AS/NZS 2063, ASTM F1952, and ECE Moto chinbar test standards, more than any other MTB full face on the market.
• Available in six different shell sizes, from XS to XXL, in head size increments of two centimeters
• Features carbon shell, GoPro mount, two-position visor, extended clip-on rain visor, and an extra set of thicker cheek pads to dial in helmet fit
• $699 US, €599 EU and £549.99 UK.
• Available now in Europe, but won’t be available in the US until September 12.

What's New

The new Rampage RS replaces the outgoing Rampage Pro Carbon, which was introduced six years ago in March 2019. The Rampage Pro Carbon  (or RPC as it’s become lovingly known) has become something of a benchmark helmet in downhill, so Fox had their hands full to design a better helmet.

Jackson Goldstone and Tahnee Seagrave were involved in the design of the new helmet early on, and their priority list was:

1. Safety
2. Aesthetic
3. Aerodynamics
4. Ventilation
5. Weight

I was surprised to learn that shaving weight wasn’t a major priority during the helmet’s development, for Jackson or the product team, despite the fact that the new helmet dropped around 250 grams per shell size over the RPC. The dramatically lower weight was mostly incidental to the design process with the goal to have a size medium under 1100 grams — a goal that they dramatically exceeded. The new helmet weighs about 20% less, at 980 grams for a size medium Rampage RS vs. 1230 grams for a medium RPC.

I asked design engineer Lukas Grob how they managed to do that by accident. “The old helmet has a lot of empty space,” he said. “It had a lot of pointy shapes, which created empty space and pockets behind the carbon,” which then had to be filled with excess material. Foek Le, the lead industrial designer on the project, said the outgoing RPC had “a very squarish shape,” With the new Rampage RS, Le wanted a more “sculpted and sharp look, with crisp lines.” According to Grob, the resulting rounder shape for the Rampage RS is also safer than a helmet with more edges or flat spots.

Because Fox said their primary goal was to make the new helmet safer, I was curious how Fox quantifies safety, and how they can improve on a helmet that was already great. For instance, it seems like safety, comfort, functionality, and aesthetics would be competing priorities during a design process, and Grob agreed. “Yes, if you were to try to make the safest helmet imaginable, it certainly wouldn’t be the lightest or the most aesthetically pleasing. For us, a successful helmet is the product of balancing all of those things.” One of the results of that balancing act was a staggering six different helmet shell sizes, from XS all the way up to XXL. This move carried over from Fox's Proframe RS and Speedframe RS MTB helmets and the V3 RS Moto helmet that inspired the Rampage RS, which all share the same RS "Race Spec" moniker. Having more shell sizes allows Fox to tailor protection to certain head sizes and shapes with a minimum of excess material. It also allows them to better build the head shape around the new MIPS Integra Split slip plane technology. If you aren’t familiar with MIPS’ newest slip plane, I recommend checking it out, because it features a two piece inner liner of multiple EPS densities that’s able to absorb impacts in multiple different directions and velocities at the same time. Pretty cool: https://mipsprotection.com/product-range/mips-integra-split/

Fox also wanted to go beyond the normal test standards and certifications for a mountain bike full-face helmet. According to Grob, all of the common helmet test certifications are treated as a pass/fail process. He says it's pretty easy to pass most of the full face tests which creates a lack of rigorous standards. So Fox decided to also seek the motorcycle ECE. 22.06 test standard for the Rampage RS, which increases the impact rating on the chin bar and also takes into account energy transmitted into the head form from chin bar impacts. These two factors should both keep the rider's face safer from impacts to the front of the helmet, while also reducing the amount of energy being transmitted into your brain. In total, the Rampage RS meets or exceeds the EN 1078, CPSC 1203, AS/NZS 2063, ASTM F1952, and ECE Moto chin bar test standards, which is more than any other MTB full face on the market.

800 broken test helmets could mean as many as 2000 destructive impact tests just to release one new helmet.

I asked Grob how many helmets Fox would usually sacrifice to the test gods while developing a new design, between internal testing and passing external test protocols, and I couldn’t believe the numbers. I was expecting maybe 50 helmets, or 100 on the high side. Grob said, if they’re lucky and their initial designs pan out early in testing, it could be as few as 200 helmets, but it’s been as many as 800 crushed helmets in some cases. And that’s often with multiple tests per helmet. Most external test protocols allow multiple impact tests on the same helmet, but require 140mm between impact points, which means they can often get 2-3 impacts per individual helmet. So 800 broken test helmets could mean as many as 2000 destructive impact tests to release one new helmet. According to Crocco, the company MIPS has almost reached 100,000 different helmet impacts in their own internal testing after 25 years at their test labs in Stockholm, Sweden. Holy cow. 

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly how safe the Rampage RS is, and neither can anyone else. Something I learned from this test camp and the research process around it is that, as a helmet customer, it’s impossible to discern exactly how safe a full face is compared to other helmets on the market. Helmet manufacturers like Fox and third-party vendors like MIPS have to be tight-lipped about exact safety claims because they can be held liable in court for anything they say. At the launch event in Leogang and in my conversation with Fox engineer Lukas Grob afterwards, Fox reps simply said the helmet is safer than the RPC it replaces. To be clear, Fox has internal testing methodology they use to determine the relative safety of the helmets, but Grob didn’t disclose specific internal test results or methodology, which is standard in the helmet industry.

"The best way to test a helmet is to eat shit in it." - PEF

I think my favorite conversation about testing the Rampage RS was in the gondola in Leogang with Fox athlete Pierre Eduard Ferry (PEF). Ferry also has a degree in mechanical engineering, and according to PEF, “the best way to test a helmet is to eat shit in it.” For me, this logic tracks. Everything else is a test proxy, but actual impacts to actual heads are the real test of whether a helmet works. “That’s the sign of a great helmet, but who wants to be the tester?” There isn’t a unified or comprehensive way to quantify or catalog real world helmet impacts from riders around the world, so most of the best test data is lost to the sands of time. According to PEF, the closest we can get is those horrible crashes “where you’re thinking ‘Oh shit. This is going to be really bad,’ but then you get up and you’re fine.”

I was really impressed with the answers I got from Fox during my many rounds of questioning, but it struck me that, fundamentally, the helmet safety question is a problem of asymmetric information. As PEF pointed out, there’s lots of great real world test data from real riders having real crashes in helmets every day that’s unable to be captured by manufacturers. Then there’s great internal testing data from manufacturers that has to stay internal by legal liability and exposure. And as Fox engineer Lukas Grob pointed out, pass-or-fail industry test helmets can’t tell a customer which helmet is the safest, only that all of the helmets pass a minimum threshold for safety.

All of these factors make it hard, or impossible, for a customer seeking tiptop safety for their brain to differentiate between multiple helmet options, and it requires a lot of careful study and even reading between the lines. This is part of the reason I’m excited to have an institution like the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab. Virginia Tech doesn’t currently have a test protocol for full-face helmets, but it’s something they’re looking into. I’m excited for my video interview with Dr. Barry Miller of the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab to come out later this month.

Riding the Rampage RS - Initial Impressions

Head shapes vary, but for me the new helmet is so much more comfortable than the Rampage Pro Carbon it’s replacing. I have a 59cm head size (or 7 3/8" in freedom units), and Fox’s size guide put me in a large for both the new and old helmet, but the new helmet is so much more comfortable. My old RPC was so much tighter to get on, with a pretty painful pressure point around the sides of my skull when I squeezed into it, and large, stiff cheek pads that pressed into my cheeks at all times. It was borderline uncomfortable for me, but I was happy to put up with discomfort because the helmet looked and felt so big and safe compared to the old helmet it retired. The tight fit also meant that it was hot, and I dreaded pedaling uphill in it.

The new Rampage RS has none of those problems, and for me it really fits like a glove. I haven’t worn another modern full face that can hold a candle to the Rampage RS in terms of comfort. In addition to being comfy, it also feels like there’s also a lot of air between my scalp and the helmet, with the immediate sense that there’s a lot of ventilation available for hot days. The only helmet I can think of that comes close to the Rampage RS in terms of comfort is one of my old Troy Lee Designs D2 helmets from BITD, and those old D2 helmets got a lot of their comfort from the fact that they were NOT SAFE. They were basically the full face equivalent of the Protec kayak helmet that skaters and BMX riders wear, with a few isolated pieces of cushy padding and a malleable outer shell to conform to your head shape. By comparison to every other helmet I’ve ridden or tried on, the amount of comfort and air flow that Fox packed into the Rampage RS is impressive for how much safety and tech they’ve packed in there.

The styling is very moto, and clearly inspired by Fox’s recent V3 RS moto helmet that came out two years ago, sharing the same blend of organic and industrial styling cues. My test helmet showed up in the army green “Splice Military” color, but the Rampage RS is also available in a slick all-black matte carbon option as well. Fox says the large is 1050 grams, and according to my home scale, my helmet measured within a hair’s breadth of that number at 1054 grams. For comparison, my old size-large Rampage Pro Carbon measured in at 1203 grams on the same scale.

Any time they [Fox] change a familiar helmet, pushback and adjustment is an expected part of the design and marketing process.

I had an interesting conversation with Fox’s Global Marketing Manager, Michael Crocco, about the new helmet’s aesthetic. I mentioned to him that I didn’t love the looks of the helmet when I first saw it, and Crocco wasn’t surprised. He was pretty direct about it. “You liked the old helmet more, in terms of looks?” I did. “It’s a funny thing with helmets,” he responded, “for a safety device, they’re also very aesthetic, and personal. You get used to seeing something over the course of a few years, and then it changes. The new look, it’s weird. But you know, a lot of people hated the Rampage Pro Carbon when it came out, because it was visibly so big.”

“Like a Stormtrooper,” I volunteered.

“Exactly,” he said.

Then it occurred to me that I was one of those people. When the Rampage Pro Carbon came out in 2019, I thought it was kind of ugly. Like we discussed, it’s big, and I used to call it “the Stormtrooper helmet.” Six years later and my eyes adjusted to the size of the RPC, and in 2025 I thought it was one of the better looking helmets I could remember. I associated that larger size and shape with safety. By comparison, most other helmets on the market looked a little too small. I told Crocco all this and he said that’s all pretty normal — that eyes take a bit of time to adjust to big changes like that. Crocco told me any time they change a familiar helmet, pushback and adjustment is an expected part of the design and marketing process.

Our conversation was in early June and, as I’m sitting here writing this in early August, my eyes are fully adjusted to the new helmet. It looks pretty darn good to me now. I don’t know if that makes me a trustworthy source or a malleable shill, but the conversation was helpful and eye-opening to me as a practical lesson in design. 

On The Trail

I’ve put in a little over two months of riding in the new helmet, including several steep winch and plummet pedals laps and tons of chairlift-assisted downhill riding in Austria and Southern California. Long story short, it’s been great.

On my first day riding the new helmet at the Fox launch in Leogang, the crew of journalists were invited on an all-day ride with Steve Peat and Greg Minnaar, complete with a healthy cross-country trek and a mid-mountain hut lunch deep in the cattle-filled slopes of Saalbach, Austria. There were hike-a-bike sections, steep roads to slog up, rooty traverses to pedal, and I even got a push-assist up a steep gravel road from the legend himself, Steve Peat, on his Santa Cruz e-bike. It was a hell of a first day, and a great first impression of the helmet. I pretty quickly forgot it was there, despite sweating in my rain jacket like a Boeing passenger with a window seat.

 ...the biggest benefit of the helmet for me is that it makes me want to wear a full face more often...

Since the product launch in Austria, I’ve had a few more chances to go “FULL ENDURO” and pedal up big hills in the Rampage RS, including in properly hot summer weather in Southern California. It’s still a full face, so I’m not going to pretend it felt like I was wearing an air conditioning unit on my head, but it was worlds better than my previous Rampage Pro Carbon, and better than any other full face I’ve ever had. It was noticeably lighter on my head, breathed better, and was more comfortable in every way. I think the biggest benefit of the helmet for me is that it makes me want to wear a full face more often, which is something I already knew I should be doing but couldn’t bear to do. Some of my local pedal laps are properly rocky, high speed, and scary, and having the Rampage RS on my shelf makes me more likely to wear the right helmet for the job. 

After 50,000+ feet of descending so far, it’s also giving up nothing in terms of stability. All of that ventilation and comfort hasn’t produced a helmet that’s bounced around on my head. I’ve even experimented with the thicker helmet pad kit, and while it does make the helmet feel more stable in the parking lot, and while the thicker pads are noticeably tighter and hotter, they haven’t made a difference on the trail in terms of making the helmet more stable or confidence-inspiring.

So far, the helmet has played nice with every pair of goggles I’ve tried, including multiple different sizes and shapes from Fox, 100%, and Oakley. For the two-position visor, I’ve settled on the lower of the two positions, but in a perfect world I’d actually split the difference between the two settings. The high setting is way too high to be practical (it kind of looks like a sail), and the low setting is *just* a little lower than my preference. However, the benefit of the two-position visor is that it stays tight compared to an infinite adjust slot, and the screws on the visor are designed to break away in a crash, saving the visor. Pretty nifty.

The included GoPro mount under the visor is awesome if you have a newer lightweight GoPro. I have an older model that’s a little too heavy and bulky to play nice with the Rampage Pro RS, but a couple of the other journalists at the Leogang product launch were using a newer and lighter weight camera on the GoPro mount and loving the angle.

What's The Bottom Line?

The Fox Rampage RS is a great helmet and ostensibly even safer than the outgoing model. I prefer it to any other full face I’ve ridden or tried on, and the Rampage RS also settles my own inner debate about buying a lightweight “enduro-style” full face like the Fox Proframe or TLD Stage. With a dedicated DH full face like the Rampage RS, I don’t feel the need to chase down the goldilocks helmet. My Rampage RS is my goldilocks helmet.

All in all, we’re talking about upgrades to a helmet that was already excellent, so none of the improvements are life changing. But if comfort and safety are at the top of your list, and finding the cheapest helmet isn’t, it’s pretty tough to beat Fox’s new Rampage RS. My head sure is happy to have one.

For more info and availability in your region, check out the new Rampage RS at Fox's product page here.

View key specs, compare helmets, and review Fox Racing in the Vital MTB Product section.

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