FEND Journal / Origin
Why We Built FEND
Behind every product is a market failure and a story. Here's ours.
A few years ago, I was riding in New York City when a taxi hit me, and I wasn't wearing a helmet. The cab turned in front of me without warning. I went over the hood and landed directly in front of the car. The driver stopped just in time.
My head never hit the ground. But for weeks afterward, I kept replaying those few seconds: how fast everything happened, and how differently it could have ended.
I've been riding, racing, and building bikes since I was a kid. When I moved to New York, the bike gave me freedom. No train delays, no traffic, no waiting. Just me and the road.
Did I wear a helmet? Sometimes. On group rides, yes. On longer rides, yes. But on short city trips, errands, quick meetups, and solo loops around town, my confidence had a way of convincing me I'd be fine. Apparently not.
After the crash, I started asking a simple question: why do so many riders who understand the risks still leave their helmets at home? The answer, I came to believe, was a market failure. Traditional helmets were built around cycling as a planned activity. A ride you prepare for, with gear you set aside and a route you map out.
Urban cycling doesn't work that way. City riding is spontaneous, flexible, and multimodal. A commute turns into errands. A grocery stop on the way home. A FedEx drop-off. A meeting. Dinner with friends. A ride that starts as one thing and becomes something else, all while you carry a bulky helmet around.
The market had built helmets that protected riders well once they were on the bike. It had not solved for the rest of the day.
So I started paying attention to why, and the pattern was consistent. Helmets are inconvenient. And honestly, that made sense. Where does the helmet go when you're off the bike? How do you carry it through a meeting, a store, a train ride, or a night out? How do you make protection fit real life? That was the problem we wanted to solve.
We built FEND for the way urban riders actually move through the world. A helmet that is always with you and never in the way.
One that folds to half its size, meets US CPSC and EU CE safety certifications, and is designed from the ground up for city life. Not as a novelty, but as a response to reality. Protecting yourself should not require planning your whole day around a helmet.
I'm grateful you're here. Protecting yourself is one of the easiest decisions you can make, and we're honored to be part of it.
Ready. Set. Ride.