With two very big marketing campaigns in Kona it is not surprising to see Rudy Project leading the helmet count, but they are in fact part of an apparent trend that less is enough. Long tailed helmets are now part of a disappearing species, and aero road helmets seemed to be especially popular, or at the very least trending.

With Kask Bambino helmets soon available in larger sizes too, we will likely see more than 39* of them in Kona in 2014.

Rudy Project had the most helmets in Kona with 654 total. Many on Pros plus this year and last year many Kona starters stood in line for either free or heavily discounted models. But both the Wingspan and Project 57 are short tailed.

Alison Rowatt of Team Freespeed finished second in her age group in Kona.

Many of the 418* Giro models appeared to be Air Attacks.

Ken Glah does not need a long tailed helmet, he has got a long pony tail.

Specialized was listed with 141* helmets in Kona this year.

We suspect that most folks showing up with Ekoi helmets were from Europe.

Ken Rideout on his way to check in the bike.

Cool t-shirts and aero road helmets.

Yup, another Giro Air Attack.

And they are coming, coming and coming.

Very focused to get the gear dropped off.

You can wear a road helmet goofy too.

As we said before, there were indeed many Rudy Project helmets.

Here 2 Rudy Project helmets and 2 Casco helmets are sliding past dancing volunteers.

* Helmets counted in Kona in 2013 via Lava Magazine

Rudy Project 654
Giro 418
Specialized 141
Louis Garneau 138
Lazer 84
Bell 66
Kask 39
Met 28
Casco 27
Ekoi 18
Scott 16
Spiuk 15
Limar 12
LAS 11
OGK 6
Other 6
Bontrager 5
Uvex 4
Poc 4
BBB 2
Catlike 2
Cratoni 2
Seler 2
Giant 2
Cali 1

That totaled 1,703 helmets only, but many athletes had their helmets in the bag and did not pull them out until very late.