Go Back  Bike Forums > Bike Forums > Advocacy & Safety
Reload this Page >

Michael Schumacher - Ski Helmets

Notices
Advocacy & Safety Cyclists should expect and demand safe accommodation on every public road, just as do all other users. Discuss your bicycle advocacy and safety concerns here.

Michael Schumacher - Ski Helmets

Old 01-02-14, 11:15 PM
  #26  
Senior Member
 
Astrozombie's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: East L.A.
Posts: 903

Bikes: Diamondback Insight, Motobecane Mirage

Mentioned: 1 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 14 Post(s)
Liked 5 Times in 4 Posts
I'm interested in one of those more for protection from the cold air than anything (Yah i know, what cold air you live in California!)

Best of luck to Schu
Astrozombie is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 07:26 AM
  #27  
Senior Member
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 7,143
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 261 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 11 Times in 10 Posts
Originally Posted by jyl
Second, the demands on the helmet are different. Snowboarders doing stunts/half pipes fall frequently, their helmets may take repeated hits on hardpacked snow/ice. Skiiers may fall less often - depending on the type of skiing, of course - but your typical skiier is still likely to go down several times a day. Falls are routine. That explains why snowsports helmets and bicycling helmets are so different.

It also explains why BMXers and MTB gravity racers wear helmets that look more like snowsports helmets than like standard cycling helmets
You said it better than me.

I would think if snow boarders are taking more hits and walking away in great numbers, can we make the assumption the helmet design is safer? I think so. There's a reason why MTB helmets look the way they do and that's because the standard bike helmet did not offer enough protection. The "exploding" single use bike helmet was designed to allow the construction of large vents. Does anyone believe Schumacher would have been better off with a regular bicycle helemet?

I used to watch Schumacher back in the 1990's when his career first took off. What an incredible driver especially in wet conditions. Michael was lucky and survived many accidents that could have killed him. However, he continued to take chances and was involved in a motorcycle crash shortly after his retirement. There was no reason for Schumacher to take the risk of going thourgh a dangerous rocky section of the hill. His luck ran out.

I stopped watching motorsports not too long after the death of Gregg Moore but that's the nature of sport.
Dahon.Steve is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 05:24 PM
  #28  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Far beyond the pale horizon.
Posts: 14,240
Mentioned: 31 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 4221 Post(s)
Liked 1,321 Times in 916 Posts
Originally Posted by B. Carfree
Yes, I know correlation is not causation, but brain injuries and deaths due to such have increased by something like 70% over the past decade, as has helmet use by skiers. Perhaps this is merely a cultural change involving riskier exploits, which may or may not be related to helmet use. Or, perhaps, there is something to the torsional effects of helmets argument.
Perhaps there isn't enough information to start speculating wildly about what "explains" this figure.

Last edited by njkayaker; 01-03-14 at 05:46 PM.
njkayaker is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 05:32 PM
  #29  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: New Rochelle, NY
Posts: 38,544

Bikes: too many bikes from 1967 10s (5x2)Frejus to a Sumitomo Ti/Chorus aluminum 10s (10x2), plus one non-susp mtn bike I use as my commuter

Mentioned: 139 Post(s)
Tagged: 1 Thread(s)
Quoted: 5703 Post(s)
Liked 2,430 Times in 1,343 Posts
Originally Posted by njkayaker
Perhaps, there isn't enough information to start speculating wildly about what "explains" this figure.
Nothing wrong with speculating, as long as you know your speculating. Often the throw stuff against the wall approach works as one might gain some promising insights from what sticks.

The problem with broad based statistics is that there's often more than one thing going on. For example (just throwing it to the wall), users aren't homogenous, so growth in a riskier subset, such as extreme sports might create an increase that masks an overall decrease in other areas.
__________________
FB
Chain-L site

An ounce of diagnosis is worth a pound of cure.

Just because I'm tired of arguing, doesn't mean you're right.

“One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions” - Adm Grace Murray Hopper - USN

WARNING, I'm from New York. Thin skinned people should maintain safe distance.
FBinNY is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 05:32 PM
  #30  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Far beyond the pale horizon.
Posts: 14,240
Mentioned: 31 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 4221 Post(s)
Liked 1,321 Times in 916 Posts
* We have no idea what sort of helmet Schumacher was wearing.
* There are helmets specifically for ski racing (note that racing are events of short duration).
* There are helmets specific to terrain park skiing.
* Most skiers are using helmets for recreational skiing (probably, less robust than the prior types).
* Many recreational skiing helmets appear to be constructed similarly to bicycling helmets. I have one ski helmet with a real shell (somewhat flexy, though) and another that appears to be a slightly-heavier bicycle helmet.
* Recreational skiing helmets can't reasonably be expected to do much for a 50 mph collision.
* While a person might be travelling at 50 mph, that doesn't mean their head necessarily collides at 50 mph (the anti-helmet brigade often gets this wrong).
* In the Richardson case, as far as I recall, she fell over while not moving. It seems reasonable (to me) that a helmet might have been beneficial.
* You can sweat in a ski helmet, even when it's quite cold out.

Last edited by njkayaker; 01-03-14 at 05:48 PM.
njkayaker is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 05:36 PM
  #31  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Far beyond the pale horizon.
Posts: 14,240
Mentioned: 31 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 4221 Post(s)
Liked 1,321 Times in 916 Posts
Originally Posted by FBinNY
Nothing wrong with speculating, as long as you know your speculating.
I don't think he knows he was speculating. Nor does it appear that he has any understanding of skiing. There could easily be much more likely explanations (an increase in the use of terrain parks, for example).

Originally Posted by FBinNY
Often the throw stuff against the wall approach works as one might gain some promising insights from what sticks.
In this case, I speculate that it's more likely that it is a case of "I'll bend the data to my apriori biases".

Originally Posted by FBinNY
The problem with broad based statistics is that there's often more than one thing going on. For example (just throwing it to the wall), users aren't homogenous, so growth in a riskier subset, such as extreme sports might create an increase that masks an overall decrease in other areas.
Yes (kind of my point). We also really don't know what the reported statistic is really referring to (it's incomplete and vague).

Last edited by njkayaker; 01-03-14 at 05:47 PM.
njkayaker is offline  
Old 01-03-14, 05:55 PM
  #32  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Far beyond the pale horizon.
Posts: 14,240
Mentioned: 31 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 4221 Post(s)
Liked 1,321 Times in 916 Posts
Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
1. Cyclists are willing to take more risk and use a helmet that offers less protection to keep the weight/heat down to a minimum.
Being too hot in a helmet is a common "cost" (it's experienced frequently on hill climbs in summer by nearly every rider doing that sort of riding).

It's not clear whether any difference between a hot helmet and a cooler helmet matters in a practical way given that the events where the helmet could serve a purpose are very rare. (If the risk of a collision where a helmet would be useful is very rare, it doesn't really matter much if one helmet is somewhat better than another. )

Put another way, the benefit of a helmet is very small statistically (many people, fortunately, never realize the benefit because they don't crash) while the cost of a helmet is large (people commonly realize the cost of too-hot helmets). That is, the comfort issue is clear real cost and the benefit is vague, rare, and not well understood. All this means that choosing a more comfortable helmet could be a reasonable result of the cost/benefit analysis.

Skiers can accept the cost of a more-robust helmet because they don't have to pay the cost of it being too hot. (In my case, I went with a ski helmet with more vents because the one I was using was much too hot to be comfortable.)

Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
2. Cyclists have less money than skiers and are not willing to buy an expensive helmet so a cheaper one is constructed for their use.
??? People who can afford $3000+ bicycles can afford a $300 helmet.

Last edited by njkayaker; 01-04-14 at 11:15 AM.
njkayaker is offline  
Old 01-04-14, 09:31 AM
  #33  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Boston area
Posts: 2,039

Bikes: 1984 Bridgestone 400 1985Univega nouevo sport 650b conversion 1993b'stone RBT 1985 Schwinn Tempo

Mentioned: 7 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 542 Post(s)
Liked 151 Times in 100 Posts
This past fall there was a lot in the news about head injuries and football helmets, and the opinion of some neurologists is that while helmets might protect against skull fractures, they do not do a good job of protecting the brain from rattling around inside the skull and being bruised. From what I understand about Schumaker is that his helmet split, but his skull was not fractured. Still he had a number of hematomas. I'm not sure bicycle helmets are good at protecting from that type of injury.
ironwood is offline  
Old 01-04-14, 04:14 PM
  #34  
jyl
Senior Member
 
jyl's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Portland OR
Posts: 7,644

Bikes: 61 Bianchi Specialissima 71 Peugeot G50 7? P'geot PX10 74 Raleigh GranSport 75 P'geot UO8 78? Raleigh Team Pro 82 P'geot PSV 86 P'geot PX 91 Bridgestone MB0 92 B'stone XO1 97 Rans VRex 92 Cannondale R1000 94 B'stone MB5 97 Vitus 997

Mentioned: 146 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 392 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 48 Times in 30 Posts
Some reading if you are interested in the challenges of designing a helmet for different kinds of impact.

https://www.bicycling.com/senseless/index.html Long article, culminating in the anti-rotational MIPS technology used in a few helmets today

https://www.bhsi.org/bicyclingmag1305.htm Reality check critique of the above article - basically argues the MIPS technology doesn't add much.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/bike-helmets.htm Consumer Reports helmet test - they test helmets with more severe impacts than the CPSC requires

https://today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/deve...nt-248008.aspx Short article about one approach to a safer football helmet

Last edited by jyl; 01-04-14 at 04:30 PM.
jyl is offline  
Old 01-04-14, 04:26 PM
  #35  
Senior Member
 
zvez's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Columbus, GA
Posts: 536

Bikes: 2014 Cervelo R5 Dura Ace,2014 Specialized S-Works Roubaix

Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 1 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts
It's not so much the failure of the helmet, as the g-forces within cranium, this is a coup contra-coup injury, ie the brain while fully protected in the helmet, floating on a cushion of cerebrospinal fluid shifts in the direction of impact and then back. This can trigger a hematoma to the brain (a subdural hematoma, ie bleeding under the dura membrane.
zvez is offline  
Old 01-06-14, 10:17 PM
  #36  
What happened?
 
Rollfast's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Around here somewhere
Posts: 8,050

Bikes: 3 Rollfasts, 3 Schwinns, a Shelby and a Higgins Flightliner in a pear tree!

Mentioned: 57 Post(s)
Tagged: 1 Thread(s)
Quoted: 1835 Post(s)
Liked 292 Times in 255 Posts
The reason bike helmets aren't constructed like this is that your neck would mutiny.

Pease accept the point that internal injuries are a greater concern than head injuries in a collision with an auto and just try to stay from their paths.

Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
I don’t know if anyone is following the ski accident of F1 race car driver, Michael Schumacher. It appears Michael was skiing in an area cluttered with rocks when he slipped and hit his head on said rock. They are estimating he may have been traveling 50 mph at the time of the accident because his helmet was split in two. All news reports state the helmet saved his life but did not protect him from the serious brain injuries he sustained.

I created a thread years ago about Natasha Richardson who was in a ski accident that took her life. However, she did not have a helmet on and her outcome was fatal. I believe there was a medical opinion at the time that said would have lived if she wore a ski helmet.

I spent the past two hours looking at ski helmets and they appear stronger and better constructed than bicycle helmets. In fact, POC has one with a face shield, a needed protection accessory lacking in bicycle helmets.

I’m going to buy a ski helmet below by POC simply because I believe it’s a better winter helmet. I don’t know why bicycle helmets made by the same company look thinner, cheaper and offer less protection? In fact, cyclist should have more protection because we ride with vehicular traffic. This notion that cyclist need less protection than skiers is nonsense.

I suspect there are two reasons why cyclists are given cheaper helmets to use by POC. (and others)

1. Cyclists are willing to take more risk and use a helmet that offers less protection to keep the weight/heat down to a minimum.

2. Cyclists have less money than skiers and are not willing to buy an expensive helmet so a cheaper one is constructed for their use.

An argument can be made about the need to use a less protective helmet in the summer but why compromise during the winter?

I don’t know what’s going to happen to Michael Schumacher in the long run. The helmet may have saved his life but now his quality of life is in jeopardy. I don’t believe he would have faired better with a bicycle helmet if you see the construction of the ones he used. I watched him race for most of his career and sad to see this happen.

There’s also another lesson. They showed an area where the accident happened and it amazed me he made an attempt to ski there. I believe there is risk we all take in life and there is just unnecessary risk. I believe this was the latter.

__________________
I don't know nothing, and I memorized it in school and got this here paper I'm proud of to show it.
Rollfast is offline  
Old 01-07-14, 12:19 AM
  #37  
Senior Member
 
FlatSix911's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Los Altos, CA
Posts: 1,775
Mentioned: 1 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 70 Post(s)
Liked 8 Times in 6 Posts
Take a Tip from a skier... make sure you get a helmet with removable ear flaps for seasonal comfort

Originally Posted by mconlonx
While winter temps might be a great excuse to wear helmets with better protection, POC does offer the same Backcountry Receptor MIPS in both their Bike and Ski line. I suppose if I wanted a dedicated winter helmet, I could opt for the ski helmet, but personally, I'd go for a four-season helmet with the Backcountry Receptor style.



-------------------------------

And... here we are on a bike forum reading a cautionary tale about a guy who drove cars for a living who sustained a head injury while skiing.
FlatSix911 is offline  
Old 01-07-14, 12:39 AM
  #38  
Disco Infiltrator
 
Darth Lefty's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Folsom CA
Posts: 13,775

Bikes: Stormchaser, Paramount, Tilt, Samba tandem

Mentioned: 72 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 3126 Post(s)
Liked 2,102 Times in 1,366 Posts
Originally Posted by Dahon.Steve
I’m going to buy a ski helmet below by POC simply because I believe it’s a better winter helmet. I don’t know why bicycle helmets made by the same company look thinner, cheaper and offer less protection? In fact, cyclist should have more protection because we ride with vehicular traffic. This notion that cyclist need less protection than skiers is nonsense.

I suspect there are two reasons why cyclists are given cheaper helmets to use by POC. (and others)
You know, I think your premise is off. The full-head helmet you cite is for ski racing, where people deliberately run into flags at high double digit speeds, and are very likely to crash. For slower riding / skiing they sell the identical model in both markets (Receptor+) for bikes and skiing, and also a motocross-style MIPS helmet.

The only differences between many of these sorts of things are not the basic design of the shell but the features. Ski helmets have screens over the vents to keep snow out, and a clip on the back for the goggles, and a warm liner and ear muffs. Nutcase also sells helmets in both markets that look very much the same and I'd be willing to bet they are except for the details.
Darth Lefty is offline  
Old 01-07-14, 08:19 PM
  #39  
Senior Member
 
CrankyOne's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Posts: 2,403
Mentioned: 16 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 358 Post(s)
Liked 48 Times in 35 Posts
We wear good hardshell helmets when we're backcountry skiing or skiing in an area where we think a hard head-injuring crash is relatively high (which in reality might be once in every 10,000 runs). For most recreational inbounds skiing we only wear helmets if the weather calls for it—namely, for warmth when it's extremely cold.

I'll wear a bicycle helmet for on road training rides, never for transportation bicycling that is mostly on side paths, cycletracks, or in lanes.

In all of these the decision is loosely based on cost-benefit. As pointed out earlier, the costs of wearing a helmet (weight, comfort, heat, ability to hear others around us, helmet hair when riding a bicycle a couple of miles to a meeting, having to deal with the helmet while eating or doing whatever we rode somewhere to do) all sort of get weighed against the benefits. The benefits get tempered by the likelihood of being in a crash where the helmet would provide some significant protection which, for my transportation riding, is perhaps once every few hundred million miles.
CrankyOne is offline  
Old 01-07-14, 09:35 PM
  #40  
Senior Member
 
CbadRider's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: On the bridge with Picard
Posts: 5,935

Bikes: Specialized Allez, Specialized Sirrus

Mentioned: 3 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 17 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 1 Time in 1 Post
Originally Posted by CB HI
Helmet Thread!
+1000

Just because skiing is mentioned that doesn't mean the same old pro/con arguments aren't going to be rehashed. Please keep helmet advocacy discussion in the helmet thread.


Closed.
__________________
Originally Posted by Xerum 525
Now get on your cheap bike and give me a double century. You walking can of Crisco!!

Forum Guidelines *click here*
CbadRider is offline  
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
nuevex
Commuting
63
06-28-15 08:04 PM
biker2
Advocacy & Safety
11
05-22-14 07:17 PM
Mithrandir
Advocacy & Safety
20
07-22-12 09:03 PM
Iief
Advocacy & Safety
8
07-10-11 01:59 PM

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.