Hybrid Bicycles - Do you wear a helmet?

Since this is the hybrid area and typically we are riding more for recreation, commuting, or taking it slower how many of you don't bother with a helmet?

My riding will be confined to bike paths only. I don't feel the need to ride on the main roads with crazy drivers :eek: so I haven't purchased one yet and I don't go fast enough to really hurt myself so I haven't bothered. I have looked at them but walk away thinking it's silly for the slow cruising I do.

How about you?

My wife and i never ride without a helmet, never !!! It's only a matter of time before there's a crash or some sort of fall off ... freakish accidents do happen so i want to protect our noggins ...

Nope.

Closest I come is a rolled up bandana to soak up sweat. I live in Houston. On my commute home last night the thermometers along the way were reading 93 degrees. I sweat so much it was ridiculous. Without that bandana it gets hard to see sometimes. I might wear a helmet if I could figure out a way to keep the rivers of sweat from running into my eyes.

You're quite new here, aren't you? Helmet discussions rarely go well. There's a 100+ page thread in advocacy and safety devoted to the often impassioned, mostly ignorant and frequently infuriating opinions that people have on the subject, I suggest you dive in. It's a snake-pit, but it can be fun.

For the record, no I don't wear one.

I do for two reasons. First When I go out on a ride it's a fitness ride. So I'm in the street with cars and I'm pushing my self and the bike. When I'm around the block my girls can see me and I want to make a good impression on them that they need to wear one.

HELMETS FOREVER! A little extra weight and heat is nothing, compared to traumatic brain injury. Ask any retired football player! Since there is moderate suburban traffic in my riding area, I'm not about to take a chance, just to feel the wind in my hair (what's left of it).

That said, I really need to buy a modern more ventilated helmet. The one I use now is like my bike, from 1992. It's more of a cloth-wrapped styrofoam shipping sleeve for my skull, than an actual helmet! :D

Since this is the hybrid area and typically we are riding more for recreation, commuting, or taking it slower how many of you don't bother with a helmet?

My riding will be confined to bike paths only. I don't feel the need to ride on the main roads with crazy drivers :eek: so I haven't purchased one yet and I don't go fast enough to really hurt myself so I haven't bothered. I have looked at them but walk away thinking it's silly for the slow cruising I do.

How about you?

I was checking the direction of the wind, by looking at a flag, for my ride home. The sun was behind it and I couldn't see that the guards had dropped the guard posts down. I hit one of the post at about 4mph. The bike flipped and I landed on my head. Witnesses said my head bounced 1 1/2 feet. My helmet was shattered in 6 places. I would have been dead or being spoon fed for the rest of my days. In the last year and a half I've gone to the ground a half dozen times. I think if you're serious enough about bike riding to come here and ask this question then you're riding enough to surely hit the bricks sooner or later. It's easier on a bicycle than it is on a motorcycle.
Before I started cycling again, I used to think bicycle helmets looked ridiculous. Now I think, on most occasions, people without helmets look ridiculous.

Nope.

Closest I come is a rolled up bandana to soak up sweat. I live in Houston. On my commute home last night the thermometers along the way were reading 93 degrees. I sweat so much it was ridiculous. Without that bandana it gets hard to see sometimes. I might wear a helmet if I could figure out a way to keep the rivers of sweat from running into my eyes.

Helmet Dew Rag. Now ya know.

No, I understand the risk trust me. I will probably get one in due time but for now I haven't been using one. I don't want to get into a debate on this, I was just wondering if I was the only one out there who doesn't wear one.

Today at the bike path I got in roughly 15 miles and I would say 85% of the people I saw were wearing one, even the slow recreational cruisers. I actually felt out of place and in a strange way, somewhat embarrassed. They seem to be more popular than not. I still they look ridiculous though. Maybe I should design helmets that actually look decent. I guess I'll just have to get use to it, deal with the hot, humid heat and suck it up.

Oh yes, I am rather new here so I apologize for posting this topic without checking all the threads.

I wear a helmet for safety and for keeping myself from getting a $250 ticket for riding without one from the local pd. I have also been at a few bicycle accidents where riders have crashed not wearing one and all I will say is I like my insides inside. :thumb:

I don't think you should be put off by not wearing a helmet. It is you choice after all. I usually wear a helmet, but at times I take a ride without having the thing on my noggin, and it's quite nice. People may jump through all sorts of hoops to prevent themselves from injury, only they may justify what is reasonable or not. To me, from my experience, not having my feet clipped to my pedals in one fashion or another poses a far greater risk than wearing or not wearing a helmet.

I wear one. My kids wear them.

To me, from my experience, not having my feet clipped to my pedals in one fashion or another poses a far greater risk than wearing or not wearing a helmet.

Really? You clip in your feet?

yes, I use pedals with the cages.

I figured it would be the opposite and be dangerous if your feet were bound up in case you needed to use them quickly. Like to kick the wife for instance. (Kidding) But what do I know...I'm a novice rider still. Anyway, I can imagine most of all this is personal preference.

I wear a helmet now after not wearing one for years but I dont think I will ever use clipped or cage type pedals as I like my feet to be available quickly if need be.

I'm clumsy enough without leaving my legs facing tarmac first.

I wear one to be safe and to me it feels weird not to wear one when biking.

I figured it would be the opposite and be dangerous if your feet were bound up in case you needed to use them quickly. Like to kick the wife for instance. (Kidding) But what do I know...I'm a novice rider still. Anyway, I can imagine most of all this is personal preference.

It isn't so much personal preference, as practice and, therefore, skill. Riding clipped in is probably safer, especially in the wet, than riding with platform pedals, but only once you are used to being clipped in. Similarly, those who say "if you ride long enough you are bound to fall off and hit your head" are, literally, correct, but there is an immense difference in the frequency of such incidents for the skilled and careful rider than for the unskilled or inattentive.

If one pays attention and does not, for example, keep riding while unable to see because one is blinded by the sun (!) cycling is very safe. In the UK,which is far from being the safest country in Europe for cyclists, there is one cycling fatality for every thirty million miles cycled. And helmets have, apparently, made little difference to this: the trend for deaths and injuries among cyclists appear to have continued as before despite the increasing use of helmets.

The probability is, as far as I can see having read a lot of the evidence, that helmets save a number of minor injuries - bumps, scrapes, abrasions, etc. - but are pretty ineffective in the crashes that might actually kill you, namely collisions with motor vehicles. Before helmets came along, most people who fell off and bumped their heads were just fine, and if you're hit by a truck a helmet isn't going to help much, if at all.

What does this all mean?

1. There are other things you can do to protect yourself. Learn basic skills like being able to stay upright while stationary, or being able to manoeuvre at low speed. Above all, learn how to ride defensively in traffic.

2. Don't imagine that cycling is a dangerous activity. It really isn't, you're more at risk when walking downstairs.

3. If you feel you need to wear a helmet, fine. But please don't imagine that it is likely to make the difference between life and death, or that it in any way reduces the need to learn how to ride safely. The number of helmeted riders I see who appear to have a death-wish is remarkable. But on the other hand, the fact that so few of them manage to kill themselves is massively reassuring.

I don't want to get into a debate on this, I was just wondering if I was the only one out there who doesn't wear one.

All you posted this for is to blow smoke. Please....

The night that I crashed and hit the ground hard enough to crack my helmet, I was only going about 3 mph. I was trying to edge onto a bike path from the grass, and hit a 2" high raised section of concrete exactly parallel with my tire, with all my momentum going to my right--I went over like Arte Johnson in an old Laugh-In segment. Happened so fast I took the impact directly on the helmet. I still had a mild concussion.

It's not how fast you're going. It's how far you fall, and what makes the impact with the ground. People get fatal brain injuries standing stock-still in the shower and falling, when their heads make contact with solid porcelain. Sitting on a bike seat properly adjusted, your head is high enough off the ground to suffer a serious injury even when the bike is stationary.

It's a free country. I don't like mandatory-anything laws. You're free to choose. I choose a helmet.

It's also an expensive Country! I don't like my insurance premiums taking a helmetless head hike! :D

Since this is the hybrid area and typically we are riding more for recreation, commuting, or taking it slower how many of you don't bother with a helmet?

My riding will be confined to bike paths only. I don't feel the need to ride on the main roads with crazy drivers :eek: so I haven't purchased one yet and I don't go fast enough to really hurt myself so I haven't bothered. I have looked at them but walk away thinking it's silly for the slow cruising I do.

How about you?

As a few others have stated from their personal experience, 3 or 4 mph is enough to hit your head on the ground, so I wouldn't not get one because you ride slow. If you have other reasons for no wearing one ,well that is your choice.

Personally, I almost always wear a helmet [1]. I need at least a hat on my head anyway (due to me hair otherwise blowing in my eyes) so why not wear a helmet that also will keep me safe. Once you get used to wearing a helmet it really doesn't become an issue in my experience.

[1] The exception is sometimes I won't if I'm going to the local watering hole which is about 1/3 mile away. Although I usually walk there because I don't like the bike parking situation.

My helmet saved me from serious injury or worse when I hit a crack in the street and dived head-over-handlebars into the curb. Passersby who stopped said my survival was miraculous because my head bounced off of the curb. Giro paid for part of the busted helmet replacement in order to have the damaged shell for analysis.

Running over stuff, like a small piece of wire, can put a biker down in a flash. Once airborne, even at a snail's pace, the landing can be mighty hazardous.

I don't like a helmet. Mine looks goofy. It interferes with my headphones. It interferes with wind blowin' through my hair. Even with big vents, its hot in Florida in the summer. But I wear one almost always, 'cause my wife refuses to change diapers if I'm brain damaged.

One advantage of wearing a helmet, and clipping your feet in; you will ride faster and take greater risks. I think it makes you feel safer, so you push it a little further. It might not be a huge difference, but it does make a difference, at least I feel it.

Yep, new here as of now...this topic caught my eye.
After a nine year layoff with a bad hip, I decided to have a total hip replacement Jan 2011 & I'm back in the saddle again. Did not want to wear one because of looks. The pro at the bike shop said "look at it this way, before it was nerdy, now it's totally acceptable". So I bought one for myself and my wife. A friend of mine had a freakish accident. Cracked his helmet to pieces. I never wore a helmet before but now I do.

It interferes with my headphones.

That's funny. If you ride with no headphones you might not need the helmet???

Not to downgrade their importance, but there is a misconception about helmets being designed to prevent far more serious brain injury, which is not true. They are designed to prevent skull fractures and any secondary concussive protection you get is only a bonus. Our skulls alone can withstand up to 5,000 pounds of force before they shatter and if you hit pavement at that force you will surely receive fatal brain injury. You will increase your safety tenfold if you learn how to fall (tuck and roll), whether you wear a helmet or not. The only people who get injured in a fall are those who don't know how to fall safely. Look up parkour on YouTube and you'll see some entertaining examples of this.

In any case, I don't wear a helmet currently. I probably should.

I always wear a helmet. Except when I use one of the bikes at work. I feel naked without them. And I always use my seat belt, too.

I've been thinking about getting a camera to record some biking adventures, so I'd need a helmet to mount it on. Of course, you could mount a camera on the handlebars or just about anywhere, but on a helmet you can record what you're looking at and with less vibration.

I live in Louisiana and state law is anyone under the age of 15 is required to wear a helmet when riding in the street. When I got my bike I got a helmet and wear it all the time as a "teach by example" sort of thing for my kids. Now it feels weird to ride without one.

On Memorials day I took my son mountain biking and foolishly (mostly due to newbie-ness) chose the wrong trail to go on. Ended up losing control and crashing while going down a sandy hill. I was literally upright, but sideways, at one moment, then my whole right side was bouncing on dirt, sand, and rocks. I felt my ribs and head hit hard. I'm pretty sure without the helmet I would have been unconscious at best. Luckily my son (10 years old) was able to help me get back to the car and load up the bikes for me. After seeing me after I got home from the hospital all the neighborhood kids wear their helmets now. :)

This is just my experience, and was due to poor choices. In my case I'm glad I had one. Others with more sense may not need one, but I'll have mine on whenever I go outside my yard. And my wife tells me if I ever go mountain biking again she is making me wear a lot more safety gear... :D

Not to downgrade their importance, but there is a misconception about helmets being designed to prevent far more serious brain injury, which is not true. They are designed to prevent skull fractures and any secondary concussive protection you get is only a bonus. Our skulls alone can withstand up to 5,000 pounds of force before they shatter and if you hit pavement at that force you will surely receive fatal brain injury. You will increase your safety tenfold if you learn how to fall (tuck and roll), whether you wear a helmet or not. The only people who get injured in a fall are those who don't know how to fall safely. Look up parkour on YouTube and you'll see some entertaining examples of this.

In any case, I don't wear a helmet currently. I probably should.
What?

What?
I'm just interjecting my own data points on the matter. Some people in this thread mentioned helmets protecting the brain.

I'm just interjecting my own data points on the matter. Some people in this thread mentioned helmets protecting the brain.

Luxo- Do helmets protect anything, if not the brain? What do your data points indicate?

To sum it up, wearing a helmet will protect your head from cracking open, to put it bluntly. The main issue in my opinion is that the skull doesn't fracture as easily as the brain gets injured if you land on your head, therefore it's a good idea to learn how to fall to minimize injury whether you wear a helmet or not (I'm not against either choice).

I've been riding since I was 6, which puts about 57 years of anecdotal evidence to hand. As a kid, long before anybody wore helmets, I had lots of accidents though never hit my head hard enough to cause problems. As I grew older, the accidents decreased in number, but increased in severity - usually involving large swaths of skin and blood left on the pavement or rock garden.

I've only had three accidents where my head made significant contact, two walk-aways and one limp-away. One slide-out with no helmet in 1969, once hit by a car while wearing a "leather hair net" in 1978 and last October 1st I while riding in a MTB race and went @$$ over tea-kettle on a little non-technical downhill rock garden. When I awoke I was off the trail and apparently nobody had passed me. I checked out all the places that were bleeding - no arterial squirts, checked out the bike - just some scratches - adjusted my glasses so I could see out of my left eye and completed the ride. In the first-aid tent they took good care of me. The rock(s) that scratched my right lens and eyebrow did a real number on my helmet. It isn't possible to quantify how much more damage my poor noggin would have experienced if the helmet hadn't taken the brunt of the blow, but it would have been substantial and my bride of 36 years would not have been amused (she beat me soundly in the race). If I were seriously injured (head or not) or died as a result of a bike accident and I was un-helmeted, my bride would kill me!

With all that said, when I gear up, whether for a bicycle or motorcycle, I am freshly reminded to "be careful out there." I think it makes me more aware of the risks that I gladly embrace to have taken this small precaution. I also wear a rear-view mirror that sticks to the inside of the glasses I wear for riding. Just like driving a car or motorcycle, I check my mirror regularly.

As others have pointed out, I am also a role-model (roll model?) for my grandchildren and the neighborhood hoodlums whose tires I regularly repair. I'll buy a helmet for any kid who will wear one.

The only drawback I've found to wearing a helmet is the tiger stripe sun-tan I develop over the course of the summer on my nearly bald pate. Maybe I can start a new fashion...

I never wear a helmet, I believe them to be the only cycling accessory that does not do what it is advertised to do, i.e. save lives and prevent serious head injury. I also ride a motorcycle and never go 10 feet without a helmet. Why the difference? One works , the other does not.

There's another benefit to wearing a helmet that hasn't been mentioned. I often ride on paths where there are low-hanging tree branches. Sometimes I can't avoid them and they hit my helmet. If I weren't wearing the helmet, I'd be in trouble.

I never wear a helmet, I believe them to be the only cycling accessory that does not do what it is advertised to do, i.e. save lives and prevent serious head injury. I also ride a motorcycle and never go 10 feet without a helmet. Why the difference? One works , the other does not.

I'm sorry but that is idiot talk.

The joke is, he posted that after several stories from folks who were saved from serious head injury by wearing bicycle helmets.

I he an idiot? Or is he a...
256595

We have a thread in A&S (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/771371-The-helmet-thread) specifically for discussing the pros and cons of wearing a helmet, since it is such a volatile topic.

This thread is closed.