Gloves vs. helmets: hands heal, brains don't.

Complete agreement with Slim. Racing and touring since 1965, I've had only four potentially concussion-inducing crashes. Unfortunately, the first crash happened the year before Bell introduced the Bell Biker, the first bike helmet designed to reduce skull G forces on impact.

So I've had one so-called "mild" concussion (brief blackout, tunnel vision, partial memory loss, raging headache); I don't care to have another. I'm a great bike handler, and I never crashed in a race, but there's too much that happens out on the road that's out of your control. I don't expect ever to have another crash, but then I didn't expect any of the ones I've had.

I wonder how many of the helmet deniers realize that the antihelmet arguments were first formulated in an effort to repeal the Australian law that requires all adults to wear a bike helmet while cycling and that those arguments are accordingly biased. That said, I agree that wearing your helmet or not absolutely should be your own choice and that that's a bad law, not least because what should be a trivial decision has come to be so controversial.