Heath Sherratt said:
Not true. The Switchblade was not designed as a substitute for a full face DH/FR helmet, and it said as much all over the packaging and advertising. Personally the Switchblade has saved me from needing facial reconstructive surgery at least once (took a nice face slide over some shale). Some people did break their faceguards in really bad crashes, but 1) they were most often using the helmet for riding it was not intended for (DH/FR) and 2) no one wants to acknowledge the facial damage that they would have sustained if they had had no faceguard at all, which would have been much worse.
The TRUE REASON GIRO STOPPED MAKING THE SWITCHBLADE IS THAT THE PROFIT MARGIN WAS NOT HIGH ENOUGH COMPARED TO ALL THEIR OTHER HIGH END HELMETS. The Switchblade was handmade in Europe; Giro was able to shift production of every other helmet in their line to China. Yes, even the fancy-pants Atmos road helmet costs them a tiny fraction of the inflated retail price because it can be mass produced in China. The bottom line is that Giro didn't care if they were providing a valuable service to a part of the MTB community at a slightly reduced profit, but were only interested in how they could re-allocate their resources to make the most money, innovation and niche filling be damned.
And for lightweight helmets, check out the Specialized Deviant. The Fiberglass version supposedly weighs in at around 1,000 g, which is pretty light. Carbon fiber is lighter, but also quite spendy.
