Helmets

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cyclintom

Active Member
I used to race motorcycles. This of course required using helmets which had been recently developed by Bell. I finally grew tired of it because small men have a definite advantage over larger men because you can get out of the way of the ground when cornering. With the tires used today you can see people dragging a knee but in my day that was rare because of insufficient traction. With the lean angle limited by the tires of those days a small man could get his knees out of the way while I had my knee on the ground in nearly every unbanked turn. This reduced the speed I could corner at and so Davey Scott the Yamaha rider would always be in first place, there would be the usual nut case that didn't know he was taking his life in his hands who would normally finish second since I actually knew that you could get hurt and I would normally finish third on my factory Kawasaki unless Crazy would fall off, which was about half the time.

I don't have a lot of memory of those times because of the concussion, but I was just informed last weekend that I also race Ducati in the 500 cc class.

What I do remember is that when I stopped racing I was asked to be the safety director of the American Federation of Motorcyclists. Since I had responsibility I needed to know what I was doing and I went down to Bell laboratories and went over all of their design data for helmets. In motorcycle racing helmets work really in one manner - almost all crashes are "slide outs" and the hard shell of the motorcycle helmet keeps you from grinding your face off on the pavement.

After I changed over to bicycles, and knowing that most of that design crap from Bell was just so much BS, I did a study with the available data. It is available at Mod note: link deleted because it's not from a reputable source
This used the data from before helmets were available until after they were in reasonably large use. I compared this data to the numbers of pedestrian deaths. If you look at the study you can see that there is no change in fatalities compared to pedestrian deaths before and after helmets. While this data is old I recently checked the new data and it is pretty much identical. In other words, the foam plastic helmets have no effect on life and death situation.

This should come as no surprise since almost ALL bicycle fatalities have the same general pattern, a man on a bike is hit by a car at speed. This breaks the body of the rider into many pieces and whether or not the helmet provided any protection is irrelevant.

But the fact is that 99% of bicycle accidents do not involve a motor vehicle although almost 100% of the fatal accidents do. Most bicycle accidents are "fall offs" that do not involved any other vehicle at all or at most interference from another bicycle. Since they are both traveling the same speed there is little worry unless you're dealing with a professional race sprint.

The design standards of a bicycle helmet were originally developed when it was believed that the reason people died from head blows was because of broken skulls. In fact nothing of the sort happens. It is possible that cracking a skull might lessen the effects of a concussion and reduce your chances of injury though I wouldn't like to test that hypothesis.

In any case, I have always suggest that cyclists wear helmets not because I had any belief that they would protect your head but because they would keep you from injuring your face etc. from these slow speed falls.

The extreme danger of a concussion was made quite clear to me when one of the first generation carbon fiber forks from IRD broke apart under me and dropped me on my head. It was an entire list of occurrences that caused this. The fork was supposed to be glued onto the aluminum fork head and held in place with a large rivet while the epoxy was drying. One side did not have the epoxy on it. Then, when it started falling off it made noise which I took to be the speedo pickup touching so I bent over to adjust this just as the other leg without the assistance of the failed leg literally exploded and instantly dropped me on my face with no time to mediate my fall. Had I been sitting normally it probably would have been gravel rash and nothing more.

If you EVER need a neurologist to help you with a concussion, GO TO A HOSPITAL that treats football players. Concussion is common in football players and they are used to treating it. Elsewhere neurologists seldom see concussions and forget the proper things to do since their clientele is normally people with Alzheimer's and the like.

So concussion is the slamming of your head so hard against something that your brain flies in the direction of impact, tears the attaching media off of the other side of your skull and allows the brain to strike so hard against the side of impact that it can destroy entire areas of the brain. In my case it caused a condition similar to diabetes that caused me to have severe seizures. This caused me to have four car wrecks since I had no memory of the seizures after they occurred so I figured I just hadn't been attentive. Luckily there were no injuries, just property damage.

Lately Trek through their subsidiary, Bontrager, began actually thinking about this and designed a media unlike foam plastic. It is a 3D printed material they call Q-cell and it is designed to have a FAR slower deceleration in case of a head blows. This is available in both a standard helmet or a MIPS but they told me that MIPS doesn't appear to do anything extra.

While it is far too new to have any statistics to show its efficacy, it is something that is at least attempting to address the problem of concussion from a real scientific approach. I obtained one of them for myself. It took a little while to get used to the slightly different shape, they have fallen a large deal in price so I would now recommend the Trek or Bontrager Q-cell helmets.

From a personal point of view. I have to spend the rest of my life taking anti-seizure medication that isn't exactly the greatest thing in the world with its side effects. On the plus side - I can act pretty much normally other than having no sense of balance at all (if I were to be standing and look straight up I could fall over) I walk normally by always keeping a visual horizon. Good thing that bikes balance themselves. I can't take my hands off of the bars because I have no feel of which way to move to maintain a balance.

So there is a fairly good reason that I can not recommend helmets that CAN possibly make a difference in the occasional nonvehicular life or death situation.
 
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simongt

Guru
Location
Norwich
At the risk of starting an argument, I disagree with the view that wearing a bash hat on a bike makes no difference. My wife has trashed two bash hats overe the years by being tipped off her bike; once no vehicle involved, once a car clipped her from the side at a junction ( wife's priority ). Recently, she came off when she didn't have her bash hat on and suffered concussion and has no memory of subsequent proceedings for about a ten minute period afterwards. About three years ago, I was hit from behind by a car and having had no warning, wasn't able to take any action to control my fall of the bike. I was going at about twelve mph at the time, obviously was accelerated by the impact and was knocked unconcious as a result of the fall. I had a bash hat on, but even now, I have absolutely no recollection of the fall off my bike, only the initial impact and waking up lying in the road surrounded by police, paramedics and other drivers about twenty minutes later. From my angle, I'd rather not speculate what the head injury might have been if I wasn't wearing a bash hat.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
OP works for Trek ? Helmets are only really thare for a bit of scuff protection and to reduce concussion. Personally I wear one as I'd rather not have gravel rash on the thin skin on my noggin. It depends opon what cycling you are doing. I never wear one pottering about with family, but if I'm out on the MTB bombing down hills, then yes. Worst MTB accident was actually on the flat, but I actually banged up my shoulder and cracked my helmet. Most other accidents/crashes haven't involved my head/helmet, so read into that if you want. I full body air bag might be better. :wacko:

The cheap helmets from Planet X are as good as the expensive ones I've bought in the past.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
At the risk of starting an argument, I disagree with the view that wearing a bash hat on a bike makes no difference.
As a kid I came off a raleigh Chopper at over 30MPH withot a lid and aside from some very minor grazing. Therefore, my own direct observational experience is the polar opposite of yours. That absence or presence of a cycle helmet is completely coincidental when considering any level or injury beyond very minor scrapes.

Can you explain why in every single country, state or territory that made helmet wearing compulsory there has been no corresponding fall in death or serious injury rates? Surely if they work as you suggest this would not be the case.

Cycle helmets are designed to withstand anything from about 50 to 97 joules of energy, depending on the testing regime they were designed to pass. A head hitting the ground after falling from a bicycle experiences, depending ont he hardness of the surface, a deceleration of up to 150G and possess upwards of 2500 joules of kinetic energy.

The maths don't add up when supporting any claim of injury reduction.

As mentioned above, they may protect from scrapes and grazes, but the evidence they reduce the severity a of any level of injury beyond that is simply non existant.

But the final thought is one that always gets me scratching my head. Per journey mile, cycling is less likely to kill you than walking. Do you wear a helmet for walking? You are also more likely to die of a head injury while travelling in a car. Do you wear a helmet while driving? Placed in context with such daily activities, and when consodering head injuries, cycling is an inherently low risk passtime - if youre so worried about head injuries and truly believe that a cycle helmet can help you, then why are you not wearing helmets during daily activities with a higher risk of death from head injuries, such as driving? Your actions are completely contradictory to your stated belief.
 
I started wearing a helmet because I worked in a school part time - I thought it was irresponsible to be leaving on my bike through a playground full of kids (obviously I walked and pushed my bike) with no helmet - when the kids were being told that they should wear a helmet.
Also it made my wife happier

In the end I was glad I did - about 2 years ago I was riding along a tarmac path and got distracted as I went round a 90 degree sharp corner - just as my front wheel hit a section of wet leaves on top of thin mud - wheel went sideways at speed and I hit the ground at speed - broke my left arm and bashed up my other ram and back a bit

While I was going mad due to not being able to ride my bike for 6 weeks (I tried it but it doesn;t work with a cast!) I started fiddling with my helmet and discovered a big dent in the side - although all I remember was a gentle tap on the ground
Now - it is possible that the dent had been there for ages - cuased by $deity know what - and it is possible that it made no difference

but I choose to consider that the helmet saved my head from hitting the tarmac directly and the dent would have been bad for my head - it is also worrying that I had no memory of my head hitting the ground hard - but maybe it didn't???? I have since had a brain scan for other reasons and it showed nothing.

Pretty convincing to me - because it was me so I can choose what I want to think. Objectively - it shows nothing because of the things I have pointed out

This seems to be the case with most helmet debates - people state specific accidents where the helmet may have helped - but the stats do not really show that

What CAN be said is that a helmet will save you from injury - possibly serious injury - in some circumstance. Possibly slow speed accidents are more likely to result in head impact - I have seen some studies that show this - because the direction of impact is at an angle to the road so it bounces - rather than slow speed where the impact is more likely to be vertical

In the case of stats - the point that walking and driving are more likely to produce accidents where a helmet would help is a good one - and I have seen statements from professionals that verify this. But putting forward a law to make all car drivers wear a helmet would be a bit more difficult to sell to the public than making helmet compulsory for cyclists - but it would make more sense
 

Milzy

Guru
As a kid I came off a raleigh Chopper at over 30MPH withot a lid and aside from some very minor grazing. Therefore, my own direct observational experience is the polar opposite of yours. That absence or presence of a cycle helmet is completely coincidental when considering any level or injury beyond very minor scrapes.

Can you explain why in every single country, state or territory that made helmet wearing compulsory there has been no corresponding fall in death or serious injury rates? Surely if they work as you suggest this would not be the case.

Cycle helmets are designed to withstand anything from about 50 to 97 joules of energy, depending on the testing regime they were designed to pass. A head hitting the ground after falling from a bicycle experiences, depending ont he hardness of the surface, a deceleration of up to 150G and possess upwards of 2500 joules of kinetic energy.

The maths don't add up when supporting any claim of injury reduction.

As mentioned above, they may protect from scrapes and grazes, but the evidence they reduce the severity a of any level of injury beyond that is simply non existant.

But the final thought is one that always gets me scratching my head. Per journey mile, cycling is less likely to kill you than walking. Do you wear a helmet for walking? You are also more likely to die of a head injury while travelling in a car. Do you wear a helmet while driving? Placed in context with such daily activities, and when consodering head injuries, cycling is an inherently low risk passtime - if youre so worried about head injuries and truly believe that a cycle helmet can help you, then why are you not wearing helmets during daily activities with a higher risk of death from head injuries, such as driving? Your actions are completely contradictory to your stated belief.
Yes but That French guy Laurent Patrick Fignon with the weird hair and glasses lost the TDF for NOT wearing a helmet.
 
I started wearing a helmet after seeing slow motion of a TDF rider coming off on a bend. He wasn't going particularly fast and his front wheel just slid out. He went down onto his shoulder and his head kept going until it hit the road. He got up and got back on the bike. I doubt very much he would have if he hadn't been wearing a helmet.
It's a personal choice and I wouldn't want it made compulsory.
 

Mo1959

Legendary Member
I’m also with the “It should be your own choice” option. We all have experiences of crashes where they either have or haven’t made a difference. I know in my bad crash when I smashed my collar bone, the helmet was bashed and scraped but wasn’t even aware of my head hitting the road, so I will continue wearing one.
 

12boy

Guru
Location
Casper WY USA
The kind of head injury I am concerned most about is not visible damage to my head but rather a closed head injury type where the brain bounces around inside the skull. I once had a relatively minor accident where I was going about 15 mph and fell off my bike landing on my shoulder and head. Not a mark on my face or head, but I was severely concussed. I was out at 5 am on a business trip to get a few miles in before the long and boring day of talking heads going on about things of which they knew nothing, and after the accident I could no longer remember the name of my hotel, although i managed to get there. Whatever was discussed that day is a blank to me. Did the helmet help? It certainly protected my head and face from road rash, cuts etc, and I'll never know if the concussion would have worse without it.
Now I wear one because I find it cooler in summer and with a beanie or two, warmer in winter. Probably more importantly my wife worries less if I wear one. After being involved in disability claims for 35 years I developed a real dread of brain injuries because there doesn't seem to be any way to repair the permanent damage which can be very severe.
 
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