As cycling continues to increase as a standard form of transportation around the world, we’ve also naturally been seeing an increasing amount of accessory designs that aim to make riding a bike to work or to meet up with friends at the bar a more personal experience.
Among other companies aimed at making the cycling experience more personal and urban-friendly is Closca Design, which was founded in Valencia, Spain in April of 2013.
Carlos Ferrando and Rafa Cerdá, the founders of Closca, started the company after realizing that modern bike helmets had not yet been adapted from mountain or road to city usage, and aimed to figure out how to make them more appealing to an ever-expanding market of urban cyclists that are more concerned about getting from a coffee shop to their office rather than one French village to another over 120 miles.
After conducting their research, Ferrando and Cerdá found two opportunities:
“1) The helmet is annoying when you need to put it away once the bike is parked. It doesn’t match with the urban look and dressing trends.
2) Wearing a helmet when riding to work through town and not looking like a “Tour-de-France” refugee became our opportunity to create a new product that would transform this safety element into a fashion accessory.”
What resulted from their research became their first product and successful Kickstarter campaign in the form of the Turtle:
The Turtle was the first internationally-certified helmet that was capable of fitting into a purse or backpack after folding flat. Additionally, the helmet was styled to look more like a traditional hat than a streamlined performance product designed for wearing a top-speeds.
Now, Ferrando and Cerdá are gearing up to release an even more refined version of their foldable bike helmet in the form of their ‘Closca Fuga‘.
Already a winner of a Red Dot Design Award, the Closca Fuga bicycle helmet consists of three moveable, molded dome rings that are able to be folded for stowing when not in use. When folded, the resulting form is flat – not domed – and is less than half of its initial volume, which makes it an ideal size and shape for packing in a backpack, purse or brief case (roughly the size of a large book).
Closca has opened up the Closca Fuga to pre-orders where the helmets are starting at $79 USD (€72.00) and will begin shipping on May 1st, 2015.
