rando

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld

wphamilton

I think he was quoting someone else, to give a thumbs up. Not really his own observations, but I shamelessly used it as such for my soapbox.

Personally I think you're right about many medical studies in recent decades, just really bad work and bad science. It's no wonder that people wind up rejecting science altogether.

rydabent

BTW notice the guys in the pictures with blood on them are STILL riding!!! In one picture at least I can see damage to the helmet.

Six jours

Here's a picture of Bernard Hinault still riding after falling and hitting his unhelmeted head.



This picture was taken during the 1985 Tour de France - which he ended up winning.

And here's a picture of Sean Kelly, taken after he fell at Paris-Roubaix, struck his unhelmeted head, and still finished with a high placing.



As I've written repeatedly here, in the old days, if you fell and hit your head you'd wipe off the blood, get back on your bike, and finish. Now if you fall and hit your head, you call 911 because you saw blood, and then after your wife picks you up at the hospital you immediately log on to Bike Forums to tell everyone how your helmet saved your life.

Poguemahone

Yeah, but Kelly's Irish. This makes him much tougher. Hinault I haven't figured out yet. Perhaps Irish on his mum's side?

emperor76

I have never worn a helmet in my life except obviously when I had a motorbike, and I have never had any accidents serious enough to scare me into doing so, I don't race but I have biked what I would consider a colossal amount of miles in my time and the only two accidents I can recall is one I was biking down the road in severely heavy wind and rain, I was trying to shield my face from the rain and rather embarrassingly crashed into the back of a parked post van, and the other my front wheel slipping on wet leaves at a junction, just stopped myself with my hand and carried on. I suppose if I had a serious accident I might re consider, but I feel almost (perhaps foolishly) immune as I seem to have been so lucky so far, but after all is said and done, if it was compulsory to wear a helmet, I probably wouldn't ride a bike

Six jours

Hinault is from Britanny. Hopefully that's all that needs to be said.

Poguemahone

They speak Gaelic there. Good enough.

cyclogeck

cad a dhéanann tú chiallaíonn?

rydabent

I wonder how much blood would have been prevented if all those racers had been using a helmet??

rydabent

One of the big points that the anti helmet cult keeps telling us is that wearing a helmet makes a person more careless and will take more chances. They basically claim safety equiptment will end up killing more people. I first of all reject that argument out right. Mainly because after I put on my helmet I totally forget that I am wearing it untill the ride is over and to to take it off. I just do not think----------gee since I am wearing helmet I will run that red light.

My main point against that argument is that cars now have far more safety equiptment than they did in 1950. Yet now with twice as many cars and higher speed limits far fewer people are being killed on the highways. If the arguement that safety equiptment make people take more chances and drive or ride more dangerously how do they explain the decrease in automotive deaths???? A bike helmet is simply cycling safety equiptment.

LesterOfPuppets

I got hassled by a cop for riding a bike with only specs, jeans and gloves as PPE. Your tax dollars at work!

LesterOfPuppets

So are you saying all bikes need disc brakes? Maybe two-wheelers should be outlawed. We all need tadpole trikes. You know, do it for the children.

Seriously, though, I imagine the decrease in automotive deaths you mention is due mainly to the widespread use of motoring helmets of late.

I have one bike that only has one brake. I'll probably die on that one, right?

mconlonx

You mean the ones wearing helmets that are also all bloody...?

rydabent

lester

Being pulled over for not wearing a helmet is stupid, unless there is a helmet law where you were riding. Please note that I am against helmet laws.

Six jours

If they'd been wearing the kind of helmets that actually provide significant protection - i.e. full-face helmets - then their injuries would have been less severe, I am sure. The kind of helmets worn by today's road racers, however, are not very effective at preventing injury TO PARTS OF THE HEAD THEY DON'T COVER.

mconlonx

"Weylandt was declared dead at the scene due to facial and basal skull fractures, as his injuries were too severe to allow resuscitation.... Weylandt was wearing a helmet, as all professional road cyclists have been obliged to do since May 2003."

Of course he hit something solid at an estimated 50mph...

cbike

People skiing with bicycle helmets. All hope is lost. I now advocate for skydiving with a bicycle helmet instead of a parachute.

cyclogeck

Anybody watch these football tryouts? Where that guy finished the hundred and promptly ran into ground? Pretty funny to watch his head slam into the ground and see him get up unscathed, well physically anyway.
I wish he were wearing an officially approved bicycle helmet so's when he got up and was wearing a popcorn hat, everyone could say "behold the helmet saved his life!"
I understand the Livestrong Giro helmet cures cancer as well.

rydabent

Several of the last posts seems to indicate that several of the posters have taken too many hits to their helmetless heads.

rekmeyata

Duh huh?

cyclogeck

kindred ydabent;15326531]Several of the last posts seems to indicate that several of the posters have taken too many hits to their helmetless heads. [/QUOTE]

Do you have that statement tattooed on your body somewhere? Seems like one of the five statements you only seem capable of making. Oh and I wear a helmet so if you were trying to insult me because I'm slightly different than you, will have to try something else.
helmets are useful, practical and serve to provide margin of safety. but a half an inch of foam is a half an inch of foam, not plywood, not galvanized steel, not even Teflon. Just flimsy foam.
strange how foam seems to have the power to alienate kindered spirits into camps of anti and pro.

RazrSkutr

It's the bicycle helmets that people are wearing in them. Obviously.

RazrSkutr

But he was wearing a helmet.

rydabent

Since it is the first of the month, I thot I would mention again that all the rants by the hairy chested invincible members of the anti helmet cult has not convinced me to go without a helmet!!!!