With the New Year upon us, teams have officially moved into a new season of sponsorship deals. For many teams, that means new contracts with new sponsors, and January 1 is the perfect opportunity to post their arrival on social media and get a head start on promoting their new "best [product] ever used."

Filippo Ganna, the consummate professional, unveiled the "bike and jersey" that his Ineos Grenadiers team will use in 2024. The bike is a Pinarello Dogma F, with a new paint job but no changes from last year. The jersey, as well as the rest of the clothing, follows the recently announced move from BioRacer to Govic, with minor design changes.

What caught our eye, however, was Ganna's Cask helmet. Although not mentioned in the caption, Ganna and several of his teammates wear what appear to be new Italian-branded aero helmets with EPS shells that extend to the outside of the ears.

We suspect that this was the real motivation for the post and that the whole "bike and jersey" context was just a ruse. There is no concerted effort to hide the new helmet in this post. In fact, the helmet is visible in every photo from almost every conceivable angle.

The biggest talking point of this helmet is the over-the-ear design of the helmet's shell. Whereas most modern road helmets have cutouts with the bottom line of the helmet extending above the ears, time trial helmets like the Kask Bambino almost always drop down to cover the ears.

The new helmet takes a halfway approach, with a design reminiscent of the 1986 Citroën CX, lowering the helmet shell to cover only the top of the ears.

It is an easy leap to assume that the motivation for this move lies in aerodynamics. There may even be a benefit to the wearer in the form of reduced airflow noise.

The location of the front vents and similarity to the Kask Utopia helmet leads one to assume that this is its replacement. The Utopia was originally released in 2018, or six years ago, but received a minor update last May with the release of the Utopia Y.

Since this is the only angle not shown in Ganna's photo, we can only speculate on the internal construction of this helmet, but we can see the WG11 logo printed on the rear quarter; WG11 stands for Working Group 11, which means that Kask is an industry WG11 stands for Working Group 11, which refers to the testing procedures for helmets that Kask adheres to above and beyond the requirements of industry standards.

We can also only speculate on the price of the new helmet; Kask surprised us last year with the introduction of the £325.00 Element, one of the most expensive helmets on the market. The Element boasted a Fluid Carbon 12 carbon fiber plate and a 3D printed pad commonly found on saddles. At least visually, it doesn't look like carbon fiber plates were used in this new aero helmet, but without a closer look, we can't completely rule out the possibility. We also cannot rule out the possibility that 3D printed padding is used.