davestv

That's funny. If you ride with no headphones you might not need the helmet???

luxo

Not to downgrade their importance, but there is a misconception about helmets being designed to prevent far more serious brain injury, which is not true. They are designed to prevent skull fractures and any secondary concussive protection you get is only a bonus. Our skulls alone can withstand up to 5,000 pounds of force before they shatter and if you hit pavement at that force you will surely receive fatal brain injury. You will increase your safety tenfold if you learn how to fall (tuck and roll), whether you wear a helmet or not. The only people who get injured in a fall are those who don't know how to fall safely. Look up parkour on YouTube and you'll see some entertaining examples of this.

In any case, I don't wear a helmet currently. I probably should.

a1penguin

I always wear a helmet. Except when I use one of the bikes at work. I feel naked without them. And I always use my seat belt, too.

luxo

I've been thinking about getting a camera to record some biking adventures, so I'd need a helmet to mount it on. Of course, you could mount a camera on the handlebars or just about anywhere, but on a helmet you can record what you're looking at and with less vibration.

Shawn Parr

I live in Louisiana and state law is anyone under the age of 15 is required to wear a helmet when riding in the street. When I got my bike I got a helmet and wear it all the time as a "teach by example" sort of thing for my kids. Now it feels weird to ride without one.

On Memorials day I took my son mountain biking and foolishly (mostly due to newbie-ness) chose the wrong trail to go on. Ended up losing control and crashing while going down a sandy hill. I was literally upright, but sideways, at one moment, then my whole right side was bouncing on dirt, sand, and rocks. I felt my ribs and head hit hard. I'm pretty sure without the helmet I would have been unconscious at best. Luckily my son (10 years old) was able to help me get back to the car and load up the bikes for me. After seeing me after I got home from the hospital all the neighborhood kids wear their helmets now.

This is just my experience, and was due to poor choices. In my case I'm glad I had one. Others with more sense may not need one, but I'll have mine on whenever I go outside my yard. And my wife tells me if I ever go mountain biking again she is making me wear a lot more safety gear...

Igo

What?

luxo

I'm just interjecting my own data points on the matter. Some people in this thread mentioned helmets protecting the brain.

SwampDude

Luxo- Do helmets protect anything, if not the brain? What do your data points indicate?

luxo

To sum it up, wearing a helmet will protect your head from cracking open, to put it bluntly. The main issue in my opinion is that the skull doesn't fracture as easily as the brain gets injured if you land on your head, therefore it's a good idea to learn how to fall to minimize injury whether you wear a helmet or not (I'm not against either choice).

McQz

I've been riding since I was 6, which puts about 57 years of anecdotal evidence to hand. As a kid, long before anybody wore helmets, I had lots of accidents though never hit my head hard enough to cause problems. As I grew older, the accidents decreased in number, but increased in severity - usually involving large swaths of skin and blood left on the pavement or rock garden.

I've only had three accidents where my head made significant contact, two walk-aways and one limp-away. One slide-out with no helmet in 1969, once hit by a car while wearing a "leather hair net" in 1978 and last October 1st I while riding in a MTB race and went @$$ over tea-kettle on a little non-technical downhill rock garden. When I awoke I was off the trail and apparently nobody had passed me. I checked out all the places that were bleeding - no arterial squirts, checked out the bike - just some scratches - adjusted my glasses so I could see out of my left eye and completed the ride. In the first-aid tent they took good care of me. The rock(s) that scratched my right lens and eyebrow did a real number on my helmet. It isn't possible to quantify how much more damage my poor noggin would have experienced if the helmet hadn't taken the brunt of the blow, but it would have been substantial and my bride of 36 years would not have been amused (she beat me soundly in the race). If I were seriously injured (head or not) or died as a result of a bike accident and I was un-helmeted, my bride would kill me!

With all that said, when I gear up, whether for a bicycle or motorcycle, I am freshly reminded to "be careful out there." I think it makes me more aware of the risks that I gladly embrace to have taken this small precaution. I also wear a rear-view mirror that sticks to the inside of the glasses I wear for riding. Just like driving a car or motorcycle, I check my mirror regularly.

As others have pointed out, I am also a role-model (roll model?) for my grandchildren and the neighborhood hoodlums whose tires I regularly repair. I'll buy a helmet for any kid who will wear one.

The only drawback I've found to wearing a helmet is the tiger stripe sun-tan I develop over the course of the summer on my nearly bald pate. Maybe I can start a new fashion...

surgeonstone

I never wear a helmet, I believe them to be the only cycling accessory that does not do what it is advertised to do, i.e. save lives and prevent serious head injury. I also ride a motorcycle and never go 10 feet without a helmet. Why the difference? One works , the other does not.

Andy Stanton

There's another benefit to wearing a helmet that hasn't been mentioned. I often ride on paths where there are low-hanging tree branches. Sometimes I can't avoid them and they hit my helmet. If I weren't wearing the helmet, I'd be in trouble.

Igo

I'm sorry but that is idiot talk.

David Bierbaum

The joke is, he posted that after several stories from folks who were saved from serious head injury by wearing bicycle helmets.

I he an idiot? Or is he a...

CbadRider

We have a thread in A&S specifically for discussing the pros and cons of wearing a helmet, since it is such a volatile topic.

This thread is closed.