Do you wear a helmet?
05-31-19, 12:34 PM
#52
Member
Thread Starter
While we appreciate the links, it is also acceptable to summarize the articles or provide cliffs. In any event, I would have prefer sections such as this, which would tell me all I need to know about bike helmets.
Cost wasn’t a predictor of performance. While a more pricey lid may be lighter, better ventilated, more stylish, or come equipped with a more comfortable strap system, it won’t necessarily keep you from getting concussed better than a helmet that costs significantly less. Both the $200 Bontrager Ballista MIPS and the $75 Specialized Chamonix MIPS earned 5-star ratings. (See the full list of rated helmets.)
Cost wasn’t a predictor of performance. While a more pricey lid may be lighter, better ventilated, more stylish, or come equipped with a more comfortable strap system, it won’t necessarily keep you from getting concussed better than a helmet that costs significantly less. Both the $200 Bontrager Ballista MIPS and the $75 Specialized Chamonix MIPS earned 5-star ratings. (See the full list of rated helmets.)
hokiefyd, I'm sorry for RJ The Bike Guy's fall, but it was a very illustrative video.
I have worn a helmet for my last few rides and I've purchased the Chamonix listed above because of the MIBS technology, I didn't take a deep dive into all aspects of helmets, though. We will see if wearing one becomes a full time habit. It's a little bit hotter and I can't keep my cheaters on my head- no big deal. ::shrug::
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06-01-19, 04:57 AM
#53
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Always. It only takes once.
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06-04-19, 09:06 PM
#54
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100 percent of the time. bikes are so far up and my head is so important. couldn't watch the video. i cannot stand the idea of crashing a bike. how could you not get seriously injured.
didn't when i used sevici, redbike, and divvy. fell on my way home from the bar back when i was young and dumb. not wearing a helmet and straight over the handlebars. suppose i had youth protecting me at that point in life. ruined my sunglasses, which i was wearing at 4am for obvious reasons. makes no sense that i still have all my teeth.
use a hybrid for commuting, but i have a road bike at my parents' that i ride with my pops. if i wreck that thing, i hope i die quick. would be like swan diving into the asphalt.
as a little kid, bikes were life. took one fall head first into the curb. lost a chunk of my helmet. without it, i'd talk a lot slower today -- if at all.
my helmet is not uncomfortable, save a bit more sweat. safety ion colored specialized centro. with mips and cost me $65 (plus chicago's 10.25 percent sales tax). most important accessory. hangs by my door and always comes with me. like others have mentioned, even if i'm just riding 5 minutes to the post office or whatever.
didn't when i used sevici, redbike, and divvy. fell on my way home from the bar back when i was young and dumb. not wearing a helmet and straight over the handlebars. suppose i had youth protecting me at that point in life. ruined my sunglasses, which i was wearing at 4am for obvious reasons. makes no sense that i still have all my teeth.
use a hybrid for commuting, but i have a road bike at my parents' that i ride with my pops. if i wreck that thing, i hope i die quick. would be like swan diving into the asphalt.
as a little kid, bikes were life. took one fall head first into the curb. lost a chunk of my helmet. without it, i'd talk a lot slower today -- if at all.
my helmet is not uncomfortable, save a bit more sweat. safety ion colored specialized centro. with mips and cost me $65 (plus chicago's 10.25 percent sales tax). most important accessory. hangs by my door and always comes with me. like others have mentioned, even if i'm just riding 5 minutes to the post office or whatever.
Last edited by denada; 06-04-19 at 10:05 PM.
06-04-19, 09:35 PM
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After something like 8-10 concussions with 3 that resulted in short term memory loss (4-12hours ) and numerous sets of stitches in my noggin I always wear a helmet.
06-04-19, 10:19 PM
#56
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I view wearing helmet like having insurance. You don't want to be in a position where you wish you were covered...
06-04-19, 10:35 PM
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Do you wear a helmet?
96% of the time - no. When I'm riding a bike - yes.
96% of the time - no. When I'm riding a bike - yes.
06-17-19, 08:35 PM
#58
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My wife won't have me leave the house without . Helmets did save our lives long
ago when we had a motorcycle tire blowout.
Better safe than sorry
ago when we had a motorcycle tire blowout.
Better safe than sorry
06-17-19, 08:46 PM
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I wear a helmet, but I don't agree with forcing anyone to if they don't want.
06-24-19, 11:44 PM
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YES! ALWAYS!!! ....but once upon a time it was not the case....
Like most people of my generation that began riding road bikes in the 1960's, none of us did...... and I shudder to think that I once rode for about five miles with no hands on the wheel, riding as fast as my Varsity would go with my feet pedaling as fast the young athletic me could in the Summer of 1970.........I never ever crashed or hit the pavement in the sixties or seventies but two of my friends had serious crashes back then. One friend, Catherine crashed in 1967 and the handle bars ruptured her spleen and she had to have emergency surgery to remove her spleen. Another friend crashed coming down a steep hill because a lady in a Cadillac had pulled out of the driveway and he T-Boned the Cadillac and went across the car and into the grass sidewalk fortunately............he lost his two front teeth as they came out completely but this was 1972 so they had no method for re-inserting them at that time. The Raleigh Grand Prix was toast. He looked like a Hockey Player after that, though he did have a removeable bridge..... We just chalked it up as those things just happen.................. seat belts were the same thing. I remember that I did not wear seat belts regularly until 1984, even though I was wearing seat belts when Auto Crossing in 1979 and a motorcycle helmet while autocrossing.
Just stupid ignorance.....................sadly I can recall nearly all the friends that died in car crashes between 1966 and 1984 and none of them used seatbelts.....all but two of them likely would have survived the crashes.....................several died because they went through the windshield.......one was ejected and then the car rolled upside down and crushed him........one girl that went to College with me, survived going through the windshield.....remember the Beatles song that Ringo sang called Don't Pass Me By.........it was bad as she lost her left eye and her face and skull had more than sixty stitches and there were surgeries that she had to have to reconstruct part of her lower facial skull...............if the accident had not been close the Hospital, within 2 miles, she likely would have died.
Yes that was just how it was back, nearly fifty years ago. I only began wearing seatbelts everyday after a friend died in a low speed single car crash during a heavy downpour..............the car's driver side hit a tree at about 20 miles per hour............damage wasn't bad but William's neck was broken as his head slapped sideways into the driver's door pillar and window............. He left several kids aged 2 to 8 and his wife of ten years, he was just 33 years old...........
My neighbor is a trauma surgeon and he says that often just something simple like a bike helmet or goggles while working with power tools can save folks from a serious injury or loss of an eye.
I did not even own a bike helmet until 1986 when a friend gave me one. I only wore it on road bikes while traveling public roads at speeds averaging greater than 13mph, I did not wear it while riding in the local neighborhoods.
I didn't care for the helmet because I thought it looked goofy and wasn't comfortable.
Todays helmets are much more comfortable and better.
I did not wear a bike helmet religiously until about a few years ago. I wouldn't wear it unless I was gonna ride at speed on the road.
People kept saying you need to wear it because they had seen some disasters of folks that were without helmets.
One friend kept telling me to just keep buying helmets until I found a comfortable one that I liked. I took her advice.
I never go anywhere on a bicycle without wearing a helmet. It may help save your family from having to plan your funeral.
You can survive broken ribs, and or a fractured clavicle, or knee injuries, or broken arms, or broken hip or broken elbow BUT IF YOU CRACK UP YOUR SKULL LIKE A WATERMELON THAT SOMEONE HAS STRUCK WITH A BASEBALL BAT............... it is going to be hard for the trauma team to put Humpty Dumpty back together again....
.................................................It is your choice.
As you know if you do take a tumble at speed, your arms and body parts will be moving and you might roll/tumble dissipating some force of impact but the inertia is likely to have your head at least have a slight glancing blow or slight bounce or slight kiss of the concrete/asphalt as you are rolling and tumbling...............obviously depending on how much impact and where your skull slightly bangs the pavement could be lethal or just a minor concussion...............................EVEN THE WORST HELMET IN THE WORLD LIKELY WOULD DO BETTER THAN JUST YOUR HAIR AND SKULL ALONE.........
.......Everybody thinks it won't happen to them because it has never happened before in 50 years of riding.....................
Go to your refrigerator and grab an egg and imagine carrying a dozen eggs home from the store without breaking by simply carrying them in a grocery bag without their crate.....or see how that egg would survive in your pocket............it will get banged around and splat....there it is gone..................that is perhaps too graphic but you have to paint a picture to illustrate a possible outcome that can be entirely avoidable in most all cases.
Think about it, you're going at least 10 mph and even if you're only going 5 mph and you get impacted by a car or a tree limb that falls in front of you, or a squirrel that is crossing and you run over it and crash.........
Your friends and family will say Thank You for wearing your Helmet because you don't have any idea of how much that you currently enrich their lives..... They will really miss you when you are gone. Please stay well and stick around for a long time. Helmets do indeed prevent possible tragedies.
The only real downside is that they look goofy and give you helmet hair.............
Remember the image of a cracked watermelon......... looking goofy and having messed up hair doesn't seem bad after all!
Like most people of my generation that began riding road bikes in the 1960's, none of us did...... and I shudder to think that I once rode for about five miles with no hands on the wheel, riding as fast as my Varsity would go with my feet pedaling as fast the young athletic me could in the Summer of 1970.........I never ever crashed or hit the pavement in the sixties or seventies but two of my friends had serious crashes back then. One friend, Catherine crashed in 1967 and the handle bars ruptured her spleen and she had to have emergency surgery to remove her spleen. Another friend crashed coming down a steep hill because a lady in a Cadillac had pulled out of the driveway and he T-Boned the Cadillac and went across the car and into the grass sidewalk fortunately............he lost his two front teeth as they came out completely but this was 1972 so they had no method for re-inserting them at that time. The Raleigh Grand Prix was toast. He looked like a Hockey Player after that, though he did have a removeable bridge..... We just chalked it up as those things just happen.................. seat belts were the same thing. I remember that I did not wear seat belts regularly until 1984, even though I was wearing seat belts when Auto Crossing in 1979 and a motorcycle helmet while autocrossing.
Just stupid ignorance.....................sadly I can recall nearly all the friends that died in car crashes between 1966 and 1984 and none of them used seatbelts.....all but two of them likely would have survived the crashes.....................several died because they went through the windshield.......one was ejected and then the car rolled upside down and crushed him........one girl that went to College with me, survived going through the windshield.....remember the Beatles song that Ringo sang called Don't Pass Me By.........it was bad as she lost her left eye and her face and skull had more than sixty stitches and there were surgeries that she had to have to reconstruct part of her lower facial skull...............if the accident had not been close the Hospital, within 2 miles, she likely would have died.
Yes that was just how it was back, nearly fifty years ago. I only began wearing seatbelts everyday after a friend died in a low speed single car crash during a heavy downpour..............the car's driver side hit a tree at about 20 miles per hour............damage wasn't bad but William's neck was broken as his head slapped sideways into the driver's door pillar and window............. He left several kids aged 2 to 8 and his wife of ten years, he was just 33 years old...........
My neighbor is a trauma surgeon and he says that often just something simple like a bike helmet or goggles while working with power tools can save folks from a serious injury or loss of an eye.
I did not even own a bike helmet until 1986 when a friend gave me one. I only wore it on road bikes while traveling public roads at speeds averaging greater than 13mph, I did not wear it while riding in the local neighborhoods.
I didn't care for the helmet because I thought it looked goofy and wasn't comfortable.
Todays helmets are much more comfortable and better.
I did not wear a bike helmet religiously until about a few years ago. I wouldn't wear it unless I was gonna ride at speed on the road.
People kept saying you need to wear it because they had seen some disasters of folks that were without helmets.
One friend kept telling me to just keep buying helmets until I found a comfortable one that I liked. I took her advice.
I never go anywhere on a bicycle without wearing a helmet. It may help save your family from having to plan your funeral.
You can survive broken ribs, and or a fractured clavicle, or knee injuries, or broken arms, or broken hip or broken elbow BUT IF YOU CRACK UP YOUR SKULL LIKE A WATERMELON THAT SOMEONE HAS STRUCK WITH A BASEBALL BAT............... it is going to be hard for the trauma team to put Humpty Dumpty back together again....
.................................................It is your choice.
As you know if you do take a tumble at speed, your arms and body parts will be moving and you might roll/tumble dissipating some force of impact but the inertia is likely to have your head at least have a slight glancing blow or slight bounce or slight kiss of the concrete/asphalt as you are rolling and tumbling...............obviously depending on how much impact and where your skull slightly bangs the pavement could be lethal or just a minor concussion...............................EVEN THE WORST HELMET IN THE WORLD LIKELY WOULD DO BETTER THAN JUST YOUR HAIR AND SKULL ALONE.........
.......Everybody thinks it won't happen to them because it has never happened before in 50 years of riding.....................
Go to your refrigerator and grab an egg and imagine carrying a dozen eggs home from the store without breaking by simply carrying them in a grocery bag without their crate.....or see how that egg would survive in your pocket............it will get banged around and splat....there it is gone..................that is perhaps too graphic but you have to paint a picture to illustrate a possible outcome that can be entirely avoidable in most all cases.
Think about it, you're going at least 10 mph and even if you're only going 5 mph and you get impacted by a car or a tree limb that falls in front of you, or a squirrel that is crossing and you run over it and crash.........
Your friends and family will say Thank You for wearing your Helmet because you don't have any idea of how much that you currently enrich their lives..... They will really miss you when you are gone. Please stay well and stick around for a long time. Helmets do indeed prevent possible tragedies.
The only real downside is that they look goofy and give you helmet hair.............
Remember the image of a cracked watermelon......... looking goofy and having messed up hair doesn't seem bad after all!
06-25-19, 12:19 AM
#61
Member
Always wear one. Thought it was ok to not wear one if I was popping to the shops down the road... until I was hit full speed by a car and flipped up onto the windscreen... cracking my head on the top corner of it. Luckily most of the lasting damage was done to my (brand new!) bike build. Made me think twice
06-25-19, 07:15 AM
#62
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Generally cycling is safe and serious accidents rare and helmets offer minimal protection. I access the risk and wear one when what I deem is appropriate. Riding in traffic or through the woods on rougher terrain, yes. But most of my riding is on rail trails so no. I'm at more of a risk of heat stroke than a serous injury a helmet would prevent.
06-25-19, 01:37 PM
#63
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On road bike rides, (which are always training rides), I always wear one. For my FX short get around town rides I do not. If I wore a helmet on those errand FX rides my shaved head wouldn't get enough sun to keep it tanned to match my face. 
06-25-19, 02:17 PM
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Always wear a helmet except for very short test rides of 500 feet or less. A motorcycle helmet saved my life a long time ago. I love to live adventurously, but have no intention of dying foolishly. Yes, I still ride a motorcycle. I can't make it safe to ride my motorcycle or my bicycle, but I can do some things to give me much better odds of surviving, with less serious injuries.
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06-30-19, 03:10 PM
#65
Junior Member
Hell Yes! If you crack your noggin, it will then be a little late to start wearing a helmet - the horse will already have left the barn (or more precisely, the brains will already have left the skull 
).
).
07-02-19, 10:23 AM
#66
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Always.
Before I was T-boned by a car (all my fault), no, but then I was 18 and immortal. Fortunately she was doing 5mph and I escaped with only some amazing bruises and a torn muscle in my back. Funnily enough, I cracked her windshield with my head and didn't get so much as a headache. After that, always.
Before I was T-boned by a car (all my fault), no, but then I was 18 and immortal. Fortunately she was doing 5mph and I escaped with only some amazing bruises and a torn muscle in my back. Funnily enough, I cracked her windshield with my head and didn't get so much as a headache. After that, always.
07-02-19, 10:31 AM
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I'm working on wearing a helmet more, but right now I only wear one when I ride on the highway. Short trips to the store, etc, I never wear it.
07-02-19, 10:34 AM
#68
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Ironically, I think you're doing it backwards. If you get hit by a car doing 60mph, a foam hat won't do squat. It's the lower speed crashes (distracted driver, surprise pothole, slick road striping, careless ped, etc.) where it'll save your head.
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07-05-19, 04:21 AM
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Consider the image of severely drunk person seated on a bar stool, who loses his balance and falls to the floor.....
........You're thinking it is a bicycle and I am always as sober as a judge and I have the balance and reflexes of an alley cat..
It only takes something to BUMP YOU off of your balanced perch on your bike and you'll be going head first towards the ground, either backwards, sideways, forward, or upside down. You're laughing. Just imagine laying on your bed at home and then deliberately rolling off of the bed and on to the floor.............you wouldn't want to do that because you know it won't feel good.
It doesn't take but a fall from a distance of two feet (approx 60 cm) to seriously hurt your head if it impacts a hard surface...........- you're thinking that with my cat like reflexes, I will brace my fall with my arms and hands and thus protect my head...........................- yeah, that is what typically happens as it is mostly instinctive BUT depending on how you get knocked off your perch, you might just not have your arms and hands in the position to provide protection.
It does not matter that you are riding on the sidewalk or in your driveway or within a closed off parking lot with zero cars..................if for whatever reason you were to get knocked off or fall over on your bike, even while barely moving or simply trying to get on and off of the bike, there is the real possibility that you could lead with the head and directly impact the head with the pavement, or concrete, bricks, or asphalt.....................Remember the image that I mentioned earlier of the Watermelon that had been struck by a hammer, or dropping an egg on the floor while removing it from your refrigerator. Don't be Humpty Dumpty! Consider wearing a bike helmet! You need not live next door to a trauma surgeon to learn the importance of wearing one. I never thought helmets were that important but I've changed my opinion on the subject in the past thirty five years. I have been riding for about sixty years so there were no helmets in those days. Though I was never a smoker, I did tolerate smokers in my office, home, and automobiles back in the old days of the sixties, seventies and early eighties too, I thought I was being courteous to colleagues, guests, and friends. Like most people, once the air quality, and second hand-smoke issues became widely known, public opinion changed. The same thing happened with respect to tolerating folks just driving home after having consumed too much alcohol. Too many people died in DUI related auto accidents and too many smokers have had health problems or also have died from smoking related emphysema or lung cancer to not heed the original 1964 Surgeon General's warning "That Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health", something that was mandated to be printed on all packs of cigarettes beginning in the mid sixties. There was the public service messages during the late sixties and seventies that stated that "SEAT BELTS SAVE LIVES" yet nearly nobody wore seatbelts prior to the eighties. The Data from Medical and Engineering studies had proven that there was a significant benefit, long before the general public adopted the recommendations.
Don't Be Stupid because you just Don't Wanna Look Stupid!
Don't be that dope that still thinks exactly like the fools that we may once have been a long time ago.
Some things that I hear and see young people doing makes me just want to use colorful language to tell them: Don't Be A Stupid _______, ...my generation was way wrong and incredibly naive on many things, or just too stupid to know better until we either ended up dead, or smartened up..........
Forest says "Stupid is as stupid does." Jen-nay , Jen-nay, I fell off my bike, my head is bleeding and my vision is blurry, oh Jen-nay help me."
BIKE HELMETS ARE VERY HELPFUL IN PROTECTING YOUR MELON
Perhaps you believe differently or are just so enthusiastic that you are classified as being an organ donor.
A human skull banging against concrete, brick, asphalt, pavement, or a tree root is gonna at the very least, usually, cause a minor concussion, and it is potentially possible that the worst outcome would be a lights-out for good......can't get Humpty back together again.
Think about that.
Ask your friends that are in the medical profession as to their thoughts on the subject of bicycle helmets. You can bet that they don't ride their bicycles without one!
You should too!
........You're thinking it is a bicycle and I am always as sober as a judge and I have the balance and reflexes of an alley cat..
It only takes something to BUMP YOU off of your balanced perch on your bike and you'll be going head first towards the ground, either backwards, sideways, forward, or upside down. You're laughing. Just imagine laying on your bed at home and then deliberately rolling off of the bed and on to the floor.............you wouldn't want to do that because you know it won't feel good.
It doesn't take but a fall from a distance of two feet (approx 60 cm) to seriously hurt your head if it impacts a hard surface...........- you're thinking that with my cat like reflexes, I will brace my fall with my arms and hands and thus protect my head...........................- yeah, that is what typically happens as it is mostly instinctive BUT depending on how you get knocked off your perch, you might just not have your arms and hands in the position to provide protection.
It does not matter that you are riding on the sidewalk or in your driveway or within a closed off parking lot with zero cars..................if for whatever reason you were to get knocked off or fall over on your bike, even while barely moving or simply trying to get on and off of the bike, there is the real possibility that you could lead with the head and directly impact the head with the pavement, or concrete, bricks, or asphalt.....................Remember the image that I mentioned earlier of the Watermelon that had been struck by a hammer, or dropping an egg on the floor while removing it from your refrigerator. Don't be Humpty Dumpty! Consider wearing a bike helmet! You need not live next door to a trauma surgeon to learn the importance of wearing one. I never thought helmets were that important but I've changed my opinion on the subject in the past thirty five years. I have been riding for about sixty years so there were no helmets in those days. Though I was never a smoker, I did tolerate smokers in my office, home, and automobiles back in the old days of the sixties, seventies and early eighties too, I thought I was being courteous to colleagues, guests, and friends. Like most people, once the air quality, and second hand-smoke issues became widely known, public opinion changed. The same thing happened with respect to tolerating folks just driving home after having consumed too much alcohol. Too many people died in DUI related auto accidents and too many smokers have had health problems or also have died from smoking related emphysema or lung cancer to not heed the original 1964 Surgeon General's warning "That Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous To Your Health", something that was mandated to be printed on all packs of cigarettes beginning in the mid sixties. There was the public service messages during the late sixties and seventies that stated that "SEAT BELTS SAVE LIVES" yet nearly nobody wore seatbelts prior to the eighties. The Data from Medical and Engineering studies had proven that there was a significant benefit, long before the general public adopted the recommendations.
Don't Be Stupid because you just Don't Wanna Look Stupid!
Don't be that dope that still thinks exactly like the fools that we may once have been a long time ago.
Some things that I hear and see young people doing makes me just want to use colorful language to tell them: Don't Be A Stupid _______, ...my generation was way wrong and incredibly naive on many things, or just too stupid to know better until we either ended up dead, or smartened up..........
Forest says "Stupid is as stupid does." Jen-nay , Jen-nay, I fell off my bike, my head is bleeding and my vision is blurry, oh Jen-nay help me."
BIKE HELMETS ARE VERY HELPFUL IN PROTECTING YOUR MELON
Perhaps you believe differently or are just so enthusiastic that you are classified as being an organ donor.
A human skull banging against concrete, brick, asphalt, pavement, or a tree root is gonna at the very least, usually, cause a minor concussion, and it is potentially possible that the worst outcome would be a lights-out for good......can't get Humpty back together again.
Think about that.
Ask your friends that are in the medical profession as to their thoughts on the subject of bicycle helmets. You can bet that they don't ride their bicycles without one!
You should too!
07-05-19, 08:28 AM
#72
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07-11-19, 09:53 AM
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07-11-19, 10:12 AM
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Location: Lewisville, TX
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Bikes: 1976 Motobecane Grand Touring, 2013 Fuji Absolute 2.1 hybrid, 2000 Mongoose S2000 MTB, 2009 Schwinn Jaguar beach cruiser
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The helmet came in handy yesterday when I was caught in a pretty severe pop-up thunderstorm with some small hail on my ride yesterday! BTW, hail is very loud when hitting your helmet, even if it's pea-sized...
