Covalent Jello

If so, what kind?

According to the overwhelming majority in the A&S forum it's come to my attention that helmets are next to worthless. So do you wear a helmet? Why?

nellyeff

1. Yes.
2. Naked head + hard rock = possible death.

legec117

I have never ridden on trails without one. there are plenty trees on the local trails and you never know when on has fallen around a curve. also, the trails change so much due to people riding them and rain, they are almost never the same. a jump/descent you have done 100 times may be a little different on the 101st time.... better safe than having your head busted open in the middle of a forrest

meanwhile

Oh dear - a troll with an injured ego! Someone call PETA!

You were told in A&S that a helmet won't help if you are hit by car. But you were also told that they are bloody useful if you are likely to come off the bike and hit the plain old ground. I even told you that you SHOULD wear a helmet for mountain biking, and that ideally it should be one with an extra strong shell because of rocks and what have you.

In short: "Car NOT EQUAL rock!"

Really - don't you have anything better to do with your time?

Covalent Jello

I'm actually honestly wondering at this point, and no, you definitely didn't present that case you just posted, unless I'm mistaken, the overwhelming majority said helmets were next to worthless and that there's no point in wearing one, as far as I understood.

I even explained my story of cracking my helmet in 2 on a rock, and was basically told that my head would have been fine because it doesn't take much to crack a foam helmet. It took a while but I realized the points you guys made and I'm left wondering, you did mention wearing one during mountain biking but it seemed like it was buried in 99% "helmets are worthless and there's no solid evidence" statements.

What is this supposed to mean, honestly -
I am so confused, is there some kind of specific context you were saying that in, like for road biking, for cars - "serious collision" (what is that?)
I have a feeling that's where all the confusion stemmed from, but then, there's a ****load of anti-helmet info out there too, to complicate things.

And no, I don't have anything better to do with my time!
Actually, I do, but like I said, after the overwhelming posts saying helmets are pretty useless, I'm left wondering.

I'd like to see what ppl have to say within the context of mountain biking.

That being said, I have usually worn a foam helmet, not a full face, unless I'm going downhill doing crazy stuff.
So for general XC stuff, what do you wear, a foam generic helmet, or one of those BMX-hardshell ones? What's best?

samburger

I always wear a helmet. Whoever says they're next to useless is next to mentally challenged. My first bad crash I endoed & landed head first (with a little cushioning from my hands) on a tree root. My helmet saved me from what would have otherwise been a concussion at best.

nellyeff

Anyway, have you ever had a 1" bumble bee hit you on the forhead at 20mph??? Ouch!

Grimlock

I was riding my regular loop Tuesday on a new bike I just built up and had exactly that happen. I rolled off a boulder over some loose rocks like I had a trillion times before. Instead of carrying speed through the roll out I endoed, landing two feet further down with my helmeted skull against a rather pointy rock. I have a few little scrapes on my face and some bruising on my shoulder but it's far better than the bleeding concussion I would have had sans helmet.

FWIW, it's a Giro Xen that I just picked up this spring (to replace the one I left in a Vegas cab). When I got to work the next day I ordered another one to replace it.

meanwhile

Little troll - keep A&S discussions in A&S. It exists for that reason.

Sigh. People told you - again - that

..and yes, you probably spend most of your life being mistaken.

meanwhile

Sigh. That would be Jello himself... The silly little man was talked through helmet engineering and specs at fair length. He seems incapable of understanding that a helmet can be excellent protection against a root, but almost useless against an SUV. (He posted a bizarre theory that hitting a moving car while wearing a helmet is safe because the helmet will protect you from the resulting fall to the ground, it being only three feet. We explained to him that hitting the car was the dangerous part and that helmets generally don't work well for this purpose. Hence this display of petulance from him. On behalf of people who post in A&S, I apologize for his cross-trolling. That said, I would like to hear opinions on what lids are best for MTBing, as I'm in the market for a new one myself.)

Covalent Jello

That why I was trying to explain that getting hit by a car is different than a rock, unless the head-impact is a result of only gravity, after being tossed by a car. I explained my situation cracking my helmet over a rock and what I took away from it based on responses was that my head would have basically been fine without a helmet because it doesn't take a lot to crack a helmet.

I was fully aware that getting hit by a car was a lot more dangerous than a head-fall, and I really thought I was explicit in expressing my understanding of this. Apparently there was a huge amount of confusion, I thought that I wasn't using helmet to excuse injury from direct head hits by a car.

This is what I said -
Apparently, there was a gigantic amount of confusion as to what we were even arguing about. Sigh..

Again, I don't have any interest in being an annoying troll, I honestly left that thread confused as to whether or not helmets were worth wearing from the intense opposition and seemingly lacking scientific evidence that they even worked, but apparently that was all in the context of road biking (which is why I made this thread, to get an idea of what mountain bikers had to say on the subject, despite there being an A&S forum).

I still don't know what to make of all of opposition towards helmet claims, honestly..but I'll keep wearing them..
Here's a site that is pretty adamant in opposition to claims about helmets making a positive difference
https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1139.html
I guess I didnt realize it at the time, but they seem to be taking helmet effectiveness as a whole across all forms of biking, maybe that's what I neglected to realize.

samburger

I was typing that before I saw anything posted more than the OP's first post & the first response. Anyone who says helmets are useless is stupid. I stand by that. I know now that you didn't say they were useless.

fluidmosaic

It doesnt matter if your helmet is made out of jello, the way it works is by dissipating the force of impact when your head strikes an object. The more something you have between your head and the object, the better. I would be stupid not to wear a helmet the way I ride. Some times if I'm doing a long climb that I know and its super hot I will take the helmet off for the climb. But I always put it back on afterwards. You should always wear a helmet, even when on the road, always. Getting hit by a car is bad but a helmet could still keep you from serious injury. Even if it doesnt, it will never hurt to wear one.

mtnbiker66

I'm a big fan of the Giro Hex. Mine is kinda like a Timex....

samburger

So as long as we're posting things totally off topic, has anyone been kayaking lately? I'm heading to Daniel's Bridge on the South River in a few days with my friend to take advantage of this rain! It's gonna be so gnarly!

Daspydyr 

I took a nasty fall last October. When my head bounced off a rock for the second time I thought to myself, HEY, these helmets really work. Then I took a quick nap, from having the wind sucked out of me. The helmet looked like someone took a sharp end of a beer opener down the side and a big dent that could have been my skull. I never go anywhere without my Bell.

Yes, 3500 pounds of steel trumps 25 pound of aluminum or CF. Same with motorcycles. Flesh, bones and blood always loose. But biking sure is fun. Just trying to improve my odds for the small stuff.

frankenmike 

A&S lurkers don't ride hard enough off road to ever be in a helmet-requiring situation. Hence the lack of a meaningful frame of reference. I suspect most of us in the MTB forum have eaten facefuls of terra firma often enough(even once is enough) to know better. Why would you want your riding buddies to have to carry your lifeless body out of the woods for ten miles?

Johnny Law

honestly, why was this thread started? what kind of question is that? "Do you wear a helmet mountain biking?" obviously he doesnt. lol

Daspydyr 

The scary accident is the life filled body that is motionless, that's what scares me. Next time he bangs his noggin he may suffer recurring DEJA VU moments. Hopefully Not!

Johnny Law

lol.

LesterOfPuppets

on gnar trails, yes
practicing bunnyhops, stoppies, wheelies, etc. in a parking lot, yes
mellow ride on a dirt rail-to-trail, flip of a coin but probably no
down to the 7-11, no

scrublover

Hmmm. Holy crap, this has been done to death, so many times.

Yes. Has it saved my life? Yes/no/maybe. I can't say conclusively one way or the other how injured/alive/dead I may or may not have been, the various times I've wrecked and smacked my helmet.

Several were hard enough knocks to leave me fairly stunned feeling, and have some ringing ears. I've broken two helmets - both cases my head was unscathed. One on dirt, one on pavement.

Been hit twice by cars. One large truck tagged the back of my bike with a rather large bumper, moving at ~15, and threw me near ten feet. Landed on my back, the helmet slammed the ground. Ended up breaking into seven bits, held together by the straps. I don't really know just how much good it did, but I was glad to be wearing it at the time.
That was a slow moving, but large vehicle, and a pavement landing. Faster impact in another incident may have been another story, or not.

The other time, riding along at roughly 15mph, I was doored. Flew over the door, landed on my back. The large backpack I was wearing at the time seems to have prevented my head from impacting the pavement. Hmmm. Perhaps I ought to ride everywhere with a large backpack...

I've also been on rides with others who have broken helmets, and suffered no damage. Others have. I've taken care of plenty of bike and motrocycle wreck patients - some with really horrific injuries. Some head injured, some not. There are just too many damn variable to say in any given case what the end result of helmet/no helmet might end up being.

I don't believe them to be magical life-saving devices, but they can and do serve a purpose for me. I'll keep wearing them. The majority of my pavement time is commuting, slower speeds in town, surrounded by slower speed traffic than when I go for a typical road ride. Those slower speed ride/traffic times are when I feel the helmet is the most worthwhile on pavement. I still wear it on regular road rides as well. Force of habit I suppose.

ProEdgeBiker

Safety 1st, Specialized S-Works MT

JonathanGennick 

I wear a helmet mountain-biking, and when I'm road-biking too. I can see not wearing a helmet when one is just "toodling" around the neighborhood. But I do not toodle! I've had enough near misses both on pavement and in the woods to convince me of the prudence of protection.

Where I think sometimes the discussion goes astray is that we sometimes treat helmets as a "talisman", or good-luck charm. If one wears a helmet, one is deemed "safe". I think of a helmet as a beginning, or as a minimum. There's plenty more to think about though in terms of safety, especially when heading out onto the trails. For some people, just getting the straps tightened properly would be a good next step.

Covalent Jello

This was started because of the quotes in the post above - https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...1#post11134357
I always wear a helmet, just ventured over to A&S and for one reason or another got the wrong impression about the effectiveness of a helmet
Like someone said, I think there was confusion on frame of reference/what we were talking about, which I found out after making this thread, oops