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Good For: Biking, Skiing, Snowshoeing, Hiking

If you hear the story of how Portland, OR-based Nutcase Helmets got started, you’ll understand how they so effortlessly captured the whimsical part of the market for adult multisport helmets.  Back in the fall of 2000, Nutcase creator and founder Michael Morrow was looking for a graphic way to show his support for the Oregon State Beavers at the “Civil War” football game against U of O. His solution? Four-inch metal screws super-glued to the top of an old orange-and-black Oregon State helmet; he then impaled yellow rubber duckies on the screws to demonstrate the fate awaiting the Oregon Ducks.

The response to the helmet was instantaneous—as was Morrow’s light bulb moment:  adult helmets are boring, and not indicative of the fun everyone has while biking, skiing, and skating.  What started out as a garage operation with Morrow and his kind-hearted wife has now blossomed into company with 12 employees, with orders flooding in from all over globe and annual deliveries in the hundreds of thousands.

The decal-applied helmet designs come in all variety of color and style, from watermelons to polka dots to graphics that support your favorite team or city. The chinstrap boasts a one-handed magnetic buckle that works like magic and a simple dial to adjust the helmet’s fit.  All helmets comply with U.S. CPSC Safety Standards for riders ages five and older. The line includes street sport helmets as well as models for cycle/skate, snow sports, motor sports, and water sports.

We also love the whimsical collection of bells.

And we really like that their spacious HQ is above Portland’s amazing Ford Food and Drink, which makes a breakfast buttermilk biscuit with mozzarella, pesto, and organic relish that has no business tasting as good as it does. Craft beer goes for $4 a pint—which was almost enough to convince us to have one with our biscuit.

Fun fact: In Portlandia, the mayor of Portland (played by Kyle MacLachlan) wears the first official Nutcase helmet.

We’re testing one of their helmets right now and will report back soon.

But the little details are where the shirt really shines. We love the fashion-forward tailoring, with the button-down collar, zip and button central closures, and longer sleeves and a drop tail for ample coverage while pedaling. Other cycle-friendly details include wide, glove-friendly loop grabs to access the chest pocket, central zipper, and the small back-right pocket. The front buttons aren’t as glove friendly, however, and the batch of reflective fabric running parallel to the zipper on the back pocket could be a touch too cycle-geek-obvious to casual eye.

Inside you find loving elements like an upper liner decorated with a sly chain link print and pink piping at the collar seam for a pop of color. But perhaps nothing speaks the forward-thinking aesthetic of the shirt (and British-based boutique cycling brand Rapha) than the graphic on the left inner flap: a black-and-white illustration of a heart, with TNT stenciled across it. Below the drawing, a quote worth reprinting in its entirety: “Do you know how we keep going? Look, this is cocaine, chloroform, too. And pills? You want to see pills? Here are three boxes… In short, we run on dynamite.” –Francis Pellisier in Le Petit Parisien July

On sale now at www.rapha.cc for $115

Chris King started the eponymous company 36 years ago, after honing his metal-crafting talents working in the medical tool industry. As with the first hand-constructed piece, everything that leaves the Chris King factory is made in the United States.  All the metals are purchased from North American mills, and most of the machines on the floor have been custom-tweaked to suit a particular purpose. And when something on the machine breaks, they craft a new part—some machines on the floor date back 15 years.

As a metal shop, they’re also acutely aware of their environmental impact. Rather than the standard toxic materials, Chris King uses soy oil as a lubricant when cutting metal; not to mention an in-house tool they created to compress the scraps so that 98 percent of the oil is re-used.  Every hub is hand-buffed for 20 minutes, and all the other parts are finished by an industrial shaker that tosses the metal with crushed walnut shells—polishing everything to a brilliant shine. Each machine also has its own air filter to remove any potentially toxic fumes. The factory is likely the best-smelling metal shop on the planet.

Life for the 96 employees at Chris King is equally bright. A gourmet cafeteria employs two full-time chefs and serves three squares daily, each meal sold without mark-up; the price is dictated by the cost of the ingredients. They’ve developed a great no-car commuting incentive that lets participants who walk, run, bike, or use public transportation rack up meal credits and extra days off. Even the free coffee has been painstakingly chosen by Chris to be of the highest possible quality.

No wonder Chris King was one of the small business owners invited to the White House this year to take part in a discussion about the current state of domestic manufacturing.

Cielo Bikes—some of the nicest, hand-crafted bike frames on the market—also come out of this unassuming Portland warehouse.  As with the components, each rig is crafted not as part of some aggressive schedule to dominate the cycle world, but to aspire to the high-quality expectations that all cycling purists truly desire.  We’re already dreaming up our perfect rig. Hopefully it’ll be one of the 330 bikes they make each year. Thank god they only make five models—or we’d never decide.

It’s also worth noting, several of our testers opt for the full-finger glove over the fingerless; when you take a tumble, your hands always hit the earth (pavement-covered or otherwise), and we prefer as much comfortable protection as possible when that inevitably occurs.