My first 'helmet' was a 1962 Kucharick (sp?). It consisted of leather tubes stuffed with Kapok and, from what I know now, was completely useless as a head-protection device. We didn't know any better at the time.

Joe

It was better than nothing.
I had one. Maybe I still do.

The only problem is that helmet standardsare actually quite low in terms of prtection and the vast majority of bicycling helmets are NOT designed to prevent concussions. i think that a helmet is better than a bare head but most people don't realize just how little prtection most helmets really offer.

Some might find this of interest.

Helmet standards and capabilities

Cheers

Joe, week at least it would float! Remember those horrible kapok filled life jackets, bulky, to forever to dry out, smelly...
Hadn't seen or thought of that word in decades.

This touches on flotation devices too, look how much better they are, but i guess this goes for most stuff over the last 20, 30 years.

My helmet cover holds better with the visor and it keeps water off my glasses better than without.

This picture was taken during the transition from "hair nets" to hard shell requirements for racing.

There was a lot of confusion about what an adequate helmet was. I just used my hockey helmet until the rules were firmed up.

The Bell "mushroom" helmets were just coming out. My wife wanted me to get one. I did not usually wear a helmet for training and recreational rides, but my wife wanted me to wear a helmet on this tour. She must have actually worried about me. I slapped some reflector tape on the old hockey helmet and told her I'd wear it. You can see where it spent most of the time. It was still lighter and more comfortable than the early Bell helmets.



I wear light comfortable helmets all the time now, and am reminded all too frequently by the emergency room doctors to "get a new helmet."

This one was replaced when we finished the tour. I've had 3 of this model of helmet in the last 8- 10 years.

I live in a mostly black neighborhood, 90% or more. The larger area is generally poor. The black adults and their kids generally have beat up dept. store bicycles and don't wear helmets. The white folks who ride through the neighborhood tend to have somewhat better bicycles and wear helmets. Mostly commuter cyclists. I'm just curious what the difference is about.

You know what it's about: money & all the rest of that crap! (racisim, opportunity, education, culture, etc)

I wear a $30 helmet, made by Bell and sold at Walmart. It is a good as any helmet at any price. Any helmet that can legally be sold in America is good enough to prevent a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) from the great majority of falls.

I know what I'm talking about ;o)

Joe

Doug64:
The essential part of a helmet is the foam and that lasts a very long time (20 years or more).

Joe

Not when the doctor who tells me to get a new one is pickings gravel out of my ear. In every case where I needed to replace a helmet, the foam was cracked or compromised.

I know kids have that habit of sticking peas up their noses, but your habit of sticking gravel in your ear is a perplexing one, you might want to reconsider doing this sort of thing.

(touch wood for both of us when jesting)

So who's interested in crowdfunding development of an aerodynamic, Teflon coated carbon fiber scrotum for the unlikely possibility that any of the "helmets are too heavy" crowd ever decides to grow a pair?

What happened to the reply I sent earlier this morning?

The prblem with an aerodynamic helmet or any helmet much longer than it is wide is that it can greatly increase the chances of sustaining a rotational head injury. A round helmet reduces that chance.

Cheers

Now that I think of it my dislike of helmet weight likely stems from wearing a composite helmet when I was in the army. That thing can get your neck really sore after a few weeks, but also does grow some nice neck support muscles.

Still don't like to wear a useless styrofoam pot that still has worse ventilation than no helmet at all.

People here like to rave about useless weight but no one questions a helmet. If touring was a dangerous form of cycling like DH or Freeride I'd get it but usually it's not. My touring is typically relatively slow with a ridiculously stable loaded bike. It's safer than my commuting, which also is extremely safe

Good luck staying out of the ICU.

My first nice bike was a Bridgestone I bought in 1986 and I was doing a turn on a country road and went down. Granted I was going very slow but my whole body slid down like butter and all the centrifugal force went to my head taking the full force of the blow. What a jarring hit I took. I have no doubt I would of suffered a horrible head injury if I hadn't had my helmet on.

Made a believer out of me. As a critical care nurse I know if the brain is injured it doesn't matter how healthy the rest of your body is so its smart to protect it. I never wreck on my road bike now and was smug about it til I was riding my Bridgestone again 2 yrs ago and the chain got caught in the front derailleur while I was standing on the pedals. This time I went sliding down the road protected again!!

So no matter how good your bike handling skills are you can have a mechanical. My fav helmets are my sworks(bought by accident) and my las. They both adjust by a dial in the back and are super comfy. I wear a wide lulu headband under as it seats better and is more comfy.

Has anyone tried those brims? Like to get one of those from adventure cyclist.

We believe in safety first at my house. As far as others not wearing helmets I strongly believe in children wearing them even in trailers and as far as adults 'thin the herd!'

Squeezebox your a nurse? Where do you work? I've worked icu in stL 86-15.

Took this last night of a friend of mine at a Nite Ride. I can't tell you how many decades old this Bell helmet is but "Fred" loves to flaunt it at times, Ha

"Image is everything"

rbow:

He needs to adjust that helmet. It is tilted too far back ;o)

Joe

Perhaps the mounts could have a break-away binding system. I haven't used a front helmet light but they seem to give a good safety advantage in some situations. On a cold rainy day I was envious of another rider's helmet that had cooling slots taped over with tent tape. Technically applying adhesive stuff can void warranty but actual contact area was minimal. Couldn't helmets have cooling slots that channel rain away & also block direct sun?

Camera mount, yes. Besides vanity, camera could be valuable evidence for car/bike accidents. On USA tv there's ads for a cheap car dash cam--in Russia supposedly dash cams are required equipment due to large amount of insurance fraud.

I now wear my helmet everywhere in large part since the SafeZone helmet-mount mirror obviates needing to rotate head to look behind. Actually I think the SafeZone mirror contributes more to safety than the helmet itself since it allows one to view both front & back near-simultaneously unlike other mirrors I've tried.

Ignoring the completely racist undertones to this question: millions of people in the Netherlands ride rickety bikes with no helmets. I can't wait to finally get my GoPro footage edited and compiled into a video, but one person I was following had their back wheel on so loose it was wobbling sided to side a few inches with every pedal stroke. When one gets around on a bike exclusively, helmets become more of an annoyance than when doing point to point riding. Plus, all the same thoughts ElCruxio is displaying about people thinking what they are doing is safe, so a helmet is pointless. When one is biking out of necessity, rather than pleasure, maintenance and prestige of chosen bike is as careless as comparing an average motorist to a vintage car enthusiast or weekend club racer.

I've had two "bad" crashes. Worst was mountain biking on a track I had no business being on (your first example), and the other was on my slow tourer in safe Europe biking back to the hotel after dinner (your second examples), that nearly ended the trip the night before it began and did end up cutting out some distance and sights we had planned on. Thing about crashing? You don't generally expect it to happen, or you'd take measures to counteract it in the first place. I've had the fortune of learning my helmet lessons on both bikes and motorcycles without any permanent damage, but it isn't hard to see how all those situations could have turned out completely different.

I'm not sure how much the necessity vs pleasure thing affects their helmet usage. I see that the Netherlands has a fairly high rate of seat-belt usage. Seems that biking w/o helmet (or even with one) would be more dangerous than driving w/o belts. True, they have lots of bike paths/lanes but in Amsterdam some of the bike lanes are a thin strip crowded between parked cars & passing traffic. Driver are used to bikes but folks make mistakes.

Dutch have their cycling tradition but I'd guess that in the future they'll start to use helmets. In the USA it took a long time to increase seat-belt usage, now we have high rates. In 2013, 184 Dutch cyclists were killed in traffic accidents. A low # considering km's ridden but still it makes one think. BTW I find it interesting that while tens of thousands of Americans die in auto accidents (presumably a large % of those due to head injuries) there's no movement to encourage helmet use by car drivers. Yet American parents make their little kids use helmets to ride 5 mph on sidewalks. Might as well require helmets on kids all the time since most of 'em can run just as fast.

Not that I particularly preach this myself, but it isn't hard for me to see how taking it on and off and carrying it around or stashing it as you go about your daily activities is a bit more tedious than clicking in and out of a seatbelt that never leaves your car. Did it on my motorcycle, and it just is not fun having the thing sitting on tables, on the bar top, in your hand as you're walking through a store, sitting out hoping it doesn't get stolen, popping the seat off to store it on the motorcycle helmet mount, etc.

The folks I talked to in the Netherlands also told me every few years a mandatory helmet law comes up for debate, and is almost immediately scrapped because of fears that large numbers of people will quit riding if they are forced to wear a helmet. The gov't sees far more health and infrastructure benefits from a public that largely cycles than saving a few dozen lives by mandating the helmet. Short of the elderly and group riders on go-fast bikes, people simply do not wear them there. Maybe someday it'll catch on, I doubt it. Seatbelt usage never really got high here until it was mandated and tickets started getting handed out (and some of haven't even learned our lesson even with a couple of those )

Race with a hairnet helmet in the 70's, I switch to the Kucharck because it was the best out there and only slow racers used a Bell. Had a Skid Lid in the 80's. Never had a Bell, they were Fred before Fred was Fred. Brancale was another popular hard shell in the 70's.

Used to see a woman on the bike path who wore a motorcycle helmet, perhaps she had a medical condition requiring extra protection.