I just picked one up today.
The Specialized Air Force 3.
I figured why not, it makes my girlfriend happy and I need one to race anyways so f it.

Absolutely I do. I only have one head, so I might as well protect it. :) Cycle commuting in Shanghai has a lot of obstacles, so I think it's pretty smart to have the extra protection of a helmet.

Yes: Bell Sweep R

I wear one, for safety reasons mostly but its also the law in New Zealand. The great thing about helmets though is that I have my main light attached to it, (helmet mounted lights are far better than bar mounted, I have both), also it has one of my many rear lights attached as well.

The visor is handy in dealing with driving rain. Also my mirror is also mounted on the visor.

Drawbacks: I am king of the Freds with a crown like that

I think carrying all this has increased my collar size somewhat :lol:

well i bought one and makes me feel a bit safer and gives my head a cool breeze. i think people are not seeing that a wearing a helmet has helped. i havent heard of many cases helmets doing more damage. if it gives me atleast 1% protection well than its better than none.

I wear one whenever I ride my bike off of my street. It does not hinder or impair me at all, is not uncomfortable, and provides incremental safety. I wouldn't rail out against any adult not wearing one, but get a bit pissed when I see kids on the road w/o one.

Overall, I really don't have a reason NOT to wear one, so I do.

I'm in this boat

I wear one.

Not much to think about IMO.

At the very very least, it will keep you from getting road rash on your scalp which is good enough reason for me to wear one.

I wear one. Never really used to (before I started commuting), but a couple years ago my wife was diagnosed with a blood clotting disorder that requires her to take blood thinning medicine, which means she needs a helmet -- the medication makes any head injury potentially much more dangerous. If I was going to try to make sure she remembered to wear one (she NEVER used to), I figured I should, too, so she wouldn't be the only dork in a helmet if we were riding somewhere together.

By the time I started commuting I was already used to it.

I wear one as well. Don't care about the idiotic excuses people make for and against them. I think it helps me and that is all that matters. Wear or don't wear one, I do not care.

What I do know is that my last crash ended up with me ramming my head into the concrete. I ended up with a small concussion and a broken helmet. So, a helmet is needed for this klutz.

Having just fallen recently while not wearing a helmet, I will always wear one now.

Read on for what happened to me:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=437389

How long has it been, and how are you with riding in the spot where you had the accident? My fall was not *very* serious (worse thing was a minor concussion) but it's been about a month and I still find myself creeping around the corner where I slid and fell. I'm starting to wonder if I will ever get my confidence back :( In myself, in the bike, I don't know... I tell myself I've been around that corner plenty of time going much faster, but now, every time I'm there I find myself bracing for a fall. Sucks.

How old are you?

Let's see if I get this right.

A helmet in proper position should be visible when you look up. Not the visor, but the Styrofoam.

The helmet should be tight, it shouldn't easily move around. Don't give yourself a headache, but don't let your helmet twist either.

The strap should be comfortably tight. A little loose, but you shouldn't be able to pull the helmet far with the strap clasped.

when riding, where are you going to put your mirror w/out a helmet?

1979 hit with/out helmet, emergency room-stitches, dad bought Bell-Biker hard shell helmet
1979 - 1999 various helmets, minor events and helmets were consistantly constantly worn
1999/12 buick vs austria-damlier, Bell Image Pro helmet saved grey matter/life (?)

what does it hurt not to where?

i'm domed on Every ride!! i usually leave to mirror back when mtb though.

One of my employees has a traumatic brain injury from a seemingly (at the time) mild accident. It changed her entire life. She went from being a college professor to not even being able to read. Had to relearn the most basic things. She is now a file clerk and on some days even that is challenging. Had she not been an excellent saver and investor before her accident she'd now be living off SSI and other welfare programs paid for by every single one of us.

My coworker once had unprotected sex with a prostitute and got AIDS from it. Don't repeat his mistake! Come to Jesus! Jesus will save you.

WTF?!?

The BENEFIT you got from wearing the helmet that got cracked was that it was the helmet that cracke and not your skull!!!

Where does this fecal fallout come from?...

Look up "head trauma" or "traumatic brain injury". No matter how careful YOU are, the actions of someone else can cause a fall. Wacking your head on the pavement can easily be a life-altering event.

One detail that I did not think of is that if you are in an accident that stops your
bicycle suddenly, your legs get brushed up as you go over the handle bars. This
starts your body rotating and the most likely landing point is the point on the head.
When it happened to me on a downhill stretch at a high rate of speed, I went
flipping over the handlebars and landed at the top (technically at that point the
bottom) of my head. Both my helmet and my bike were toast. Both the top tube
and the down tube of the bike were bent down about 3 inches behind the steering,
at a significant angle that I'd never seen in a bike frame before. There was nothing
left of my helmet but the chin strap with a couple of small pieces of foam on each
end of it, dangling from my glasses (when I found them).

Landing on my head wasn't the end of my motion. I did take a serious beating with
thumps. I did make it to work on time thanks to someone who saw it happen and
offered me a ride. There was plenty of visible damage even after I cleaned off the
blood. A woman at work said "Good morning" and I answered "Good morning.....sort
of," and she had a good laugh at that. It took a few days before I finally got the
lenses in my glasses both pointing in the same direction again.

But I was really impressed that one part that wasn't at all sore was the top of my
head. The helmet was in pieces, but in a really nice way that saved impact to my
head. I don't know if that is a part of the design, but I am really thoroughly grateful
that I was wearing it on that ride, as I usually do.

I certainly don't mind anyone else not wearing theirs, but I'm going to be wearing
mine. I did post most of this in helmet thread before, but I think there is a bit of
value to it. I might not even have been wearing a helmet that day if I hadn't heard
so many people talk about the importance of doing that.

Hey. No irony. I flew over the handlebars on my Beach Cruiser once. (I was doing something incredibly stupid, which would invite much heckling here, so I shall not digress.) Somehow, during that seemingly slow motion experience, I was able to review the choices for which part of my head I wanted to offer to the ground. I chose my cheek (no breakage), and it still left me stunned.

...I've said before that I don't wear a helmet, but I'm thinking more and more that it is a good idea. I also heard this recently from a Dr. who was lecturing on PBS about reducing aging and living longer. His argument for the helmet was that it reduces your chances of senile dementia. Apparently, old "minor" head injuries can add up.

I was checking some out at the Costco today. Not sure if that's the best quality, but, dang! There were a lot of vents on those!

Good post that.

A helmet doesn't have to compres to protect you. In that accident I took a very heavy and direct hit to the head and then a lot of scrapes as I rolled. Even though my helmet didn't compress as such it spread the force of that impact out over a larger area, and even after the liner cracked, the shell kept it together and it still protected me from whatever else I hit. Had the impact have been direct onto my head, I don't really want to think what the consequences might have been. Don't assume I had no benefit from wearing a helmet just because it didn't crush. It takes a lot of energy to break a helmet, and the energy it took to break mine was energy that would otherwise have been directly on my head. I know that helmet saved me from some kind of injury. How bad an injury I'm not sure, but it definately saved me from something.

Incidentally after that I decided to only wear hard shell bmx/skate-type helmets, just because they're quite a bit heavier and are much more solid. When I put my helmet on it's very important to me that I feel like I'm wearing something that really will protect me if I need it to, and my TSG Evolution does make me feel very safe. I haven't done a ride without wearing a hard shell helmet or my full face helmet since then (probably 5 or 6 years ago), and I never will.

I wear a helmet 99.76% of the time. Once in a great while, I can'r resist the temptation to ride 3 blocks to the post office without one. I hope that .24% doesn't bite me in the ass someday.

Here's my pro helmet story:

Whenever I ride to work, mountain bike, or ride my road bike, I always wear one without any hesitation. A few years ago, I was mountain biking by myself.....and thats about all I remember until I drove to my friends apartment. I had been laying unconscious for an hour and a half or so (estimated by friends), somehow managed to get to my car, put bike on roof, drive 10 miles home. I had a concussion, broken helmet, and a broken scapula.


Everyone knows that's what gypsy tears are for :innocent:

Has anyone ever tried to destroy a helmet? I did once with a hammer, (the helmet had a small crack in it and was old so I wanted to bin it but didn't want someone to reuse out of the garbage), It took some amazing punishment from the hammer. So for those that have had helmets break after an impact you sure must had hit the ground with some force :twitchy:

I am still not that comfortable descending in rain on that bike but it is not too bad.
I have crashed so many times that at this point I just shrug it off (mostly). I rode past the spot I crashed a couple days later. The only lasting effect seems to be my decision to shorten my commute from 28 each way to 14-15. Hopefully, the shorter distance will keep me from making moronic decisions due to being tired. Especially considering that 99% of my accidents occur on long commutes. My recreational rides have very low accident rates. I think it is due to being very early in the morning (tired) and after work (tired).

the 1st and second page had a lot of posts about how Helmets aren't very effective, but I knew a guy who was hit by an Escalade and the back wheel ran over his head.

Helmet was on. Head was OK.

Try and tell me not having a helmet produces the same result.

Don't know if this will help but here's some information from SNELL's FAQ:

"What's the difference between a $100 Snell certified helmet and a $400 Snell certified Helmet."

-While helmets are primarily a protective device, the true protective capabilities of a helmet, if needed will only come into play for about 2 to 4 milliseconds during the lifetime of the helmet. This leaves a lot of time for that helmet to be doing nothing more than sitting around on a users head. Producing a product that meets the standards is not really very difficult. Producing a helmet that people will buy and wear, and will consistently meet the standards is significantly more difficult. The Snell standards do not measure factors like comfort, ventilation, brand recognition or style, and only indirectly look at fit, weight, materials and workmanship. These are factors that frequently drive helmet cost.

If you want to checkout more of their faq here's the link: SNELL