Dirt

Giro is best known for its bike helmets, but also offers a range of gloves, shoes, clothing and accessories. Founded in 1985 by Jim Gentes, it is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, and is now part of Easton-Bell Sports, also home to other sports equipment brands such as Bell Helmets, Blackburn, Easton Cycling and Riddell.

For 2014, Giro introduced 11 new helmet models, including the Cipher, a full-face helmet designed for the demands of freeride and enduro mountain biking. The Cipher has Vinyl Nitrile impact management technology, channeled brow ventilation, built-in speaker pockets and cord management for compatibility with audio headphones, and a low-profile integrated mount for use with video camera systems.

The company has a long history of sponsoring some of off-road biking’s greatest athletes riding on almost every kind of trail – using helmet models including the Remedy, Feature and Xar in recent years have been the BMC MTB, Commencal, Rapha-Focus CX, Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld and Yeti teams, as well as the world’s longest-running pro mountain bike team LUNA Chix. Individual Giro-wearing riders include Graham Agassiz, Greg Watts, Kurt Sorge, Paul Basagoitia, Rene Wildhaber and Yannick Granieri.

Giro’s range of shoes is also growing in popularity, worn by riders such as Aaron Gwin, Aaron Bradford, Adam Craig, Alexis Vuillermoz, Jared Graves and Kelly McGarry. In 2013 it announced a limited run of a special mountain bike version of its popular Empire lace-up road shoes – coming in a special camouflage colourway, the Empire MTB has reinforced toe and heel areas to handle off-road use.