indyfabz

I wear one all the time since you can take a tumble anywhere, including where you least expect it. I have seen the results of a nasty closed head injury that resulted from a low-speed crash without a helmet. I needed a drink after leaving the hospital.

One day I was cycling and came upon a rollerblader who was semi-conscious after taking a fall on a road that was closed to traffic. She was wearing knee pads, elbow pads and wrist braces but no helmet.

RedC

I started wearing a helmet because my son thought it was wrong for us to tell his children to wear helmets if the rest of us didn't wear them. Made sense to me (Florida law requires under 16 to wear helmet) Now since most of my riding is on club rides and I teach bicycle safety I never ride without one

turbo1889

Okay, in other news besides the ongoing debate ~ I posted and had a short discussion with another member (mconlonx) on a thread that started out as its own separate thread about full face helmets and other helmets that cover more of your head then the average top cap only bicycle helmet does that got merged with this thread.

Here is how the discussion went:



I’ve had the helmet and been using it for about 3 weeks on a daily basis now and figured I’d post a report on how using a light duty 3/4 motorcycle helmet with visor works for a cold weather bicycle helmet. It does keep my head warm but my neck still gets cold unless I wear one of those fleece neck warmer tubes as well. In most conditions it hasn’t fogged up on me except coming home several nights where there was 100%+ humidity with fog banks and it did fog up then and I had to lift the visor and switch to clear lens safety glasses. There was one night where I couldn't even use the safety glasses and just had to go without any eye protection and slow down because it was freezing fog that was ice coating everything as I passed through it. I've worn it in weather that has ranged from 50-F down to about 20-F and can say that it is too warm to wear in anything more then about 40-F weather so it is definitely cold weather only unless it is raining hard which it does work well in that situation as well as the cold.

Thought I’d share my results as an FYI for others searching this thread for actual info rather then debate points in the future.

Zoxe

I wear mine always. I'm not active-duty military, but I do work for DoD as an Engineer, and the mantra at the office is "train like you fight and fight like you train."

I'll need to wear a helmet on race day, so I wear a helmet during training.

starbite

I am so sorry. I didn't even think about that possibility. I guess I could have applied the disagreement with my friend through to the potential for there to be disagreement on a forum, but I didn't think along those lines at all. It seems like every forum has its hot topics and I just didn't consider what those might be around here.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and I hope this doesn't become another heated thread. :/

Beachgrad05

For 99% of my riding I wear my helmet but the 2.5 mile ride to breakfast with my husband I go w/o, as he doesn't ride except to breakfast on my Mtn bike and doesn't have a helmet to wear.

krahling

My wife and I always wear them. 6 weeks ago, a dog ran in front of her bike; she hit it and landed on her head and shoulder. She broke her collarbone, but only suffered a concussion and some inner ear damage to her head.

ZmanKC

+1

achoo

I always wear one. Didn't use to do that. Then I got taken out by a deer. Helmet was shattered into lots and lots of little pieces.

But in the end, it's your noggin.

John C. Ratliff

Thanks for the update, Turbo1889. I've thought of using a motorcycle helmet in the winter, but so far have been using my yellow Nutcase helmet I got at the Bridge Pedal several years ago.

John

Mi11er

Yep, It is like a seatbelt. It is a pain until you need it, then you and your family wished you had it on.

mconlonx

Glad the 3/4 moto helmet is working out. Obviously, I thought otherwise...

While it will certainly silence some of the bare-head brigade who claim you should wear a moto helmet if you actually want the protection many incorrectly assign to bicycle helmets, it's overkill for most situations.

And heavy. I'd still not wear one for commuting duty. And definitely not, in hotter weather. Case could be made in colder weather like you're doing.

Again, glad to have been proven wrong.

Mark Stone

Your dog reads spanish? My dog speaks English. Serious. We had a new roof put on the house, and the dog was in the back yard. When he saw people putting on the shingles, he yelled "Roof!! Roof Roof Roof!!!" To stay on topic I might note that the roofers were not wearing helmets.

turbo1889

Well you were proven right that it needed to be fairly cold weather. As I said I don't consider it comfortable in anything warmer then 40-F which is just above the freezing mark on the F-scale.

starkmojo

Does this mean I am, at long last, " hip"?!? Awesome!

I don't wear one.... Tried a few never found one that felt right. No judgements either way on my part. We all make our own choices.

jsigone

I always wear my lid and got to put it to the test again the other day. Got high sided on my MTB and went down head first, impacted about 3 inches above my left eye, oakleys saved my face from getting dirt rash too. Got a nice concussion and still feeling the side effects. Would have been much worse without it. I'll continue to preach "get the best helmet you can afford"

cplager

In my case, I grew up wearing a bike helmet (in the 70s no less when NOBODY outside of my family wore one). Just like it feels wrong if I drive a car without putting on a tight seatbelt, it feels wrong to me to not wear a helmet when riding.

All that being said, yes, it is completely your choice as to whether or not you wear a helmet. And I do understand not wanting to wear one because it doesn't fit right. Please consider (or not) going to a bike store (or REI) that has a lot of helmets and spend some time trying on different helmets to see what works for you. As I've said before, I think you are better off riding with no helmet than not riding. I just think you're better off wearing a helmet and riding a bike than not wearing a helmet and riding a bike.

Cheers,
Charles

mnor

I don't wear a helmet at this point. Most of my rides adverge around 5 to 10 miles per hr. Also ride early morn when there is little to no traffic. If i was riding steep hills or heavy traffic i would wear one.

bigwies

I always wear a helmet when riding. It wasn't always that way, but my wife talked me into it and now I feel naked riding without it. It has saved me at least twice and I don't want that third time to turn into a tragedy. I see riders in my area who ride without one, but I will say that probably about 75% of the riders I see are wearing a helmet.

Just my $0.02.

Mithrandir

Not even hard hats? That's kind of foolhardy. Hope the contractor had insurance, at least.

Mark Stone

Nope, no hard hats. Yep, insurance. And they learned to speak "Dog".

chasm54

Having been away from the thread for a while, and now having read your contributions, I'm afraid that your commonsense position doesn't make much sense, for the simple reason that you don't differentiate between different types of head injuries. You say, correctly, that if you bang your head on the pavement it will probably hurt less if you're wearing a helmet. You could have added that you may avoid some cuts and bruises too. But you seem to believe that this is what matters. It doesn't, much. The type of injury you ought to be worried about is injury to your brain, not your scalp. Helmets do very little to protect against such injury because the amount of deceleration they provide is small, and they may actually increase the extent to which your brain is bounced around inside your skull by increasing the rotational forces acting on your head. They may save your scalp, but not your brain - and I know which of those I value the most.

And by the way, I speak as one who has tried your experiment. I have fallen off and hit my head when unhelmeted. Moderately painful, a few contusions, but contusions aren't much of a problem.

Cycling is pretty safe. All the evidence I have looked at seems to suggest that in general, encouraging more people to wear helmets does not make it safer. And the funny thing about "common sense" is that when looked at carefully, it so often conflicts with the facts. You'd do better to question your assumptions in the light of the data, rather than the other way around.

starkmojo

Hard hats are good, but roofers are the worst at wearing PFP.

chasm54

Actually, helmets aren't much use at preventing concussions. They will mitigate minor injuries and save some pain, blood etc. if one is unlucky enough to come off and hit one's head, but they are simply inadequate to deal with the forces involved in high-speed collisions. In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that they may worsen diffuse axonal injuries to the brain because it is your brain bouncing around inside your skull that is the dangerous thing, and whereas a skull might (painfully) bounce and slide, a helmet might increase the rotation of your head, which isn't great.

I wouldn't try to dissuade anyone from wearing one on this basis. However, it is quite interesting that increased helmet use seems to have had little or no impact on the (already mercifully low) incidence of head injury to cyclists. I don't wear one myself, becasue cycling is already pretty safe, the stats suggest that helmets don't make it safer, on the very rare occasions that I have come off and hit my head I have been fine, and I'm more interested in my brain (which helmets do little to protect) than my scalp, which can stand the very occasional contusion.

Make up your own minds. There's a long and sometimes exasperating, but sometimes informative, thread on the subject in the advocacy and safety forum.

rydabent

Lets again look logically at the statements of the anti helmet cult. One of their main arguments is that cycling is safe so a helmet is not needed. I generally concur in that statement. Then they say that in some accidents that a helmet will increase the harm. Therefore---------------------------since cycling is generally safe, and in only a few accidents will a helmet increase harm, the probability of a helmet hurting someone is about as relevant as a bug breaking wind in a hurricane.