Wear your helmet...??

[26er]

............Rubbish! :roll:

Actually it ain't rubbish. It's experience. I ride all year long and clock in xs of 6000 miles, or 10000 km on a bad year. The guy who's cutting blind corners; goes on the wrong side of the bike lane; blows by you at rush hour way too close and way too fast and on the wrong side, is almost always wearing a helmet. You can see that he's not stupid, nor unexperienced. He's calculating risks to go as fast as possible not giving a shit about other's safety.

There's a lot of helmetless people doing mistakes too, but their mistakes are more caused by inexperience and/or sometimes stupidity, and very rarely by sheer disdain for other's safety.

 

[The Ken]

in your experience 26er how many people wear a helmet compared to those that don't? There are twats on both sides, might be the case that if the larger side is the helmet wearers there will be proportionally more twats in helmets, it is still a brash generalisation, your phrase "is almost always wearing a helmet" suggests you witness both, maybe you notice helmet wearers more often because you have preconceived ideas about them, your last sentence would suggest that.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

............Rubbish! :roll:

Actually it ain't rubbish. It's experience. I ride all year long and clock in xs of 6000 miles, or 10000 km on a bad year. The guy who's cutting blind corners; goes on the wrong side of the bike lane; blows by you at rush hour way too close and way too fast and on the wrong side, is almost always wearing a helmet. You can see that he's not stupid, nor unexperienced. He's calculating risks to go as fast as possible not giving a shit about other's safety.

There's a lot of helmetless people doing mistakes too, but their mistakes are more caused by inexperience and/or sometimes stupidity, and very rarely by sheer disdain for other's safety.

ACTUALLY I totally disagree with you...

Working in London as I do (one of the busiest capitol Cities in the World...) I am able to look at your claim objectively and say that the majority of cycle commuters do in fact wear helmets, and most of them ride along en mass, out pacing the 4+ wheeled traffic at even the most leisurely of paces.

This 'He's calculating risks to go as fast as possible not giving a shit about other's safety.' style of rider is in a very small minority, if he even exists at all?

The majority of riders don't want to arrive at their destination all sweaty and out of breath; they want to park their bike, take off their helmet, join their collegues in the lift and grab a coffee before they start - not have to head for the showers with lungs gasping and heart pounding, hoping they do have a change of clothes in their locker!

And quite honestly, I just don't see any examples of this kind of behaviour - the fast riders always pass on the right, they have to be more observant, they actually pause before they ride through a red light(!), and they're usually on top notch equipment they wouldn't want to trash in the first place; and I've never seen a 'bike-on-bike' RTA...

Even the cycle couriers are more considerate than this, so where you do your riding I don't know??

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

I seem to remember reading about Sid Watkins ( the F1 nurosurgeon ) talking about a sports intstitute doing research on this when they were trying do introduce more stringent regulations on motor sport in the early 80's and they found that people are predisposed to risk regardless of safety kit, Time and time again they found the same people taking risks and the same peolpe not taking them.
The conclusion was if you're going to be involved with risks then you may as well be as well protected as you can be.
Until I read this thread I had no idea you could be helmetist.

 

[jonnugget69]

Until I read this thread I had no idea you could be helmetist.

Until I read this thread I had no idea there were so many helmets!

 

[We_are_Stevo]

Until I read this thread I had no idea you could be helmetist.

Until I read this thread I had no idea there were so many helmets!

It would appear that those in favour have a degree more common sense, whilst those against tend to be more antagonistic in their justification??

Those for generally see it as a safety issue, whilst those against seem to see it as a slur against their god-like cycling skills which can only be hampered if forced to wear a helmet??

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't - after a few miles it doesn't feel any different either way...

 

[highlandsflyer]

Day to day I ride a traillee, and I wear a flip up helmet.

With the helmet up I will not ride more than around ten miles per hour, basically goes down as soon as I pull off.

I feel 'naked' wearing anything less than full face, and cannot ride without a helmet, even when it is legal over in the US. I have asked my brother to wear a helmet because it really spoils my time if he is without one.

I am one of those people who puts their safety belt on as they are pulling away, I get told off for it all the time, but I never forget to put it on though, I feel naked without it.

I have an old lorry without belts, and it feels very weird driving at speed with no belts.

I wear an armoured jacket and jeans, and proper boots when riding motorbikes, just a helmet when riding pushbikes as I don't do downhill as a rule, and go real slow on anything dodgy.

If I am out a blast on a sports bike you can guarantee I have every safety protection known to man. I would not dream of trying to ride quick without feeling I had all bases covered.

To me, it is clear that the protection you think you have makes a difference to how you ride.

Just consider when you ride a downhill section with no armour. Makes one hell of a difference.

I don't recognise the claims that all the aggressive riders are wearing helmets, in my experience a lot of the most aggressive cyclists are the know it all types who think they are invincible anyway!

Then again I haven't ridden with the pack in a big city in Britain for a long time. Back when I was a messenger, long time ago, very few of us wore helmets.

Not proud of that, but times change and if I were involved in the dispatch business nowadays I would insist on all riders using protection.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

On holiday in Corfu with my Ex we hired a big Suzuki trailie for the week - she was very disgruntled when I made her wear a lid and sunglasses when we were out and about;

'We look stupid! No-one else is wearing one!' :x

That all changed the day we were riding up to Sidari;

At one point I spotted the worlds biggest flying bug heading straight for us from what seemed like a hundred yards away! It hit my right shoulder and ricocheted into the front of her helmet dead center of her forehead, and didn't even splatter! Stung a bit though - and totally changed her point of view about how 'stupid' we looked...

 

[26er]

To y’all who disagree, please go ahead and picture this: you’re coming back home into town, winding down after a nice 3 – 5 hours ride in the countryside. All of a sudden you’re hit by a tidal rush hour wave of helmet wearing contre-la-montering leprechauns going at a speed of light the other way, out of town back to their goddamned suburbia. Showing no respect at all for anyone coming in their way. Racing each other in their imaginary ITT to god knows what purpose. These people ALL wear helmets. These people are ALL commuters. And almost all of them ride like a-holes. This is what I’m on about. Nothing else. Period. You feel me now?

 

[NAILTRAIL96]

If you wear a helmet too they might mistake you for one of them and be nice to you.
Or you could just be paraniod.