Convertible full-face helmets have always asked you to split the difference. Light enough to climb in, but never as light as a real trail helmet. Vented enough for summer, but never vented enough once you’re sweating up a fire road with the chin bar clipped on. MET’s Parachute MCR 2, announced this week as the second generation of its magnetic-release convertible, is the first update in this category that actually narrows that gap instead of just rearranging it.

The headline number: 730g in size medium, full-face mode, chin bar attached. That’s over 100g lighter than the original Parachute MCR, which landed closer to 830g when outlets weighed it. MET paired the weight cut with 24 vents and redesigned internal air channeling, claimed at 25% more ventilation than the first-generation helmet. No post on this site has covered convertible full-face helmets before — we’ve written about trail helmets, goggles, and budget protection, but the convertible category has quietly sat in a gap nobody filled. This launch is worth the attention.

We haven’t ridden this helmet. It ships in November. Everything below is sourced from MET’s own spec sheet and launch coverage, not trail time. Treat the verdict as a close read of the numbers, not a review.

Quick Take

Weight	730g (size M, full-face mode)
Weight vs. original MCR	Over 100g lighter
Ventilation	24 vents, 25% more airflow than original MCR
Price	€370 / £330 / $435 USD
Availability	Ships November 2026
Rotational protection	Mips Air Node Pro
Certification	CE, CPSC, ASTM, NTA 8776
Best for	Enduro and e-MTB riders who want one helmet for climbs and descents
Skip if	You want a dedicated DH-only full-face or a sub-400g trail lid

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Why the Convertible Category Has Been a Compromise

A dedicated trail helmet like the 6D ATB-3 or Troy Lee A3 weighs 330-380g and breathes like an open window. A dedicated DH full-face weighs more, breathes less, and doesn’t come off when the trail points up. The convertible pitch — one helmet, magnetic chin bar, works for both — has existed for years. MET’s original Parachute MCR was one of the better executions of it. It still weighed about as much as a basic DH lid and ventilated worse than a real trail helmet, because the chin-bar mounting hardware and the extra shell material needed to make the conversion work came with a weight and airflow tax that didn’t disappear just because the helmet looked clever.

That tax is the thing the MCR 2 actually attacks. MET didn’t just shave material off the original shape — the vent count jumped from 21 on the original MCR to 24, and the internal channeling was reworked rather than just adding holes. Pulling 100-plus grams out of a helmet that already needed to survive a full-face impact rating, while adding airflow instead of trading it away, is a harder problem than it sounds. Most “lighter version 2” product cycles pick one lever. MET pulled both at once.

What’s Actually New

The Numbers That Matter

MET’s own product page lists the MCR 2 at 730g in size medium, with a size range of roughly 710-780g across S-L. For comparison, outlets that weighed the original Parachute MCR put it around 830-840g in the same size — Pinkbike’s review of the first-generation helmet recorded it north of 830g with the chin bar on. A 100g difference doesn’t sound dramatic until you’re three hours into a climb with a full-face helmet on your head. That’s roughly the weight of a full water bottle cap, times ten, gone from the thing clamped to your skull.

Ventilation: 24 vents versus 21 on the original, with MET claiming 25% more airflow through redesigned internal channels rather than just more holes in the shell. Vent count alone is a weak metric — a helmet with 24 small vents and poor internal channeling can breathe worse than one with 15 vents and a well-designed path for air to actually move. MET’s claim leans on the channeling redesign specifically, which is the harder and more meaningful engineering change.

The Chin-Bar Mechanism, Redesigned for Gloves

The MCR system’s whole pitch depends on the conversion being fast and reliable. MET redesigned the magnetic release and the ergonomic fit specifically to make that swap easier with gloves on — a detail that matters more than it sounds, because fumbling with a small magnetic catch while wearing padded gloves at the top of a climb is exactly the kind of friction that gets a feature ignored after the first few rides. If the redesign holds up on trail the way the spec sheet describes, it closes one of the real usability gaps in the original.

Certification Beyond Standard MTB Testing

The MCR 2 carries NTA 8776 certification alongside standard CE and ASTM marks. NTA 8776 started as a Dutch standard for speed-pedelec helmets, and it tests at higher impact speeds than a standard bicycle helmet certification requires. MET is citing +21% impact-tested speed, +43% dissipation energy, and +10% certified coverage versus standard MTB helmet requirements, backed by an internal claim of 823 individual impact tests informing the shell and liner design. That’s a meaningfully higher testing bar than a helmet needs to clear for basic MTB certification, which tracks with e-MTB riders hitting the same trail features at higher average speeds than analog bikes.

Rotational protection comes from Mips Air Node Pro, a newer iteration of MIPS’s slip-plane system. The original Parachute MCR used MIPS C2. Air Node Pro is a more recent architecture in the MIPS lineup, and MIPS publishes its general testing methodology and licensing standards if you want the underlying claims rather than a brand’s summary of them.

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How Does a Convertible Full-Face Helmet Actually Work?

A convertible full-face helmet uses a removable chin bar that locks onto a half-shell helmet, letting one lid function as an open-face trail helmet on climbs and a DH-rated full-face on descents. Here’s the mechanism, step by step:

1. The half-shell is the base. It’s built and certified to handle impacts on its own, so the helmet is still protective with the chin bar off — unlike pairing a cheap open-face lid with an aftermarket chin guard.
2. The chin bar locks on independently. MET’s MCR system uses a magnetic catch rather than a mechanical buckle or screw-on bracket, which is faster to operate one-handed than most competing systems.
3. The combined unit gets its own impact rating. The full-face configuration — shell plus chin bar together — is tested and certified as a unit, not just the half-shell alone. That’s what makes it legitimate for DH-rated descents rather than a half-shell with a cosmetic add-on.
4. The chin bar detaches for climbs. Pop the magnetic release, store the chin bar in a pack, and ride the half-shell alone for the climb back up — no second helmet required.

The trade-off against a dedicated single-mode helmet is mechanical complexity and, historically, weight. The MCR 2’s whole argument is that the weight side of that trade-off just got a lot smaller.

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Price and Availability

MET priced the Parachute MCR 2 at €370 / £330 / $435 USD, with UK and European stock expected in November 2026. That’s a premium price point — it sits above budget full-face options and in line with what a flagship DH-certified convertible costs from any major brand. There’s no indication yet of a lower-spec, non-MIPS version at a reduced price, which has been a pattern with some of MET’s other helmet lines.

For riders pricing out a full enduro kit, this sits at the expensive end next to goggles and pads you’re already budgeting for. If $435 is a stretch, a sub-$150 MIPS trail helmet paired with a separate dedicated full-face for bike park days gets most riders to the same protection outcome for less money — you’re just carrying two helmets instead of one.

Does This Replace a Trail Helmet or a DH Helmet?

Neither, fully — and that’s the honest answer for the whole convertible category, not just this helmet. In half-shell mode, the MCR 2 is close to what a well-ventilated enduro-focused trail helmet weighs, but dedicated trail lids like the Troy Lee A3 still have an edge in pure climbing comfort because they’re not carrying the mounting hardware for a chin bar that isn’t currently attached. In full-face mode, the MCR 2 is DH-rated and certified as a unit, which puts it in the same conversation as dedicated bike park and DH lids — but a single-purpose DH helmet built with no conversion mechanism at all can still optimize shell geometry and padding in ways a convertible can’t.

What the MCR 2 does well is collapse two helmets into one for riders who do both — climb under their own power and point it on the way down, which is most enduro and e-MTB riding. If you’re a shuttle-only bike park rider who never climbs, a dedicated full-face probably still makes more sense. If you’re mixing pedaling and descending in the same ride, the convertible argument is exactly for you, and this generation makes that argument with a lighter helmet than before.

Who Should Buy This

Enduro riders doing their own climbing. The entire value of a convertible helmet is pedaling in half-shell mode and descending in full-face mode without swapping lids. A 100g weight cut makes the half-shell mode noticeably less punishing on long fire-road climbs.

E-MTB riders hitting DH-adjacent speeds. The NTA 8776 certification specifically targets higher-speed impacts, which lines up with e-bikes covering more ground faster than analog bikes on the same trails. Riders already wearing knee and elbow protection built for e-MTB speeds should be looking at head protection rated for the same thing.

Riders tired of carrying two helmets. If you’ve been stuffing a DH lid in a pack for shuttle laps and wearing a trail helmet for the pedal up, one helmet that does both — at a weight that doesn’t make the climb miserable — solves a real logistics problem.

Who Should Skip This

Bike park-only riders. If every lap starts at the top of a chairlift or shuttle and you never climb under your own power, the conversion feature buys you nothing. A dedicated full-face, unburdened by chin-bar mounting hardware, is the better single-purpose tool.

Budget-conscious trail riders. At $435, this is priced well above what most trail riders need. A MIPS trail helmet under $150 covers the vast majority of trail riding scenarios for a fraction of the cost.

Anyone who wants DH-only performance with zero compromise. A convertible, by design, carries some mechanical complexity a single-mode helmet doesn’t. If chin-bar removability isn’t a feature you’ll use, you’re paying for a mechanism you don’t need.

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The Bottom Line

The convertible full-face category has needed a real update for a while, and MET delivered one that attacks both sides of the usual trade-off at once — lighter and better ventilated, not just one or the other. Over 100g off the scale and 25% more airflow, on a helmet that still carries a DH-rated certification plus a higher-speed impact standard than base MTB testing requires, is a legitimately good spec sheet. The redesigned glove-friendly release mechanism matters too, if it performs the way MET describes.

$435 is real money, and it’s not a helmet for riders who only need one mode. But for enduro and e-MTB riders who climb and descend on the same ride and have been tolerating the weight penalty of the original MCR or a competitor’s convertible, this is the first generation of this category worth getting excited about. We’ll update this post once test units are in hand and the MCR 2 has seen actual trail time.

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Specs and pricing sourced from MET’s official Parachute MCR 2 product page, with launch coverage cross-checked against Pinkbike and Bikerumor. Original Parachute MCR weight comparison from Pinkbike’s review of the first-generation helmet. No test units have been ridden by our team at time of publication.