No, I said they stop riding as adults. This is why there are around 70M youth cyclists in the US, but only around 50M adults.

Not in this timeline. Check out the market for, well, any luxury good.

Largely because of the perception of cycling danger, as I explained. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...en-dont-cycle/ among hundreds of other studies.

Why then do they precisely match the statistic signature thereof?

The human skull is not actually all that vulnerable, especially at cycling speeds. It has been designed for millennia precisely to protect its contents, and it does a pretty good job -- and isn't assisted to a significant degree by 200 grams of plastic. Especially so when, as previously explained, that "something" causes more head impact and more severe head impacts by the very nature of its increased size.

Which would be useful information if medical schools instructed doctors on accident reconstruction, statistical analysis, and a host of other skills necessary to make that judgement. But they do not.

All of which claim to find a benefit to fatal injuries which does not exist in the real world. Can you explain this problem? Why do these theoretical benefits disappear when we analyze real-world data?

And attempting to study cyclist injuries has been notoriously plagued by inaccurate studies that have been subsequently retracted. By the way, one of your studies even claims that mandatory helmet laws work -- which almost no one believes any more. And some of the studies used as few as 21 cases. So the quality of these studies leaves much to be desired.

Again, why do bicycle helmets present the precise statistical signature of a placebo? This trumps your opinion, until and unless you can explain why bicycle helmets do not work in the real world, which we inhabit.

A most unfortunate example for your position -- since much like the human skull versus thin plastic hats, it turns out to be the case that millennia of evolution did an impressive job designing our feet and legs. To the point that there's significant debate over whether barefoot running is better than your fancy plastic shoes...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4212355/ among lots of others that are not really germane to this forum, and can be googled by interested parties.


It exists, and many studies have proven that the perception of danger limits cycling uptake. On this very forum, you will find many people who are happy to share that they "only ride trails" or "don't ride outside" due to perceived danger. An enormous part of the gravel boom has been this exact ideation. And it isn't unique to cycling -- I am a paddler, and a similar and similarly-misguided situation applies to personal flotation devices. There is a movement to demand that all paddlers wear PFDs at all times, and practitioners thereof love to shame anyone who dares hit the water without one -- to the point where even paddlers who are sharing water with swimming children can be harrassed. I've purchased two second-hand boats from people who stopped using them because mandatory vest laws were passed, and their wives decided that hobby was too dangerous as a result.

Again, the protection to which you refer is imaginary. That's the point. If you believe that you need to protect your head while cycling, you should be wearing a motorcycle helmet. There's no valid argument to the contrary.

I am not making the crazy claim, you are. The claim that bicycle helmets offer the protection that you allege they do, is crazy. That claim is contradicted by real-world statistics, and has always been, for as long as anyone has kept such statistics. Your (general) wishful thinking and hoping does not change that fact.