Trek Sued for $5M Over WaveCel Helmets

A New York man is the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against Trek’s WaveCel helmets, which takes umbrage with the endless big-budget marketing campaign about a technology that would change the sport forever, only for Trek to reveal a boring helmet at the end of it. Oh wait, that actually is sort of the gist, kind of.

The class-action suit argues that WaveCel helmet technology was “touted by the defendant as the most significant advancement in cycling in the last 30 years when it was released in early 2019.” Trek had claimed that WaveCel was “up to” 48 times more effective at providing head injury protection than its competitors, a claim that the suit says is “false, deceptive and misleading.”

The suit claims that the study cited for WaveCel’s performance was flawed for two reasons. The first is that the authors of the paper had a financial interest in claiming WaveCel is safer than other helmets. The second is that the study didn’t even use Trek’s WaveCel helmet, but instead a modified Scott ARX helmet. Woof.

Trek, naturally, dispute all of these claims.

As for where we stand on this issue: All helmets are fucking stupid, and that marketing campaign fucking sucked ass. Let’s just grab some popcorn and watch it unfurl.