Helmet story - Page 11 - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

06-21-2004, 06:38 PM

Frank Krygowski <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>
> Tom Beattie wrote:
> >
> > For Zis Guy, I'm glad your situation worked out for you. Hell, I am
> > happy for anyone who goes down and is able to tell about it, helmet,
> > balaclava, shaved head, etc..
>
> Even this is a bit overblown.
>
> When did we develop the attitude that simply falling off a bike is a
> near-death experience?

Lots of folks want their cycling to constitute a dangerous, and
therefore courageous, act. It's like all the folks who use 4WD
truckmobiles to do their daily commute to work because it makes them
*feel* sporty and outdoorsy.

I have chucked my motorbike off the road at 40, 60, and 80mph
respectively. I did not hit my head hard enough to suffer head
injury, but in at least two of those cases my helmet saved me some
facial scabs. I'm glad of this, but I am also quite certain that my
jeans, chaps, and leather jacket saved me a lot more injury that my
helmet did. And these were crashes far more serious than anything a
cyclist is likely to experience in his or her life!

Yet I have never once seen a bike safety zealot suggest that one
should wear sturdy pants and a leather jacket when cycling.

Any one of those crashes, in which I did not hit my head
significantly, would have been more than violent enough to tear a
typical foam bike beanie to bits. When such damage happens, it's not
a measure of the harm from which your head has been saved; it is in
fact a measure of the laughable flimsiness of bicycle-specific
helmets.

If bicycle helmets were actually designed to prevent serious head
injuries, rather than just to separate fools and their dollars, they'd
be made more or less like motorcycle helmets, perhaps with some extra
air vents. Hard shells, skull base coverage, and chinbars are all
there for a reason. But to wear a truly protective helmet for cycling
would be as ridiculous as to do so when changing a light bulb or
taking a shower-- activities that produce more head injuries than
cycling, yet are not considered dangerous enough to warrant protective
wear.

For the Walter Mittys among us, it's better to wear a symbolic helmet,
one that can self-destruct flamboyantly when whacked, affirming both
its wearer's derring-do and his safety-conscious good judgment.

Chalo Colina