I need an opinon quickly please.

[N_C]

I need a quick opinon on this matter please. I need to decide if I should replace my helmet or not by tomorrow or not.

I have a Giant brand helmet. in the back of it is a tension knob that is used to snug the helmet to my head to make for a better fit. Under the tension knob are 2 "tabs" & what looks like a gear that the "tabs" ratchet against to keep the helmet snug when the knob is tightened. The knob is loosened when I take the helmet off.

What happened was 1 of the 2 "tabs" broke off, leaving only the one to do the job of keeping the helmet snug when I tighten it. It is essentially doing double the duty with the other one missing. I tried to super glue it back in, but because of the type of plastic this was not possible. The helmet will still tighten down, but with only the one "tab" doing double the duty, I'm a little concerned.

Here are my questions that I need an opinion on. Is my concern warranted? Should I go ahead & replace the helmet? Or should I continue to use the helmet & wait until the one "tab" fails, if it ever does & replace the helmet then? Is this something critical? What would you do in this case?

Thank you.

John

[supcom]

My advice is just go get a nice new helmet and you don't have to worry about the quality of advice you get from people on the internet.

Um...

Well, go get a new helmet anyway. They got these nifty new color schemes and everything.

[slvoid]

Replace it, if not for safety, for style and something new. :)

[lilHinault]

Giros and Bells go down into the $30-odd range if you look around.

[Bob Gabele]

When in doubt...Throw it out!!!!!!!

[Helmet Head]

Since you can still make it fit snugly with one ratchet, it's just as safe as when you adjusted it to fit snugly with two ratchets.

The only issue will be if the second ratchet fails. If you're starting off on a big tour, I'd get a nice new helmet. If you need it for a 5 mile commute, I'd save the bucks for now.

Serge

[supcom]

Although the helmet might feel snug in a static situation, I suspect that in a dynamic crash situation where there are significant acceleration forces the helmet might not stay correctly positioned.

The general rule of thumb is you never used damaged safety equipment unless it has been inspected by a qualified person. You should assume that the manufacturer had good reason to incur the cost of putting two tabs on the helmet instead of one.

[N_C]

I replaced it with the new Specialized Air Force helmet. Same cost & as this was the second Giant that I have had fail on me, the first time it was the tension knob itself that broke, the shop replaced it for free. They will send it back to the manufacturer.

While I was at the shop today I did find something out that I kind of suspected. That was that a lot if not all of the helmet manufacturers are going back to the "old style" "slide" retention system & getting away from the tension knob style. I'm guessing it is because there have problems simlilar to what I have had.

I had a TREK Vapor helmet that had the slide retnetion system on it. Never had a problem with it. I guess with the manufacturers going back to this style you could say that hind sight is 20/20 & if isn't broke don't fix it, even though they tried to anyway.