probably been done before but....... helmets? yes or no?

[gerryattrick]

Two genuine cases and not anecdotes convinced me about helmets:

1. 20 years ago a work colleague died after massive head injuries from riding his road bike into the back of a parked up HGV at night.

2. My wife was in the intensive care ward for a while five months ago. In the next bed was a cyclist who had been hit by a car and fallen, badly damaging his skull. He had a large bandage covering the top of his head with NBF written on it ( a nurse told me it stands for "no bone flap", to allow for easy access to the brain).

Neither of these were wearing crash helmets. Would it have made any difference? I don't know, but it certainly wouldn't have made it any worse.

 

[Neil G]

Two genuine cases and not anecdotes convinced me about helmets:

1. 20 years ago a work colleague died after massive head injuries from riding his road bike into the back of a parked up HGV at night.

2. My wife was in the intensive care ward for a while five months ago. In the next bed was a cyclist who had been hit by a car and fallen, badly damaging his skull. He had a large bandage covering the top of his head with NBF written on it ( a nurse told me it stands for "no bone flap", to allow for easy access to the brain).

Neither of these were wearing crash helmets. Would it have made any difference? I don't know, but it certainly wouldn't have made it any worse.

F**king horrible.

Totally agree that it can lessen the damage to a degree

 

[Colinmac]

A mate of mine once had to be airlifted from a mountain in wales. We had been getting quite cocky with a relatively small trail that had a couple of smallish steps in-trail that we could jump over.

He messed it up, tumbled somehow, and his SPD's kept him clipped in, meaning he only had arms to slow his fall (onto a flat smoothish rocky trail)

Knocked out for a second or two, his eye socket was fractured with the impact, and his Giro helmet smashed into bits inside the plastic shell. Paramedic said without a shadow of a doubt that the impact to his head would have killed him outright.

Like me, he'd been riding off road for years, so it's not down to skill. Ite down to the way you fall. I saw his tumble and it didn't seem 'fast' and he even had time to try and get his hands down. But the way he fell made it somehow less useful. And it was about 5mph !

So off road, always do. Why would you not? I still nip ito the shops without one, but anything more, and i wear one.

I do a bit of downhilling, and have stupidly managed to smash the jaw section of a full face helmet. No harm done, but i did think afterwards that without the helmet, that would have been my face acting as a brake (improvement?)

 

[The Ken]

Chain came off during a small jump on the freeride park at glentress, I went down like a ton of bricks trying to pedal out of a landing, lucky fall miss the head but have now bought body armour as the 1.5 hout drive home was excrutiating.

Knee and elbow on one side was shreaded, had to ride one leg out all the way to the bottom carpark, one foot pedalling, got a helpful chap to put my bike on the roof (he had a nice cannondale fatty). Then had to drive back up to the freeride park and pick up my son and his mate, more help with bikes. Then drive the kids home in torrential rain. Spent half an hour in a bath of dettol using tweezers and cottonwool buds to pick the gravel out of my knee and elbow.

With body armour I probably would have spent the rest of the day at GT instead of leaving at 3.

 

[The Ken]

show me a helmet that'll fit my 63cm frankenhead, and ill buy it.

till that day, my head rides n*ked.

honestly, think of a person with a silly hat on. multiply by 7.5, and youre knowhere near how daft I look with a lid perched on top of my bonce.

''not as daft as with your head cracked open and brains dribbling out'' I hear you say...

My mate just bought a Specialized MAX for £30 and he has a head the size of John Merrick's , it's quite neat and well vented and doesn't look too silly on.

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/spe ... t-ec019803

 

[The Ken]

Enid from macRetro cracked his giro helmet in 2 on a recent macretro run in the pentlands on a fast but tame downhill. No helmet would have seen an airlift I reckon. Just takes one rock in the "wrong" place.

 

[barry2017]

But have you noticed that everyone's evidence for wearing helmets is anecdotal?

There are people that say "I wrecked my helmet, but look, I was OK". How do you know? What about the people that died in accidents but were wearing helmets? Could the helmet have made things worse? Again, how do you know?

 

[tintin40]

I notice that this is a bigger issue for people who wear hats than those of us who don't.

 

[The Ken]

a hat would give some protection, close fitting wooly hats can help against gravel/road rash - if you go one step futher a bobble hat with a really big bobble would offer some impact protection, if the direction travel to impact was correct.

 

[one-eyed_jim]

http://www.balladins.de/uploads/pics/zw ... lenhut.jpg