mr_bill

A substitute for going over the bars is NOT going over the bars.

I've found that I can wear a helmet *AND* do many other things at the same time. Including "worry." Funny that.

Disclaimer: I currently can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Docs recommended I don't chew gum and walk at the same time.

Docs also recommend that I use either a cane or trekking poles. I chose poles. They didn't recommend a walking helmet.

(BTW, trekking poles come with unsolicited "jokes" about ski poles. Even in talking-to-strangers adverse Manhattan.)

-mr. bill

njkayaker

If people think that helmet laws reduce interest in cycling, requiring people to do years of Aikido training would do that even more.

You have no idea how well this would work generally.

Cycling should be restricted to dojos.

joejack951

Nice straw man.

It certainly wouldn't hurt for a cyclist to have training in falling. Would be a lot more useful in my opinion than someone loosely strapping styrofoam to their head.

And another!

wphamilton

Did someone tell you that I was saying that helmet laws reduce interest? Or did you make that up out of desperation?

Did I say that people should all generally learn Aikido before getting on bikes? Did I even recommend that anyone do it? Or did you make that up also, for lack of a point?

wphamilton

It is absolutely helpful, more so than wearing a helmet in some respects. But he's just veering off on a wild tangent instead of answering a basic question: why he thought the width of a helmet would NOT make it more likely to bump your head in a fall.

My answer is I know it almost certainly because of many hundreds of falls in Aikido. You learn where your head is. I also know from bike crashes that going through the same motions, they are reasonably comparable. It is not unlikely, based on my knowledge and experience, for there to be less than three inches clearance when you don't bump your head. It has nothing to do with advocating any specific training for bicyclists.

I'll add also that in my youth long before any martial arts training, I spent countless hours off-road motorcycling, and my recollection of those inevitable spills is that the general motions - when you've learned to protect yourself - are similar. Nothing as effective and polished as being taught by a black belt, but comparable. Of course, you're trying to protect your head as a priority, rolls if you can. So that also makes me confident that I can relate my experience to bicycle crashes in general.

Readers can take it or leave it, but on the one hand you've got someone mocking the whole idea as "riding too close to something" and on the other hand, someone with at least some related background willing to discuss it.

mr_bill

Wearing a helmet makes it more likely that you'll bump your HELMET in a fall compared to not wearing a helmet in a fall. That's not a bug, that's a feature.

-mr. bill

wphamilton

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, when you bump your helmet, you bump your head inside the helmet. Your head experiences an impact. You aren't bringing up any new point in this discussion.

The valid point that the other person was making, is that the impact ("bump your head") is more likely given the extra width of the helmet. I stated at the outset that while it IS more likely, it remains to be proven how damaging those impacts are in practice vs the mitigation that the helmet provides.

mr_bill

Passive voice. YOU have yet to prove.

-mr. bill

79pmooney

I've been wearing helmets for sports, cycling and work most of my life. I still don't know where my helmet boundaries are but I know very, very well where my head stops. I have hit helmets hard on low overheads that I would clear every time with a bare head. I've hit my helmet on bike crashes that were primarily slides and lost skin where without the helmet I might have had a few hairs pulled out but there would have been no other contact.

I've also hit my head hard wearing helmets where getting by bareheaded wasn't an option. In one case, no helmet would have meant death or permanent vegetable; no maybe there. So I just take those with-helmet knocks I would have otherwise avoided as part of the game. (I cracked my sternum once in a car accident from the shoulder harness.)

Ben

79pmooney

I offer my experience. Lived through a major crash wearing a helmet. (See my post above.) Suffered several minor concussions in lessor crashes where no helmet might have mitigated them.

Those several concussions, even if all avoidable not wearing a helmet, pale in comparison to the big hit I took 40 years ago. (And those concussions may well have been due to what I call "loose brain syndrome" frm my big crash. Yes, I made that term up but any NFL lineman would get instantly what I am ralking about.)

So, mr bill, I offer myself as one example. Yes wphamilton has yet to prove, but I have. I'll spare him the burden.

Ben

wphamilton

Again, you're making no sense whatsoever because I haven't claimed that wearing a helmet is detrimental due to more impacts. *I* don't have any need to prove that. In fact, if you insist on MY opinion (and it appears that you do given this) I don't even care because the probabilities are so slight in either case.

Stop with the non sequiturs already.

mr_bill

greatscott

Better yet go to the bar you will feel better then going over the bar.

njkayaker

So, it's irrelevant.

njkayaker

No, it's an exaggeration to point out that "years of Aikido" training is irrelevant.

So what? That's obvious. But having a result of "it wouldn't hurt" is useless. It also doesn't seem that it's something that would ever be done generally.

But you really have no idea whether it would be "more useful" in fact. You making the same sorts of bad arguments that you are arguing against.

You have no idea what "straw man" means.

joejack951

Ah, yes, semantics, so that you can be right, because you're never wrong. Got it.

Questioning the validity of helmets is also something that is never done generally. But look at how many pages we cyclists can fill doing just that. Perhaps if mainstream thinking were biased more toward a proactive approach to avoiding head injuries in general things might improve. The passive approach is far easier, of course, disregarding how useful it may or may not be.

*In general* not hitting your head is preferable to hitting your helmeted head.

Just another exaggeration which you claim is not a straw man? Got it.

njkayaker

Aikido is almost always practiced on mats. That suggests that these techniques of "avoiding hitting your head" isn't sufficient. It makes no sense to guess that these techniques would work as well in a very different environment without mats.

Your confusion is yours.

Cyclists appear to already avoid hitting their heads very well. You have no idea whether this magical training would any real effect on the number of head hits that still occur.

"Perhaps". But it's not the current situation.
​​​​​​

wphamilton

I wasn't going to respond to your current remarks ... but here you're just expressing an opinion without knowledge of the subject.

1. We often practice on other surfaces, and in recent years I've done more on the grass than in a dojo. I've practiced falls and rolls in paved parking lots.

2. We don't "guess" that the techniques work in different environments. We have the knowledge and experience to know. You're guessing, and your guesses are incorrect.

greatscott

So you practice your falls and rolls using a bicycle simulating crashes on paved parking lots?

wphamilton

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you didn't misread "Aikido is almost always practiced on mats".

So your implication is that someone should be "simulating crashes" with a bicycle. If so, frankly that's a dumb idea. It's not necessary and there's no difference.

curbtender

But isn't that how you become a helmet expert here? You really don't know their worth until you bounce your head off of something.

mr_bill

greatscott

I'm sorry, but that's not what you said, you said that you did that, and it's in your post, 1. We often practice on other surfaces, and in recent years I've done more on the grass than in a dojo. I've practiced falls and rolls in paved parking lots. Is that not what you said?

By the way, I'm quite familiar with Aikido and it's a BS martial art form, now that should make you good and mad, but at least it's not the mysterious Chi blasts crap! and for fun chi blasting and other weird martial art crap: here is a list of BS martial arts: https://www.maxim.com/entertainment/...e-martial-arts

wphamilton

"Falls and rolls", not bike crashes.

Not at all, I could care less how effective Aikido is as a martial art. Protecting yourself from falls, which is all we're talking about, it is excellent. The same as judo in fact.

By "quite familiar", you mean that you've trained in an Aikido dojo with black belts?

greatscott

It was YOU relating how well you can fall, and on pavement, that YOU said you can do on bicycle, all I said is I would like to see you do that on your bicycle, or a junk bicycle, I don't care what you use.

I'm quiet familiar with Aikido, I won't go into anymore detail.