Darth Lefty 

Bad news from the front, Sir

well biked

CliffordK

I'm not sure where my Skid Lid is... it was well battered and abused. The original plastic sharks tooth tabs that held the flexible hose tubes for the strap broke years ago and were replaced by shoe laces (I was too inventive for my own good as a kid).

The helmet was probably reasonably good for road commuting. Anything hard one would hit would be impacted by one of the plastic bars over the top. Unfortunately my helmet had very thin padding. Mom's helmet was a few years newer and had thicker padding.

The helmet wasn't approved for racing because there was a theoretical risk of pedals or bike parts poking through the holes. So, at that time, the leather hair nets were legal, but the skid lids were not. Likewise, it was probably not rated for mountain bike riding. But, likely was ok for the era for typical road commuting.

Schweinhund

I'd be staring because I have not seen a "Lip Skid" since the 70's lol

Trakhak

Nothing to do with pedals or bike parts poking through the holes. All helmets were acceptable for racing, including the leather strap helmets and Skid Lids, until the governing agencies (e.g., the USCF in the United States) began specifying that the only helmets that were acceptable for use in sanctioned races were those that were Snell approved (and/or approved by another standard whose name I can't recall at the moment). [Edit: the ANSI standard.]

The main factor that separated the approved helmets from the others was the use of expanded polystyrene (EPS) in the approved helmets, versus the foam rubber that helmets like the Pro-Tec and the Skid Lid used. When Bicycling! magazine brought a bunch of helmets to an independent testing agency for evaluation, soon after the introduction of helmets lined with EPS, only the EPS helmets (e.g., the Bell Biker and the MSR helmets) passed the testing agencies' protocol. That protocol (as I recall) consisted of dropping a sensor-equipped head form strapped into the helmet from a 2-foot height onto a hard surface and measuring the deceleration on impact in terms of G forces.

The testers initially refused to test the Skid Lid because, as they pointed out, the head forms they used were very expensive to manufacture and they were reluctant to risk damaging them. They finally agreed to test the helmet, but at a reduced drop height of 1 foot. Even at the reduced height, the Skid Lid still failed the test (i.e., the deceleration force exceeded the mandated standard).

And, of course, the testers refused outright to test any of the leather strap helmets.

stevel610 

Now over 20 years old....😁

79pmooney

And to go back in the time machine - 1977. I'd been racing a year with the original skid lid, the leather helmet. It was common in the peloton to hear that we wore them so the funeral could be open casket. I vowed after that first year I was buying that goofy Bell mushroom if I raced another season. Did both. Next season I trained with a woman who wore an MSR. Skid Lids? I couldn't see that they were any better than the sexy helmets our varsity hockey wore. Head injuries were routine that season. I was glad I played goalie and got a much better helmet.

That Skid Lid chose to name their helmets after the open casket specials I thought was totally in keeping. (Oh, later that year I crashed hard wearing the mushroom. Casket stayed closed but without me in it.)

Trakhak

My first helmet, bought in 1964 to enable me to compete in the track nationals in Queens in New York City (I was apparently the only 13-year-old kid with a track bike in Connecticut, so I got to go and be humiliated by the kids from Chicago and California, on their Paramounts with orange Clement Seta tires), was a leather strap helmet, but at least it was much more bulbous than the thin-strapped Italian helmets that became fashionable in the later '60's. Still worthless except to maybe save my scalp in a crash, though.

What were those strap helmets padded with? Kapok? Excelsior? Some other crossword-puzzle-worthy material?

Ghazmh

Wow!

jon c. 

That's even older than my helmet.