Introducing the Troy Lee Designs A3 MIPS Helmet

By Stan Portus – 18 March 2021 | Photography: Ian Lean

No stranger to creating industry leading lids, Troy Lee Designs is known for its best-in-class helmets. The new TLD A3 Helmet brings together leading protection and luxurious comfort to create a premium trail helmet. Find out more here.

Troy Lee Designs has released its latest trail helmet, the A3. The A3 builds on the success of the TLD A1 and A2 helmets setting a new standard in premium mountain bike lids. The A3 brings luxurious comfort, MIPS technology and patent pending safety features, some nifty magnetic features, ventilation for the longest climbs and coverage for the wildest descents.

Troy Lee Designs A3 MIPS Helmet

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Studio shot of the Troy Lee Designs A3 helmet in silver against a black background

MIPS Technology for Leading Safety

The Troy Lee Designs A3 puts safety front and centre. The helmet uses MIPS Technology, specifically the MIPS B32 system.

This system helps redirect the energy of impact by using a low friction, independent layer which sits between the helmet shell and your head. Most impacts happen when you fall at an angle rather than straight on, so the MIPS system works by reducing rotational movement and consequently provides greater protection than many other helmets.

The body of the helmet uses a mix of EPP and EPS foams for equal protection across high- and low-speed impacts.

This all comes together to form a lid that provides leading protection as independently verified by the Virginia Tech Safety Lab which gave the A3 its highest rating of 5 stars.

Comfort is King

The A3 has an antimicrobial and quick dry comfort liner. This liner is much larger than other liners making the A3 super comfortable, but the best thing about it is you can customise it to your liking. TLD has put recommended cut lines on the liner, so if you want to reduce the amount of liner to either better fit your head shape or introduce some extra ventilation, it’s an easy task.

For the A3, Troy Lee Designs has also introduced a new micro adjuster for fine tuning the fit. The adjuster is in fact integrated into the MIPS system and gives a full 360˚ of retention, wrapping round the whole of your head. This is pretty remarkable, considering other helmets tend to give about 270˚ of retention.

There are new cradles on cantilever arms providing a bit of suspension and allowing you to tailor the fit of the A3 even further.

The result is a helmet that brings luxurious comfort. In fact, you might never want to take it off…

Studio photograph of the inside of the Troy Lee Designs A3 helmet showing the comfort liner

Sweat Glide System

On the interior front edge of the A3 is TLD’s all-new Sweat Glide system. This system is a super soft foam strip that diverts any sweat off to the sides rather than onto you face or your goggles, which is perfect for hard efforts or riding on hot days.

The Sweat Glide system comes already installed but the A3 also comes with two spares so you can keep things fresh.

Covered but Cool

The A3 has the deepest coverage of any open-face trail helmet in the TLD line-up, and it provides deeper coverage than many other trail helmets too.

The helmet extends further down the back of your neck and over your temples providing extra protection in those critical zones.

But the extra coverage doesn’t come at the cost of comfort. The A3 has 16 vents with optimised channelling to help keep your head cool on those long ascents.

Magnetic Appeal

The A3 closes with a Fidlock Magnetic Buckle, which TLD first starting using on its Stage MIPS full-face trail helmet. This buckle easily snaps into place providing a secure closure. TLD has embossed the buckle with its logo, which is just one of many nice touches on the A3.

TLD has also introduced some magnet wizardry on the A3’s visor. As opposed to previous helmets where you could adjust the visor with a dial, the A3’s visor simply locks into different positions thanks to magnets.

The great thing about this is you can easily move the visor up providing space to store your goggles before moving the visor back down once you’ve got your goggles on. The visor also has smart sheer screws so if it does snap off in impact, the screws will take the hit and the body of the helmet won’t be affected.

If you’re not a goggle wearer but go for sunglasses instead, the vents at the back of the A3 can hold a wide variety of glasses in place.

A TLD Finish, Naturally

Troy Lee Designs is famed for its painting mastery, and the A3 comes in a variety of finishes that draw on TLD’s decades of experience in the paint shop. There are a number designs out already but expect to see gloss, matt, candy and metallic finishes coming out later in the year.

Studio photograph showing the Troy Lee Designs A3 helmet in grey and red at a three quarter angle

Troy Lee Designs A3 Helmet Unboxing

Watch Oli Hunter, UK Troy Lee Designs brand manager, walk you through all the features of the TLD A3 Helmet and all the extras you can expect to find in the box on Saddleback's YouTube.