The Giro Montaro MIPS is Giro’s premium open face helmet. It features MIPS, a ROC LOC Air Fit retention system, and plenty of ventilation.

Compare to Similar Products

See Our Best Open Face Mountain Bike Helmet Review HERE!

Coverage, Weight, and Ventilation

At 369g, the Giro Montaro MIPS helmet is on par with most of the open face mountain bike helmets on our list. Its 16 vents also do a good job of keeping your head cool, although not to the extent of helmets like the Kali Protectives Interceptor or POC Tectal Race Spin.

As for coverage, there is no doubt that the Giro Montaro MIPS aims to be a high coverage, all-mountain helmet. However, it provides fairly low coverage for this style of helmet, as it seems to sit significantly higher on your head, than a helmet like the Troy Lee Designs A2 MIPS, which hugs your head almost like a beanie hat.

Safety Tech

Like many of the helmets on our list, the Giro Montaro MIPS open face mountain bike helmet relies on a standard MIPS insert to provide anti-rotational protection. Giro claims that the Montaro MIPS helmet is built around the MIPS platform, meaning that the MIPS insert should not interfere with the helmets venting, nor affect its sizing. However, while the Montaro stays cool, it seems to fit a bit more snuggly than non-MIPS Giro helmets. It also does not save the Montaro from the all too common issue of the helmet bouncing around on the Mips platform.

Other features

The Giro Montaro MIPS’  helmet features some of the highest quality padding of any helmet in the test. However, it features too little of it for our taste.

The Montaro uses a strap and grippers to provide excellent holding power for goggle straps, and also has plenty of room under the visor to remove your goggles and still wear them facing forward while climbing.

Finally, the Giro Montaro MIPS features the same ROC LOC retention system that we loved on the Giro Chronicle MIPS, our pick for best budget open face MIPS mountain bike helmet, but with a larger, easier to use dial.

The Bottom Line

The Giro Montaro is a solid all-around open face mountain bike helmet. It doesn’t fall terribly short at anything, but it doesn’t do anything exceptionally well, either. We would still take any of the helmets in our top five over it, and we don’t feel that it offers enough improvement over its cheaper sibling, the Giro Chronicle MIPS, to warrant the extra money that it costs at ~$150.

However, it is still a great helmet and is quite worthy of consideration, particularly if you should catch it on a good sale.

^ Back to Top ^