Remember this guy?
 

This is my 19 year old son taking a ride last spring:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...4/100_1867.jpg
(don't anybody get your panties in a bunch - he wears a helmet now)

Tonight...for the very first time he rode clipless! Pretty cool! I felt like I did when he was five years old learning to ride a two wheeler...running along side shouting encouragement "you'll find the pedal with that other cleat" and "Don't forget to unclip BEFORE you stop!"

He will need that helmet for when he tips over at a stop sign.

+1

I did that more than twice before I got it down.

(don't anybody get your panties in a bunch - he wears a helmet now)

It's funny, last Spring I used to wear a helmet and now I don't!

Helmets are overrated. I wear one, but I know that if I get run over by a car it's not going to do much to save me. I wear it simply because I know that there are instances where they help, and if I am unfortunate enough to have a crash of that nature, I'll be better off having it.

To wear or not to wear shouldn't get other people's panties in a bunch, provided the person making the decision is capable of taking responsibility for their own actions.

Hooray. Some sense on the helmet topic. You should join the A&S debate.

This is very true, I can see the logic behind car seatbelts, they keep the driver in place making it possible to regain control, causing less damage to others. Mandatory helmet laws, the only one it's protecting in any way shape or form is the rider, and even that is debatable.

Let me explain that last bit, nobody has ever tested the effectiveness of bicycle helmets, the only true way to do so, would be to crash in a dozen or so of the most common crash types, with and without a helmet and compare injuries. We can't of course do that, but we do know the amount of force that causes injuries of various types from decades of car crash testing, so strapping a helmet on a crash test dummy, and sending it forth, would accomplish the same thing. I don't think helmet makers want to do this, because they don't want it to be made public how ineffective helmets really are. Governments don't want to force the issue, because it's easier to make crashes the cyclist's fault, because if we saw how ineffective helmets are, they would need to find a way to make cycling safer, the old cliche "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is apt here.

I've over 200,000 miles of motorcycle experience and, though there is no helmet law in my state, you wouldn't catch me on a motorcycle without one. However motorcycle helmets offer real protection where bike helmets are laughable and do absolutely nothing to protect the most probable, most vulnerable and most damaging head injury site, the brain stem.

I know the logic goes "I know bike helmets offer little protection but just maybe I'll be in exactly that type of crash". If you follow that line to the logical conclusion, we would all look like Samurai warriors going down the road.

Im not a helmet Nazi but I disagree that they offer little protection. Yes they look flimsy, but I can tell by how hard I hit my head in a crash at 20+ mph that it saved me BIG TIME. Without it, I estimate best case scenario I would have been unconscious with fractures to my skull and eye socket and worst case scenario I die either from blunt force trauma or bleeding to death as I lay unconscious .

No, but if you join the zero miles per hour fall club 'cause it was your first time riding in clipless, it might. The first time I got on a bike and bolted my feet to the pedals, I'd been using toe clips for years, and found that getting out was very easy and natural, but going in was a big learning curve, and distracting at first.

So what did your kid think of the clipless pedals? And has he managed to stay out of the one bike crash club?

I'll have you know that I keep my panties pre-bunched for just such an occasion.


Actually I don't really mind if someone wants to ride without a lid. I'm not going to debate my stance on the issue but I will say congrats to your son for his first clipless ride :thumb:!

Bicycle helmets are tested for safety. Check out the Snell Memorial Foundation. http://www.smf.org/home.html

Thanks! My son did manage to keep from falling on several subsequent rides, but has admitted that at one stop light he unclipped his left foot and inadvertently leaned to the right with predictable results...though he got his right foot unclipped before going all the way over :)

Funny how quickly the helmet issue can hijack a thread. I kind of wished that I'd posted a picture of him wearing his iPod :D

i don't wear a helmet either but i did when i raced at schoolboy level and on one occasion someone fell beside me in a bunch and knocked me over and i smashed and completely crushed the helmet!! i dread to think of what would have happened if i didn't have it on and yet i still don't wear one now? doesn't make sense:) fair play to your son with the pedals. they do take a bit of getting used to:)

Er, yes, but there is no requirement that they should meet the Snell certified standards, and most don't. The standards that helmets are required to meet are pitifully low, so low that in my opinion most of them are likely to be of very little use in protecting against anything other than superficial injuries. There's lots of information - and not a little acrimony - about this subject in the advocacy and safety forum, so no special need to start an argument about it here, but here is an interesting article on the subject by someone who tests helmets professionally.