I had a grand idea for a helmet discussion but unfortunately, it's already been discussed seemingly to ad infinitum. Luckily, I checked around first so, I'll just drop this in here.

First and foremost, I don't care if you do or don't wear a helmet and, dependant upon my mood, may or may not debate about it. Whatever you do is ultimately on you.

Now, I'm directing this to a specific group of helmet wearers. What I want to know is, if you were previously a helmet naysayer and now wear one, what changed your mind? When was that moment you were absolutely certain that helmet advocates might just know what they were talking about?

For me, it took a bounce off the curb to the back of a helmet for me to realize a helmet's value. I'll get to that, but first some nutshelled history for context.

I had ridden some sort of bicycle off and on for most of my life. Only when I was a messenger back in the early 2000s did I wear a helmet because it was required. After I either quit or was fired, I don't remember, I went back to riding sans helmet. While without a helmet, I had never suffered a significant bump to my head. I've been bumped, bruised, sprained and road-rashed nearly everywhere else though and even dislocated my shoulder once as an adolescent attempting a stupid bike trick. We built alot of ramps. Also, as a kid, I often rode trails on BMX bikes, motorcycles, minibikes and even three-wheelers. Remember those? Never bumped my head when I crashed.

I'm 57, by the way, and my helmet epiphany happened about 5 years ago during the time I was working as a bike mechanic at a small local shop. Wearing a helmet when you ride wasn't required to work there or anything like that but a few of the folks there used to nag me alot and I was starting to listen. So, one day I decided to go buy one just to quieten both them and that little voice in my head. I was still unconvinced, however, but I had to listen to that little voice. It seemed to find sound reason in my friend's naggings.

Fast forward maybe a month. I was out riding and weaving through some slow moving traffic on a double lane one-way street on my fixed gear. As I was going between two cars towards the curb, I pulled a fancy sideways skid for speed adjustment and direction but mostly style... then suddenly ran out of talent. Not even sure what went wrong because I had pulled this move successfully before. Both of my tires caught traction sideways, the momentum shifted and I was pitched off. I wound up on my back, bouncing the back of my helmet off the curb. I felt it. That's when I knew. It's the only thing I'm certain of about that incident.

I calmly gathered myself and my pride from the asphalt, walked to the sidewalk, pulled off my helmet and kissed it. Then after quelling the concerns of witnesses, 'Are you ok?' 'Yeah, I'm good.', I remounted first helmet then bike and rode off.

The helmet was undamaged, albeit scored from the hit. So, one may think the hit was insignificant. But for me, there is no doubt I would have at least been knocked unconscious from that curb bounce had my head not been protected by the helmet. And luckily, the vehicles were sparsely spaced and moving slow enough to stop before running my ass over. So, that was a teaching moment I lived to learn from.

And what I learned is this: If you ride long enough, you will bump your head. So get a helmet on it! Was that inner voice warning me that my bump was coming? If so, it begs the question, 'How did it know?'. But I'll let you folks ponder or scoff at the philisophical implications of the timing with the whole incident, whether it be coincidental or a foreshadowing. Regardless of any of that, today, I won't ride without a helmet.