​​​Essentially where I am too with all this.

Made my choice, expect word of its having shipped shortly. Local LBS wasn't much help when I bought the Bell I've been wearing back two years ago. Others are a significant drive distant so I'll have to wait to see whether what I'm expecting is something I find comfortable.

Highly rated in that study referred to, and in a bright color as well this time! Kind of an early birthday present to myself? In view of what I'm doing these days (once the weather's nice enough again to enjoy riding outdoors) it's worth what it costs.

My bike and ski helmets must be too old to be on the VA Tech list.

The only helmet I have that is listed is the Bontrager Starvos I wear when I ride my road bikes. My Giro 9 ski helmets and Giro Bishop for mountain and gravel were not listed.

Latest helmet thread merged into Helmet Thread 2.

I'm on a roll today with finding interesting reading material. I'd never seen a study like this attempted before, and found it interesting.

Having a crash without a helmet could also impact cognitive function, and your life. There is a lot of nonsense on the internet these days, and most of it are all lies.

Good find.

The reported results aren't particularly surprising, given that they were looking at 800-gm cricket helmets. That's quite a weight to be carrying around on your head. Most decent bicycle helmets are around 300 grams.

The different requirements of the two sports more or less mandate the weight difference---or to put it another way, the practical upper limit for helmet weight is lower for sport and racing cyclists than for cricket players and football players.

But with those findings, here's hoping that attempts will be made to reduce the weight of cricket helmets while maintaining protection at as close to the present level as possible.

Are you suggesting that you believe wearing a cycle helmet prevents that possibility? If you are, that's rank nonsense, as the thousands of people who die in cycling helmets annually would attest, if they could. Most of the world's cyclists -- by far -- ride without a helmet, and yet they do not die at a greater rate than helmeted cyclists do.

Maybe their decreased cognition is partly why.

Not prevention---mitigation. It's not either/or.

Am I dumber when wearing a helmet? Hard to say as a helmet actually saved my life. Sure, for years I did not wear a helmet. Not on my bike or my motorcycle. Its because the feeling was so good. Almost euphoric. But in actual reality, a helmet did its purpose...


Long Story 2013: 3 Sec. Bicycle Verses Feral Hogs - Near Miss UNIVEGA ChroMo

Then again, there are other helmets. Yep, we fight the way we train...


Long before my Active Duty time...

Let me see, 360° view, radar approximation of approaching vehicles, terrain features of on coming vector, vitals monitor with Vo2Max, GPS locations, offensive armaments disabled, and of course Led Zeplin. Now thats a bike helmet for sure...

A valid observation -- on the other hand, the study period was only 1 hour, and was static, seated at a computer and very much not engaging in physical activity.

This study -- like virtually all of them -- suggests that further studies ought to be carried out. If anyone locates such, potentially with test conditions that are closer to cycling, please share.

With respect, can we keep this thread on topic? I am aware that many cyclists religiously believe that their helmet saved their life. Many people also believe a bearded man in the sky looks after them, but only if they remind him everyday with prayers, because apparently he has ADHD or something. Let's leave personal religious beliefs somewhere else.

Photos of a broken helmet prove nothing. I could crash wearing a baseball hat, and post pictures of its ruined state. Would that convince you that it saved my life?

Why does this "mitigation" stubbornly refuse to appear in any of the world's cycling fatality statistics? At some point, one has to consider the possibility that you've been misled about their effectiveness. After that point, one might want to consider why they don't work, and this is one potential partial explanation.

Would cognitive performance be affected by the helmet blocking their view of the ball? Or view of other players?

I said this many years ago in a previous incarnation of the main helmet thread; but it bears repeating:

If anyone here is, or has a friend who is, a professor who teaches logic, recommend Bike Forum helmet threads for rich sources of study material.

The lack of logic or twisted logic are often quite stunning.

well i think that helmet research was spouted by the same crazies that vetoed the "Softride" and oversaw the death of the Sedgeway and of late have claimed Ebike batteries can disrupt certain band waves but what do I no

With no context, it is difficult to know exactly what you are referring to, but the referenced study's method utilized human seated at a computer, completing various tests of cognition and reaction. There was another study, 14 years earlier, that dealt with cricketers.

Yeah, I am continually amazed at the logical fallacies employed to suggest that helmets work. "Look, my helmet is destroyed, therefore it must have saved my life." "I once crashed, and was only knocked out for a little while, obviously my helmet saved my life." In both cases, one could tell the same anecdotes with reference to a baseball hat, or a cycling cap, or even a particular haircut.

Cycling helmets are almost exactly like religion. Some people desperately need to believe that something located over their head is watching over them, and will protect them from the evil that abounds. No evidence can be found to support that belief, and it can't really even be logically defended as a hypothesis, but neither will matter to them until it is too late.

Here is a link to the PDF, since the formatting of the OP was such a mess.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/article...BCN-12-759.pdf

Not to be too dismissive, but the journal is a minor one at best, and the authors of the study are based in Iran.

A "study" of only 20 subjects, for any length of time, is statistically insignificant.

Helmet Cognitive Function thread merged with Helmet Thread 2 thread.

Sorry for going off topic. It is in fact a multifaceted subject. I am confused as to what the real topic is other than to gather information on helmet use.

If the topic is "What Are Your Helmet Wearing Habits?", then, before 2007, on my bicycle never, and after 2007, always...

He was suggesting a helmet reduces the possibility.

No need to apologize you aren't off topic when his diatribe was about wearing super heavy helmets (not bicycle helmets) while using a computer. Something people aren't doing. It is like a thread on condom use while just making breakfast (as in non-sexual context) completely irrelevant and doesn't prove much one way or the other as he intended.

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.