Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi review: Surprisingly airy and promises great aero

The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi is, as the name suggests, the third iteration of the Tucker helmet, but not the third version of the road helmet. The Tucker started life out as a TT helmet with removable visor, but like the Giro Aerohead, became the aero road helmet of choice for the Uno-X team. This latest iteration is road only and aims to improve ventilation while improving aerodynamic performance.

Using a mix of MIPS and proprietary 2Vi technologies, Sweet Protection also aims to ensure this helmet maintains the primary focus of protecting riders’ heads. There is no Virginia Tech helmet rating yet, but the Falconer helmet from the brand has been a five-star scorer there.

Aero performance comes via specific channelling and has been designed with F1 input and tested on the heads of the Uno-X Mobility WorldTour teams. The previous iteration was amongst the top scorers in our wind tunnel testing, so just how does this latest model work in the real world against the best aero road helmets?

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Design and Aesthetics

Sweet Protection starts off by stating that the Tucker III 2Vi has been designed with expertise from a Formula 1 aerodynamicist, and in collaboration with the Uno-X Mobility cycling team who are well renowned for a highly data driven approach. That sets it up very nicely for delivering on the claims it makes as a performance aero helmet. The brand states that in testing the new Tucker III 2Vi saves 10 watts at race speeds over the Sweet Protection Falconer Aero 2Vi helmet, a significant saving claim.

Aerodynamics on this helmet starts with the vents. There are three larger vents at the front across the centre line of the helmet designed to pull air in. This air then follows internal channels and exits at the rear through the exhaust. Each vent and channel has been specifically designed to limit pressure at the front of the helmet, and turbulence off the rear. The byproduct of this is supposedly enhanced ventilation via accelerated internal airflow at race speeds, 150% more air volume than the previous Tucker 2Vi according to the brand. Meanwhile the vents have a rounded entry and exit design to limit turbulence further.

There are two additional front vents on the temple for storing glasses. These can be covered with vent caps to limit drag, but for UCI events those are not allowed as removable sections have been banned. These vents feature rubber grippers designed to hold Sweet Protection eyewear securely but work well with a range of glasses.

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The helmet features a very narrow profile by comparison to other aero road helmets. This has been achieved via what the brand calls a 4-Shell Construction, four separate shells for the front, rear, main body, and top of the helmet bonded onto the foam inner. The front and rear shell panels are described as Impact Shields and aim to boost protection further.

MIPS Air Node is used internally for rotational impact protection. Additionally, Sweet Protection uses its own 2Vi system, which integrates the MIPS system into the brand's own Impact Shields and padding for comfort and safety combined. There is no Virginia Tech safety rating yet, but previous helmets from the brand have performed well.

Fit comes via the 360 Occigrip Fit System. This uses a full band around the helmet with adjustment from a rear dial on the adjustable cradle. This allows adjustments to spread pressure evenly across the entire orbit of the head. The straps are adjustable in length, but there are no height adjustments around the ears to reduce material for claimed aero performance boosts.

Performance

First things first, getting the helmet on my head. The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi sits quite narrow on the head, it’s essentially the antithesis of the POC Cytal or Octal helmets which have become slightly synonymous with a more mushroom head shape. Think Toad in Mario.

I am personally quite a fan of this design choice, it also tends to perform reasonably well aerodynamically for road positions where the head tends to move more and also riders spend more time in an upright position. Similar to the new Specialized S-Works Evade 4, the Sweet Protection also features a more cut-off rear taper, instead relying on virtual aerofoil shapes for wind manipulation. Again, this feature is designed to assist in performance with the head down, similar in design methodology to the Giro Eclipse Pro which went for a short tail rather than long tail design for this reason.

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Back to the fit itself, although narrow in external shape, the helmet itself fits my head well. I have a fairly regular head shape. Narrow helmets like the Abus Gamechanger 2.0 are too narrow, while most other helmets tend to fit well. The 360˚ fit system on the Sweet Protection works well to give solid retention across the entire hemisphere of your head.

There are two fit gripes straight away though. Firstly, the straps have no adjustment around the ears. This was not a problem for me personally, but it may be for plenty of people. It’s likely a weight saving and frontal area reducing design choice, but it’s not a huge area for gains, and limits fit adjustment. The other issue is the rear dial, it works well, but ergonomically it’s not great. The grip for the dial is textured, but very thin and can be difficult to get enough traction on to tighten as much as you might desire. In gloves I can imagine this would be even more problematic.

Some interesting little add-ons that came with this helmet as well; a helmet bag is included, which is not a given even at this price, but also some vent bungs. These are not allowed for UCI races as they are removable parts, however, for road bike time trials these little bungs can fill the gap where the glasses arm storage is. For a time trial, it is very unlikely that those vents will be required as glasses stored in the helmet ruin the aerodynamics somewhat. Instead, the bungs fill the gap and maybe add to the watt savings by a very marginal, unperceivable manner. It’s very Dave Brailsford ‘marginal gains’, but every little helps.

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In terms of the performance of the helmet on the road, I’ll focus first on the more tangible features. Aerodynamics are notoriously hard to judge subjectively, whereas weight and ventilation are far more tangible. Weight wise, this is a fairly chunky helmet, but the reality is that it doesn’t feel heavy when riding. It’s only 44g heavier than the Giro Eclipse Pro, so for the real weight weenies maybe this matters, but for the majority it makes virtually no difference.

Ventilation is an area where this helmet actually performs better than might be expected given the limited quantity of vents. At the front there are three main vents at the point of highest pressure, the two side vents for glasses arms storage, and then the rear exhaust which is one entity made up of three exit flows for the internal channelling.

At speed, the amount of air that enters the helmet is frankly exceptional. 35+kph provides a large amount of airflow, likely due to the combination of placement of the vents, large internal channels that are deep enough, and well positioned exhaust. At higher speeds, I’ve even felt some lift in the helmet as the volume of air flowing through the channels has been enough to lift the helmet up from my head, but not enough that it’s caused any concern for the security of the helmet. I’ve been testing this in temperatures of between 20-28˚C, so not excessively warm, but on the hotter side for riding, especially when going up steeper climbs with low airflow. Even in these scenarios, the ventilation has not been bad. It’s certainly not as good as a far more vented helmet such as the Giro Aries, or even the Giro Eclipse Pro. It is, however, far better than a lot of fully dedicated aero helmets that I have tested.

When things do get a bit too warm and the sweat starts dripping, those glasses storage vents are quite useful. They keep the glasses nicely out of the way, but do only work with straight armed options. POC Propel glasses struggle to fit, while POC Elicit or Oakley Velo Kato models fit well.

In terms of aero performance, we have yet to test this helmet. We have tested the previous version though, which was 10^th in our huge helmet testing round up out of the aero road helmets. That helmet was only around 2w off the best on the test at 40kph. At 50kph that helmet was then relatively faster, jumping ahead of some other helmets. If we take Sweet Protection at its word, then the Tucker III should be an improvement on the previous helmet, especially given the design brief of 45-50kph performance. The only test data however states that the Tucker III “saves 10 watts at race speed” versus the Sweet Protection Falconer Aero 2Vi. We don’t know what ‘race speed’ is, but let’s assume 45-50kph. At 40kph we found the Tucker 2Vi to be 1.52w faster than the Falconer Aero averaged across all yaw angles. 10 watts is a lot, and testing protocol is not divulged, but we can probably assume that the new Tucker is faster than the Falconer for sure, and likely faster than the Tucker 2Vi. Although the new Evade 4 is no faster than the Evade 3, even the 2, but has greater ventilation. Simply put, we can’t confirm how fast this helmet is without testing it, but there is good reason to believe it will perform well given the design methodology and performance of the previous generation.

Safety wise it is hard to judge the helmet. There are no Virginia Tech Helmet safety ratings yet for independent testing, but the 2Vi, MIPS Air Node, and use of shell protection have all been used in helmets that have scored well. The Sweet Protection Falconer helmet has scored 5 stars in that testing and uses many of those safety features which boosts confidence in the Tucker’s performance.

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Value

Breaching the £300/$350 barrier, this is not a cheap helmet. Looking across the range of premium aero helmets that we’ve tested. In fact, in our helmet testing of 47 helmets, only the Kask Nirvana and Elemento, and POC Procen Air and Cytal cost more. Every other helmet stayed under the £300 mark, including those that performed better than the Sweet Protection Tucker 2Vi (previous generation version). Even the latest Evade 4 stays under this price, while some helmets such as the Ekoi Aero R also exceed that price barrier.

If you want the fastest aero helmet, you can likely get something that performs nearly as well for a good chunk less cash. I can’t however comment on the ventilation capabilities of some of those faster performing helmets in our test, and that was an area where the Tucker III genuinely impressed me for a race helmet.

But then other issues such as the retention dial, lack of strap adjustability, and no independent safety testing scores so detract from the overall value.

This is certainly a very good race helmet, and having tested a lot of different ones, this is genuinely the helmet that I lean towards when choosing what to race in. However, if I was spending my own money, I would likely veer towards the Giro Eclipse Pro, mainly for the greater ventilation along with lower price, even if at the cost of a watt or two. If I wanted the best value, the Van Rysel RCR-F is still really the class leader there.

Verdict

The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi is an impressive race day aero helmet. The limited number of vents are carefully placed, alongside strategic channelling, to provide a huge amount of airflow when travelling at speed, which remains adequate even at slower climbing speeds. We don’t have independent aero testing yet, but there is good reason to believe this will be a strong performer. It’s not the lightest, but that doesn’t detract from performance in any tangible way.

The lack of adjustability, and limited performance of the retention dial are however not ideal, while at present there are no independent safety testing validations. I may be able to forgive some of this, if it weren’t for the £309 price tag which exceeds that of many competitors. A helmet bag being included doesn’t do enough to stop this helmet from not being the best value. Yet, it is the helmet I reach for when it comes to race days.