The Bontrager Circuit MIPs Is for Anyone with High-End Taste and a Mid-Price Budget

Price: $150Weight: 303g (M)Use: Road

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The Bontrager Circuit is an understated, mid-priced helmet rich with high-end performance and features—like a MIPs liner, magnetic mounts, excellent cooling, and adjustable fit.

Generous vents with internal channeling provide extremely effective ventilation. In fact, this helmet is so quiet at higher speeds, we’re willing to bet it has some aerodynamic advantages as well.

Magnetic mounts at the top and back are designed to hold accessories like cameras and lights. We found the mounts to be secure and rattle-free—even on gravel rides—though careless handling can inadvertently knock a light off.

The Circuit’s head shape falls somewhere between round and oval, similar to how a Giro helmet fits. And with a large Boa dial and height-adjustable head gripper, you’ll have enough range to fine-tune fit (I was able to adjust the Circuit to securely snug my ovalish head). Gentle touch points, antimicrobial pads, and thin, supple straps provide a comfortable, not luxurious, fit.

If you want a flashy, “look at me” helmet to impress your friends, look elsewhere. The Circuit is not that helmet. It’s a comfortable lid with sophisticated styling, top-end features, and excellent ventilation.

But if You Want a Little Flash…The Circuit may be gloriously free of garish graphics, but it is offered in six colors: black, blue, heather gray, neon pink, white, and neon yellow with black. It’s available in three sizes: small, medium, and large.

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Magnetic AttractionBontrager’s lights; the top accepts GoPro-style mounts, including POV and dash cams, and comes with an adapter to accept Bontrager lights. Though the magnets are powerful, we found the lightweight Bontrager Ion (white) and Flare (red) models to be the most secure. The magnetic attachments are designed to break away should you crash or get your accessory hooked on a branch or other stray object.

Free Helmet with Every CrashCrashing sucks—even more so when you ruin nice equipment for which you paid good money. As long as you trashed your Circuit using it the way it’s intended (skydiving doesn’t count!), Bontrager will replace it for free, up to one year after purchase.

Features: Stacked!

All the Little Things Add up to One Great PackageThe MIPs system is well-integrated, with nice touches like soft covers over the attachment-cord buttons that prevent hair from getting snagged. And the height-adjustable fit system has soft touch points that provide better than average comfort.

The large Boa adjustment dial spins easily, though I didn’t find (in this particular instance, anyway) that it was superior in any way to a generic dial. The helmet’s thin webbing doesn’t absorb much sweat, and what it does absorb dries quickly. And if it’s not kept fairly taut, it can oscillate and buzz at higher speeds.

Weight is about average for this style of helmet—just over 300 grams for my size medium (without the light attachments).

Ventilation is very good, and the Circuit pulls a lot of air through without excessive noise. Venting is fairly head-angle agnostic but, at the expense of in-the-drops cooling, does seem biased toward upright. At high speeds, I never felt the Circuit generate lift.

I tested the Circuit with the Bontrager Ion (front) and Flare (rear) lights attached to the magnetic mounts. Over the course of a 50-mile road and gravel ride, the lights didn’t move or rattle. One word of advice, though: Remove the lights from the helmet when it’s not on your head. They can easily get knocked off in some situations, like, say, if you’re in a crowded elevator and your helmet is clipped to your backpack.

While the Circuit is not groundbreaking, it is a compellingly complete package at a reasonable price. It’s a low-profile, graceful, attractive helmet, which is important, because helmets are as much a fashion accessory as they are a piece of safety gear.