Does this make helmets worth considering?

[Bicycle]

Glad Mrs B is OK Bicycle. Did she go to hospital and get checked for head injury ?

Thanks for the good wishes.

Hospital, yes; tendon damage to foot, which is a bummer. All the immobility and repair time of a break without the glamour and the cast.

Check for head injury , no. Despite the big wallop mark on the helmet, she had no lasting head pain and no vision impairment at all.

 

[Bicycle]

Driving a car has given me plenty of experiences which I can transfer to my bike riding, slippery drain covers,pull away in a car and feel a wheel spin, same goes for white lines, newly resurfaced roads, the loose gravel causes even a car to slide around, pedestrians crossing without looking, loose animals, the list is endless,every experience which I have had whilst driving will stand me in good stead when cycling,to use one set of knowledge for cycling and another set for driving is extremely foolish, combine all your knowledge and you are a far better cyclist and driver.

I'm with you on that, but I understand why others aren't.

I've driven or ridden bicycles, motorcycles, cars, 4x4s, tractors and lorries - all of them on and off road...

All experience seems to add to a general pool of knowledge (or ignorance in my case).

The good news is that Mrs Bicycle is raring to get back on a bike - although I fear the foot will need quite a while to sort itself.

 

[Mad at urage]

Thanks for the good wishes.

Hospital, yes; tendon damage to foot, which is a bummer. All the immobility and repair time of a break without the glamour and the cast.

Check for head injury , no. Despite the big wallop mark on the helmet, she had no lasting head pain and no vision impairment at all.

I'll repeat what I said on t'other thread then:

Our heads were designed to bang against things, the skull protecting the brain, with sacrificial tissue (hair and skin) covering the skull. Hair slides, skin heals, cuts and contusions indicate potential for internal injury before the brain actually suffers irreversible damage. Putting extra padding outside the system prevents the appearance of the superficial damage (do that if you wish) but doesn't prevent brain damage and (by preventing the superficial injuries which indicate potential damage may cause actual brain trauma to be ignored*.

This has been seen in boxing (and other MMA) where head guards were introduced (primarilly at doctor's behest) to reduce injury: It's obvious that they do this, so they must be A Good Thing. Actually all they do is prevent nasty-looking cuts and bleeding, encouraging people to continue training/fighting after a heavy blow to the head and so increase the chance of brain damage.

*What proportion of people go to hospital to be checked for head injury after "seeing how the helmet was crushed"?

If Mrs B's head was bleeding, would she have been checked for head injury? Helmets prevent the superficial injuries, not the potential underlying internal ones (which come from the head being shaken).

Seriously, this isn't a dig: Helmets can make us blase about the possibility of underlying damage. Please don't be!

 

[Bicycle]

I forgot to mention she has fairly extensive medical training. Oops!

She went to the hospital suspecting no break in foot, but wanting confirmation from x-ray.

As it happens there was bleeding from joints and extremities, but as the hospital visit was 24 hours after the crash they weren't mentioned.

Likewise the head, although no bleeding.

But I get the point. I'm sure that does happen.

No offence taken at all. You make a fair point without sounding like an Anointed Warrior of the One Great Truth. Many lack that skill.

 

[Bicycle]

This thread comes full circle....

Mrs Bicycle went out on her bike for the first time since her crash today.

The tendons in her foot had been knackered, so it was a long gap after the accident...

Just a gentle lunchtime ride, but it was the first step.

Just as I have in the aftermath of a big off, she had pain in her thumbs when trying to change gear.

She refused to wear the helmet she wore on the day, as it now has a sizeable dent in one side.

She wore another one instead.

In reply to my own OP, I find that the accident has done little to resolve my slightly ambivalent view of helmets.

Having said that, if my car didn't bing at me all the time, I'd probably frequently drive without a seatbelt on. Much easier to reach the mobile out of the door pocket that way, without risking a painful coffee spill.

 

[rowan 46]

glad she's better. and apologies. I meant to send best wishes, thought I had but on reading today I realise thought and deed were not the same.

 

[david k]

glad she is on the mend mate, she will get there if she takes it at her own pace

 

[PK99]

and doubles its area as an impact target i.e. doubles the chance of it hitting something.

errm are you sure about that?

my head is rapidly approaching the side of a van that has pulled out on me: wearing a helmet doubles my chance of hitting it?

Maybe if someone fires a ball bearing at me then the target size is doubled but not in the scenario of most cycle accidnets

 

[Smokin Joe]

my head is rapidly approaching the side of a van that has pulled out on me: wearing a helmet doubles my chance of hitting it?

Red Light is referring to a fall from the bike (the type of impact which is what helmets are designed for), not a collision with a vehicle (the type of impact which helmets are not designed for).

 

[ufkacbln]

Depends on your position?

That is why the use of rockets changed..... It used to be practice to fire rockets at a ship to get a rope aboard, a difficult and inexact task. THen some bright spark decided that land was a bigger target and if the rocket was fire from the ship 100% accuracy was guarranteed.


You hitting the van is easy, the van hitting you is more difficult.

 

[StuartG]

To simplify matters for us who already have enough brain damage:

If wearing a helmet makes you feel vulnerable and hence are likely to go down the hill slower than not wearing one - then you should wear a helmet.

If not wearing a helmet makes you feel vulnerable and hence likely to go down the hill slower than wearing one - then you should not wear a helmet.

So its up to your judgement on your/your partner's behaviour. The protection of a helmet can only mitigate a modest difference in impact speed.

 

[Bicycle]

A typical cycle helmet adds about 10% to the weight of the head and doubles its area as an impact target i.e. doubles the chance of it hitting something.

Having said in another thread that this statistic was one of yours, you have still to retract it.

I asked when you posted it where the 10% figure was taken from for a typical helmet. No answer was given.

I've asked again in another thread (the one about about parents whose children cycle) and still no answer.

Instead, you tell me I have a clear pro-helmet bias, despite many of my posts mentioning that I usually ride helmetless.

So, as a man who describes himself as anti-propaganda and anti-misinformation, are you going to admit that the 10% figure is hocum?

If I cared, I'd also ask you to withdraw your frankly bonkers accusation/assertion that you see in my posts a clear pro-helmet bias.

Answers on a postcard please

 

[Red Light]

Having said in another thread that this statistic was one of yours, you have still to retract it.

I asked when you posted it where the 10% figure was taken from for a typical helmet. No answer was given.

I've asked again in another thread (the one about about parents whose children cycle) and still no answer.

Instead, you tell me I have a clear pro-helmet bias, despite many of my posts mentioning that I usually ride helmetless.

So, as a man who describes himself as anti-propaganda and anti-misinformation, are you going to admit that the 10% figure is hocum?

If I cared, I'd also ask you to withdraw your frankly bonkers accusation/assertion that you see in my posts a clear pro-helmet bias.

Answers on a postcard please

Good grief! You seem to have a real fixation about this and are yet again dragging stuff between threads.

I suggest you go and look up the word "about" as in "about 10%" for starters and then I suggest you go and look at some helmet weights.

The traditional "road" type helmets weigh ~300g or 7% e.g. Met Estro Road Helmet 290g

The increasingly popular skate style helmets weight ~ 450g or 10% e.g. Bell Fusion 426g

Full face helmets weight a lot more - ~ 500-1000g+ or 11-22% e.g. Met Parachute 575g; Giro Remedy 1050g

I think "about 10%" sums that up quite well. YMMV & HAND

 

[Red Light]

errm are you sure about that?

my head is rapidly approaching the side of a van that has pulled out on me: wearing a helmet doubles my chance of hitting it?

Maybe if someone fires a ball bearing at me then the target size is doubled but not in the scenario of most cycle accidnets

Yep. Just as if it was a bus that has pulled out on you, the chance of you hitting it is much greater than if it were a van because its much bigger.

 

[Bicycle]

Good grief! You seem to have a real fixation about this and are yet again dragging stuff between threads.

I suggest you go and look up the word "about" as in "about 10%" for starters and then I suggest you go and look at some helmet weights.

The traditional "road" type helmets weigh ~300g or 7% e.g. Met Estro Road Helmet 290g

The increasingly popular skate style helmets weight ~ 450g or 10% e.g. Bell Fusion 426g

Full face helmets weight a lot more - ~ 500-1000g+ or 11-22% e.g. Met Parachute 575g; Giro Remedy 1050g

I think "about 10%" sums that up quite well. YMMV & HAND

Ha ha ha! Of course I'm still going on about this. And you wrote "Good Grief", which is one of my favourite ever fuddy-duddy phrases.

I am familiar with the word 'about'. Also the word 'typical'.

None of the helmets you mention that weigh over 300 g is one I have ever seen being used on road. I do a lot of off-roading and have seldom seen one off-road either. A 'typical' helmet (your phrase) weighs under 300 g.

A Bentley may weigh nearly three tonnes, but a typical car weighs little over one and a quarter. When you're making a point like the one you were making, 5% is not 'about 10%'. The word 'typical' was yours.

While riding around 3500 miles a year and driving several times that, I see perhaps four helmets that are not of the lightweight (sub-300 g) road type. If you ask four hundred cyclists to describe a typical helmet worn by a cyclist on the road, they will describe just that. but for you, the description 'typical helmet' includes super-heaver full-facers that we rarely see. Top marks for geekery and Web searches, but none for the credibility of your anti-helmet argument.

If you really are anti-misinformation and anti-propaganda (as you say you are) you would keep well away from wobbly stats and, while on that subject...

What about your bizarre assertion that I'm clearly pro-helmet?