So, I finally broke down and bought a nice flat-bar road bike for commuting after years of looking at my worn out mountain bike. I have to say it was worth every penny! I rode 11 miles on the very first ride after basically not riding ever.

So I'm wondering if I should wear a helmet. I'll be riding mostly on bike lanes and slower streets. I always wear a helmet on my motorcycle, but there's a huge severity differential between ~12?mph and 80+mph (yes, my commute is posted 80mph ). I'm not worried about the monetary cost of a helmet, but it feels really good to have wind in my face and hair (long). I've heard that it basically doesn't matter safety-wise, but intuitively I'd imagine it does. It's likely to at *some* point go down. But if you do, will a flimsy bike helmet really be good enough? Should I strap on my full face motorcycle helmet, which kinda ruins the fun of cycling, or go without. Or are bike helmets actually good enough protection?

Internets, impart me wisdom!

You have to make that choice. A helmet will help in some instances, not in others. I feel perfectly comfortable with or without, so I let my mood dictate. Others will say otherwise. You make your own decision.

It's kind of like the reasoning behind a motorcycle helmet--in the reare event you do crash, and in the rarer event a head-strike is involved, a helmet may actually help with injury mitigation.

For the speeds involved, despite their flimsy appearance compared to a full-face moto-helmet, a bicycle helmet will probably help very much in cases where there would be minor injury, may help in cases of moderate injury, and do provide some protection even in cases of severe head injury.

But just like with a motorcycle helmet, there will always be freak accidents where they will be of little or no help at all. When I started bike commuting on a regular basis, I was coming from an All The Gear All The Time motorcycle background, and very naturally decided to wear a cycling helmet. In 15 years of wearing one, I'd say it may have helped me once avoid or mitigate some kind of head injury. Beyond that, I like the visor and as a good place to hang a flashing rear light.

It may not make sense but I do wear a helmet when out on hard rides but not consistently when I putter around going to lunch, an short errands, etc. Every other type of ride on road or mountain I wear a helmet.

I know, I know, those short rides may actually be less safe but, well, that's what I do.

I know from personal experience, both my own and seeing first-hand the effects of a head hitting the pavement that a helmet can be the only thing standing between us the rider and a crippling injury or death. Both cases me and another rider were wearing a helmet and a chunk was taken out of the helment yet I and the other guy walked away. If we weren't wearing a helment, well, for me, I wouldn't be typing this. It's as simple as that.

I havent looked in here for a while, but from what I see, I havent missed much. I see that the anti helmet usual suspects are still offering their illogical arguments against wearing a helmet.

My rule is simple.

If I want to come back from a ride with my head intact, I wear a helmet.

That actually makes a lot of sense to me. When I putter about playing Pokémon Go or Ingress, or run some errands, I see no reason to wear a helmet. Look at the marathon runners who cover 42+ km in less than 3 hours. I often ride slower than that (14 km/h).

Your rule is simple, and the "reasoning" behind it is too; as in "lacking in knowledge". The result is the rather cliché and flawed combination of an overestimation of the dangers of cycling coupled with an overestimation of the capabilities of bicycle helmets to mitigate said dangers.

Having had or seen my share of pretty nasty bike accidents over the 54 years that I've been riding, and having seen the difference in injury between those with and without helmets, I think I'll stick with my rule.

If you're crashing every time you ride, you're doing it wrong...

Must get expensive, with all those new helmets -- do you buy in bulk?

Central Maine doctor, hit by pickup while biking, dies of injuries

My mommy told me not to take cycling safety advise from people who had their fair share of "nasty cycling accidents" and or know enough people that had those to provide meaningful statistics. Apparently not the worst advice, since I only had one minor crash in 35 years of cycling.

After 4 weeks and one day, I can drive again! Not a long story here, but just to say that I'm glad I survived - 2 brain scans and a one day stay in ER - from a very bad wreck on the Greenway in Salem, Va. I have no memory of it or even why it happened. My brain was bleeding in the frontal lobe. The neurologist said the helmet saved my life. At 78, I should be more careful. Anyway, just wanted to say my guardian angel saved me. I'm not kidding. Even as I was unconscious from whatever knocked me out, an image flashed in my brain and told me, even with a picture, that there was a concrete buffer at the bottom of the hill, and that I should miss it go for the bushes. I must have, because that told me in ER I missed it narrowly. I had no idea that there was a concrete buffer there. I told my daughter to go and take pictures of where it was, and sure enough there is a concrete buffer there much to my surprise. I'm just glad my time was not up that day.

Read it again: "had or seen" -- mostly seen, but I think we can both agree that the guy who came up on the sidewalk to get me was more at fault than I was . . .

If you crash every time you go DOWN the hill, you don't have to ride UP the hill.

Any injury no matter how minor prevented by a helmet is a good thing.

"I know next to nothing. I am frequently wrong." You right about that.

If I had done all of my riding in a place where the terrain extremes are a whole, whopping 1,082 feet, I wouldn't have had or seen so many bike crashes, either. Around here, the mountain rides might be 4500 feet altitude difference between beginning and end.

Flat places give me claustrophobia -- I'm not comfortable when there is no proof that the world exists beyond walking distance.

Who said I did all my riding in the Netherlands? Also, I don't think there's much difference between a 100 meter hill and a 1000 meter mountain; unless you're one of those people who specializes in bicycle speed records, you're going to ride at or at least near maximum speed fairly quickly. Finally, bicycle safety also means taking into account one's own limitations. As in, if you aren't physically capable to ride at certain speeds, which usually manifests itself in repeated crashing, you should limit your speed. Pretending that crashing is an inevitable result of riding a bicycle on a mountain, makes you look a bit clueless in al things cycling safety.

And any injury caused by wearing a helmet is a bad thing. Correlation isn't causation, but the numbers aren't looking good for helmets.

Funny, I've managed to hit 47mph on a section of road that descends 200 feet. Never crashed on it either. How fast are you descending those mountains of yours?

Apparently too fast for his capabilities to handle. His helmet may be giving him "courage for his head" but not any bicycling handling skill or smarts.

We have parking lots around here that run more than 200 feet from high to low.

Try riding 45 - 50 MPH for 20 miles while descending several thousand feet. On a twisty two lane, complete with cars, semis and RVs, many of which are driven by tourists admiring the scenery rather than paying attention to their driving.

Or try riding the lift to the top of a mountain, then deciding whether to ride down a ski run they used in the Olympics, or roll past the Double Black Diamond sign for some more interesting scenery. If you're the rider with the Red Bag, don't bother choosing, just head down the DBD, you're more likely to get a customer down there somewhere.

Whatever you're doing, you can bet that one rider out of the couple of hundred taking the same routes on any good Saturday will have some kind of challenge on the way down. When I've been the Red Bag Guy, I have NEVER made it to the bottom with all of the stuff that was in the bag at the top, and more than once I've been the Ground Contact for CareFlight.

When you come try it, feel free to not wear a helmet -- that's 100% your decision to make. But you will notice that pretty much everyone who's done this more than once or twice is wearing a brain bucket.

So give us your numbers. How many injuries have a helmet prevented, and how many and what kind did they cause. Has wearing a helmet ever caused the death of a cyclist?

Does 7 miles and ~3000 feet of descent count? At those speeds on a twisty road, traffic tends to get in my way more than anything, especially semis and RVs.

Wait, so I should I wear a helmet because some people go out of their way to put themselves in dangerous situations likely to end up in serious injury? Who's the one not thinking here?