Commuting - Anybody heard of a Skid Lid helmet?!!!

I usually wear just long underwear and and a Skid Lid helmet which was manufactured in San Diego circa 1970. Why are people staring at me? :D

I remember those helmets! They came out back when it was definately NOT in vogue to wear a helmet. They had a funky, surfer/skateboarder look that IMO was more about looks than offering any real protection. If I was intent on wearing a helmet (and I usually do although I think its an individual decision) I'd certainly wear something SNELL or ANSI certified (which the Skid Lid was not)--hell you can look at it and tell it doesn't offer much protection.

Good luck,
Dave

Not to mention that helmets actually DO have a shelf life. After 5 years they really shouldn't be used anymore. If this thing is circa 1970... then it's definitely seen it's better days. You might as well ditch it because it isn't offering any protection in the event of a crash. This way, when ya crash you'll have nice clean road rash on your skull, instead of parts of helmet impacted into your skull. :)

PBW

I remember skid lids. I always thought they looked best on people riding mopeds.

Like everything related to helmets, Skid Lids were argued about at some point in the helmet wars.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?W15522CA2


Originally posted by P. B. Walker
Not to mention that helmets actually DO have a shelf life. After 5 years they really shouldn't be used anymore.

Well, even the rabidly pro-helmet BHSA disagrees with you here.

http://www.helmets.org/replace.htm

Not surprisingly, Snell is the one who mandates the 5 year replacement program while the esteemed Bell recommends replacing a helmet after three years.

They know who they're dealing with.

The skid lid line got a so so review in the latest mountain bike mag. More looks then quality/fit according to the rating.

I still have my skid lid helmet, but I don't use it for bicycling anymore. It does do well for my diving though. Here's a photo of me with it on last October. For diving, I have put both a snorkel and a dive light on the helmet. Commercial ones for divers cost over $100, and I got this one essentially for free. I took all the foam off mine, and use it over a foam neoprene diving hood.

If there any of these still around from the 'ol times, don't use them bicycling. Find another use for them. The open cell foam would be about worthless now for preventing injury. If there are still new ones being manufactured, make sure that they pass ANSI or SNELL standards for bicycles before using them; this is very, very important.

John

What is a skid lid? Does anybody have a pic?

Is that the sponge helmet on the all-too-famous Schwinn advertisement of 1979 with the perfectly beautiful couple dresses all in white wearing marshmallows on their heads?

Here is the ad. Are they wearing skid lids?

No they are not wearing a skid lid helmet - they appear to be wearing very fancy leather racing helmets. Most of the leather helmets in that day were black as I recall.

Originally posted by ndbentrider
No they are not wearing a skid lid helmet - they appear to be wearing very fancy leather racing helmets. Most of the leather helmets in that day were black as I recall.

So, who has a pic of a skid lid?

My curiosity is going wild.

I think the helmet I'm wearing when scuba diving is a skid lid. I cannot find my documentation yet, but unless someone knows differently, that's it. The skid lid was made of hard plastic, with four arches going almost to the top of the head. Under the plastic was about 3/8 inch of open cell foam. This is not the best material, as it is now known, but it was much better than nothing, and did save lives.

John

Mike, love the advert. Those were the days. 10 speeds, suicide levers, mixte frames an short short shorts!

Originally posted by chewa
Mike, love the advert. Those were the days. 10 speeds, suicide levers, mixte frames an short short shorts!

No kidding, 'eh?! Those are some short shorts. Did I actually wear that stuff? Still looks sexy if you ask me.

The Farah Fawcett poster still looks cute too. Wish Mom hadn't thrown it out in '79. What was she thinkin'?!...

Originally posted by mike


No kidding, 'eh?! Those are some short shorts. Did I actually wear that stuff? Still looks sexy if you ask me.

The Farah Fawcett poster still looks cute too. Wish Mom hadn't thrown it out in '79. What was she thinkin'?!...

I know this is off topic, but I've still got a couple of FF posters in a wardrobe at my parents!!

And the Charlie's Angels one. FF was nice, but can't compare to Jaclyn Smith

Yeah, that sure looks like a Skid Lid in the diving picture, alright.
The snaps in the front were for the nifty sun visor (included).

I had one back in the mid-80's.

Sorry Mike, I don't have any photo's to post.

I also had a Italian Brancale helmet that looked more like a hockey helmet than a bicycling helmet.

I used a Skid Lid for many years, and they definitely filled a need. I lived in Seattle at the time and used my bicycle for everything. At that time the few bike helmets that existed were too heavy or too warm, and had far too little ventilation. They typically were modeled after motorcycle or hockey helmets. I used one of these in the winter, but it was unbearable in the summer. Very few people wore helmets.

The Skid Lid arrived and changed everything. It was well ventilated and there was no problem wearing it all year long. Also, they made a good case that the SNELL certification at the time was not suitable for bike helmets, as it emphasized protection from high-speed head-on crashes (as for motorcycles). Statistically the majority of crashes involved glancing blows and long skids along the ground. They argued, successfully, that a heavy SNELL-compliant helmet that was rarely if ever worn was worthless. Better to use a less protective helmet, one that could handle all but the head-on crashes, that was worn all the time. Also, an important cause of injury from rigid-shell helmets was trauma to the side of the skull on the side OPPOSITE to where the head hit something. The rigid shell transferred the stress from one side of the head to the other, causing injury on the opposite side. Thus the prominent hole in center of the top of the Skid Lid, and its unusual shape up top. One other observation was that in a crash the helmet straps occasionally got caught on something, causing a severe twisting injury to the neck. The Skid Lid included a harness that would break instead of causing severe torque to the neck.

I agreed and wore my Skid Lid faithfully. Fortunately, no crashes.

Eventually non-rigid foam-based helmets appeared with great ventilation and solved all the problems. The Skid Lid became obsolete, although I wore mine until the foam disintegrated. I suspect SNELL and ANSI came up with more appropriate specifications, as well.

So, don't trash the Skid Lid...at least in Seattle it filled an important need, it put helmets on the heads of a great many who wouldn't have done so, they were worn year round, and it paved the way for routine helmet wearing.

I live in San Diego, and sometime when I'm running at lunch in Balboa Park...I see this old dude about 6'5" tall wearing a Slid Lid helmet with a Pie Pan attached to the top of the helmet. I think the first time I saw him wearing this thing was at least 15 years ago. Just a normal day in SoCal.

Y'all realize that this thread is over 7 yrs old??

Y'all realize that this thread is over 7 yrs old??

I did not notice that. Who brought this back from the grave? I had to Google just to see what the helmets were. I see the BMX crowd still uses them.

Go to sleep, thread.................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I worked in a bike shop in the late '70s to support my racing habit. One day a salesman (I think his name was Kevin Montgomery) came in and wanted us to buy his helmets (skid lids). When he found out I raced he wanted to know why I didn't wear his helmet because it was better than the leather helmets we were wearing. He offered to give me one if I would wear it in races because his dad owned the company. He sent me one without visor snaps and I raced in that helmet for five years. It didn't protect as well as the Bell Biker or other hard shell helmets with styrofoam liners but also didn't feel or look like an ice chest with a chin strap. By far the most comfortable helmet I have ever worn but wouldn't pass today's safety standards.

I wear a skid lid under my Bell Biker.............

I live in San Diego, and sometime when I'm running at lunch in Balboa Park...I see this old dude about 6'5" tall wearing a Slid Lid helmet with a Pie Pan attached to the top of the helmet. I think the first time I saw him wearing this thing was at least 15 years ago. Just a normal day in SoCal.

Unless I very much miss my guess, the guy you saw is Dick Palmore. He's a friend of mine (at least before I posted this!) and has been an avid cyclist for...a long time. I asked him whether he was aware of the Skid Lid II's failure to pass the (then-) current standards. He said that he is "but it's still a perfectly good helmet".

BTW, I used to wear a Skid Lid II. It prevented me from being brained a couple of times. On one occasion, I scored a direct hit on the (supposedly unprotected) top of my head. I was riding under a pipe that had been so placed as to transfer water from one building to another. It was slightly lower to the ground than was the top of my helmet when I was riding. Had I not been wearing my trusty SL2, I mightn't be able to contribute here today. The other time, I was racing my road bike. Another bloke shoved me as he rode past. I managed to remain upright by bouncing off of a cooperative tree. I struck the tree with, you guessed it, my SL2. While they didn't meet someone's idea of safety, they certainly weren't worthless.