Why wouldn't you wear a helmet

[Julia9054]

Had just had a day out on a friend's MTB in the Lake District. Looked even dodgier with my shades over the top!

 

[Fab Foodie]

You are referring to your head.

.... Actually, no....

 

[ufkacbln]

What sort of cake?

Obvious answer.....

 

[Drago]

Is his name MacArthur Park?

 

[ufkacbln]

As a recumbent rider, I sometimes wear a helmet and sometimes don't. But I am absolutely fanatical about wearing elbow pads. If I drop my bike at any speed, those are the first things to hit the ground. Elbows hurt like hell and take a long time to heal if damaged. (Will there now have to be a locked Elbow Pad Thread? :-). When I do wear a helmet it is because of the following odd collection of reasons:

• Conspicuity - mine's white. (Yeah I know, no use in a snowstorm.)

• Somewhere convenient to mount an extra light - and no it doesn't create an extra injury hazard because 'knock-off mounting', a thing borrowed from my aeromodelling days using breakable rubber bands so that wings would fall off plane in the event of a severe prang instead of getting all smashed up. Not rocket science, aeroplane science.

• In winter I like a hat to keep my head warm, but most caps are too hot. Ventilated plastic hat = just right.

• In summer I like a hat to keep the sun off my pate and out of my eyes. Most cycling caps too hot. Ventilated plastic hat = just right. Just me.

I particularly like not wearing a helmet on cycle path trails on busy bank holiday weekends when everybody else is sweating in one for no apparent reason as we are all doing ZZZ miles an hour. Including unfortunate kids with necks like tulip-stems in heavy full-face BMX helmets because Mommy & Daddy Seh.

People are strange. Me included.

I keep a samurai helmet with gold 'deer horns' for special occasions. It has a face-mask with fierce grimace and huge fake moustaches. Makes small children cry and car drivers pull over, mail their keys to the nearest police station, shave their heads and take up a life of solitary meditation and good works.

... ar just ride a recumbent trike?

 

[ufkacbln]

A Buff

Cycling in the Buff....

 

[Red17]

Its all about what people are comfortable with. My other hobby is racing motorcycles. From crashing my race bike (numerous times), some at the sort of speed you are talking about cycling I would not want to slide along the track in anything other than full leathers, body armour and a full face helmet. I also have no doubt in my mind that a cycle helmet can reduce injury in some circumstances (no actual evidence, just what my experience of sliding down the road tells me).

However on my daily commute across Croydon I chose to wear a woolly hat in the winter and go bare headed in the summer - its personal choice and its what I'm comfortable with. I do wear a helmet when I'm out on my mountain bike, or sometimes when out for a longer ride down the lanes at a weekend, but never when just pottering around locally.

Its all about personal choice - sometimes I'll wear a helmet - but I don't wear a helmet on the majority of my rides because I just don't want to

 

[Fab Foodie]

Its all about what people are comfortable with. My other hobby is racing motorcycles. From crashing my race bike (numerous times), some at the sort of speed you are talking about cycling I would not want to slide along the track in anything other than full leathers, body armour and a full face helmet. I also have no doubt in my mind that a cycle helmet can reduce injury in some circumstances (no actual evidence, just what my experience of sliding down the road tells me).

However on my daily commute across Croydon I chose to wear a woolly hat in the winter and go bare headed in the summer - its personal choice and its what I'm comfortable with. I do wear a helmet when I'm out on my mountain bike, or sometimes when out for a longer ride down the lanes at a weekend, but never when just pottering around locally.

Its all about personal choice - sometimes I'll wear a helmet - but I don't wear a helmet on the majority of my rides because I just don't want to

Cycling across Croydon I'd wear a bullet proof vest and a tin hat

 

[Dan B]

why would anyone who has seriously considered the evidence wear a helmet?

Does anyone who has seriously considered the evidence wear a helmet?

 

[Drago]

I do much of the time, but not through any expectation of preventing death or serious injury, and I've considered the evidence, or lack thereof.

 

[ufkacbln]

Cycling across Croydon I'd wear a bullet proof vest and a tin hat

There is also the bulletproof pram

 

[Red17]

Used to be a bloke who drove around the streets in a tank a few years ago - something to do with a protest against the council I think. Not seen him for quite a while though - probaly had his tracks pinched around here.

 

[RedRider]

Unlike a cap a helmet ruins quiffs. A cap positioned correctly enhances them. If I go out in the morning wearing a cap with wet hair underneath by the time I get to work the quiff's been blown dry into place.
So in answer to the OP: Quiffs
But also...

Because cycling isn't dangerous.

 

[bikeman66]

Light blue touch paper.............. Stand well back!

 

[Accy cyclist]

Those who mock the use of cycle helmets may i ask if you've ever been involved in a serious collision with a car? Six weeks ago i was travelling at just under 30mph when some clown cut across my path. I hit the side of his car after my carbon forks cracked and my head made first contact(according to a witness on the nearby pavement) then i went over the roof hitting the tarmac with my head(according to another witness in the car behind the car i collided with). My helmet took the force. The polystyrene on the left side is cracked and the plastic covering has dents from the tarmac in it. So you think that if your head hit a car at 30mph followed by it hitting tarmac after falling from the height of a car roof it would escape unscathed?
Funnily enough that night i actually thought about leaving my helmet at home and riding with a cap,but couldn't find my one and only cycling cap so the helmet stayed on. I don't think i'd be posting this message now if i'd have found that cap!