Oakley DRT3 MIPS helmet review

Lightweight, breathable, and mega comfortable, the Oakley DRT3 MIPS is everything you’d expect from one of the best mountain bike helmets. However, the silicone sweat guard and chin strap cause it to stumble, holding it back from being a truly excellent lid.

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Oakley DRT3 MIPS helmet – Specifications

The DRT3 MIPS is Oakley’s budget-friendly sibling to the DRT5 MIPS but it does things a little differently. As expected from the eyewear brand, it comes with a glasses dock above the visor with grippers built into the front vents.

Along with that, there’s a MIPS cradle providing protection against rotational impacts. All in, the DRT3 weighs 367g, which isn’t too shabby for a trail lid.

Built into the DRT3’s brow is a silicone sweat guard or guide that’s designed to catch perspiration and usher it away from the eyes. It’s similar to what’s in the Troy Lee A3, but it looks much more substantial. Unfortunately, it takes up a lot of space inside the helmet, effectively reducing its diameter and making it extremely tight around the forehead and temples. So much so that I’ve not brought myself to ride with it as it gets very uncomfortable, even before I swing a leg over my bike.

Thankfully, it is removable. It’s just held in with a few spots of hook and loop, as you would usually find with traditional padding. A normal brow pad is supplied in the box, and with that installed, comfort is massively improved. I could compare the DRT3’s comfort with the normal pad to the Scott Stego Plus, a lid known for its luscious feel. I’d even go as far as to say it’s knocking on the door of the TLD A3, which I reckon, is probably the comfiest trail lid on the market.

Oakley DRT3 MIPS helmet – Performance

When riding, the DRT3’s 16 vents encourage a very healthy level of airflow, making it cool to wear even in the warmest of temperatures. There is a fair bit of Expanded polystyrene (EPS) on show around the vents, so when handling the helmet you’ll need to be careful not to damage it in these areas. The amount of EPS also leads to a reasonably low-quality look and feel, though bare EPS doesn’t impact the helmet’s performance (at least not in the short term). 

As a rider who uses eyewear at all times, glasses storage is a big plus for me and the Unobtanium grippers perform incredibly well. Whether I’m faffing about before dropping into a trail, or if I’ve forgotten to slip my glasses onto my face, the grippers kept my glasses perfectly safe. They’ve never fallen off of the helmet regardless of what I’ve been riding.

It’s unsurprising that Oakley has put so much thought into glasses on the DRT3, but there’s more than just the grippers. There are two vents on the brow of the lid that are designed to push air behind any eyewear. Just looking at these vents, they appear a little primitive but in reality, they work incredibly well. Even when cranking up slow climbs, they’ve helped keep my glasses fog-free.

While comfort and breathability are nothing short of impressive, it’s a bit of a stretch to call the chin strap secure. That’s because the buckle doesn’t grip the strap enough to keep it from slipping. Even when gently pedalling, the strap slowly loosens under usual head movement, so at multiple points during my rides, I’ve had to quickly cinch it up, something I’ve gotten used to doing before each descent. A little bit of sewing would fix this fairly quickly, but this isn’t an issue that you would expect from any helmet out of the box.

Oakley DRT3 MIPS helmet – Verdict

At £110, the Oakley DRT3 sits at a near-saturated price point and, in terms of quality, it really falls short, especially when compared to helmets such as Specialized’s Tactic 4 at £100. Although its visor isn’t of much use, it’s an awful lot of helmet for the cash. It comes with eyewear storage and is perfectly comfortable. In fact, I keep this one as a spare just in case I wreck my Troy Lee Designs A3.

At £90, we start to see helmets of a similar quality, namely the 100% Altis. It’s comfy and airy but, like the DRT3, it doesn’t carry a high-quality feel. However, the Altis doesn’t come with eyewear storage.

Slippery chinstrap and interfering sweat guide aside, the Oakley DRT3 is an excellent, comfortable, breathable and reasonably lightweight trail lid – but it’s ultimately let down by a lacklustre build quality.

• www.chainreactioncycles.com

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