hotbike

You might as well just wrap yourself in bubble-wrap, from head to toe. If you were wrapped in a 15 foot diameter ball of bubble wrap, you could get hit by a semi truck and not feel anything.

I ask the same question as closetbiker- How much sweat before the cardboard melts?

Keith99

So one more that the new improved cardboard helmet would not have saved, as you arlready were saved.

That was the posters point, from an absolute maximum of 800 things keep getting lower and lower in numbers. It is not possible to 'save' more than is currently lost.

skye

Good God. Are you intentionally being stupid, or did you just do a wikipedia click 'n paste?

Unreasonable

I don't understand this concern. I know as much as anybody else in this thread about this new idea (so next to nothing), but you'd think that if they were going to mass produce this helmet they would figure out a way to prevent it since sweating is a major part of riding a bike. I doubt the company would overlook something as big as that.

GriddleCakes

Any one actually read the article?

"What about rains and sweat? No problem. Surabhi’s helmets mix the cardboard with a “waterproof acrylic compound” which makes them just as rain-resistant as the helmet you have now."

Runner 1

Oh boy... I've discovered the religion equivalent for cyclists.

wroomwroomoops

Actually, this helmet might reduce small injuries - since the cardboard will crumple much easier than the rigid foam in use today. That rigid foam transfers ALL of the impact energy to your head, and therefore, does NOT reduce concussion from small impacts at all. That's even besides the fact that concussion is caused by rotational impact, not perpendicular.

closetbiker

I say you don't understand what causes concussions, why helmets can't prevent them, and to what level impacts are mitigated

corvuscorvax

I was pretty sure that any attempt to introduce actual physics into the discussion would be met with spittle-flecked invective and/or noodle-brained pseudoscience. Thanks for not disappointing.

Anti-helmet zealots are a lot like global warming deniers or people who think evolution didn't happen. There's really no point in arguing with you. Please carry on.

closetbiker

if you're suggesting there's not a legitimate, scientific basis that can show helmets aren't as effective as many think they are, you're dumber than you've already made yourself out to be

You're not addressing the issue when you make comments like this, nor are you being very bright. You're not helping, you're hindering the point.

crhilton

closetbiker,

You're referring to kinetic energy lost in a perfectly inelastic collision I presume? Which would explain why it's relative to V^2.

closetbiker

I was referring to the claim that

because helmets can't reduce the rotational movement of the brain inside the skull that causes concussion. The claim implies linear aaccelleration causes concussion when it doesn't

Is there an issue with my post that said collision energy varies with the square of impact speed, or that once the eps foam has crushed to it's fullest capability, cracked, or come apart, it's protective quality has been spent ?

GriddleCakes

As a fairly boring cyclist (moderate speed c'muter/utility), I really don't think that I'd receive any benefit from a stronger helmet; the only time I feel a cycling helmet to be warranted is in the winter, on ice and snow, and then my speed stays low enough that current helmet design is likely adequate.

As an aggressive downhill skier (trees, cliffs, and rocky chutes, oh my!), on the other hand, I would certainly consider replacing my current ski helmet with a stronger design, provided that the weight and price were similar to what is available now. I imagine that the dirt/vert cycle scene would feel the same.

closetbiker

if you look at the issues with helmets for skiing, you'll find there are similarities with helmets for bikes, except the ski industry keeps much better data on the issue

both skiing and cycling are relatively safe and the types of impacts that do cause serious injury to both are not with the specs of current helmets to prevent.

that both ski and bicycle helmets can mitigate or prevent some minor injuries doesn't mean they do the same for major injuries

https://www.ski-injury.com/specific-injuries/head

https://www.ski-injury.com/prevention/helmet

GriddleCakes

Yeah, I'm fully aware of the limitations of current helmet technology. I wear both my ski and bike helmets specifically to mitigate minor injuries, whenever I feel that the risk of receiving said injuries is high enough to warrant added protection (I've crashed, repeatedly, with and without a helmet; I prefer with). Just because an injury isn't serious doesn't mean that it doesn't suck.

I feel that the manner in which I cycle makes crashing very unlikely, except in the winter, so the helmet stays home. And while skiing is relatively safe for the average skier, I do not ski like the average skier; I ski very challenging terrain while pushing the limits of my ability, and will usually crash once every few days (if you ain't fallin', then you ain't tryin'). It's part of the fun, but sometimes it hurts, so the helmet is worn to mitigate some of that pain.

But, like with cycling, I'll forgo the helmet if I feel the risk of crashing is reasonably low. For me, that's the in backcountry, where I ski very conservatively and won't touch terrain that I'd happily shred at the resort (plus the resort is full of out of control gapers who'll take you out from behind or smack you in the head with skis carelessly slung over shoulders; in 20 years of resort skiing I've been knocked down over a dozen times, several just standing in the lift line and once at an outdoor concession stand).

So, as someone who uses personal judgement to decide when and where a helmet would be useful, a better made helmet that can absorb more force is a welcome innovation. Doesn't it stand to reason that if currently available helmets can already mitigate some minor injury and pain, then a helmet than can absorb more energy can protect against a wider range of injury, even if still only minor?

closetbiker

There's no denying that there is some benefits to helmets and better helmets can do more than ones that don't perform as well, but for me (as well it seems for you) it's personal decision to wear and I figure if I can subject the other parts of my body to the same risks, why be worried about protecting the head?

I think most people think the head is worth extra protection because of what's inside, but if a helmet can't protect what's inside, what's the point?

Six jours

I think it's probably a mistake to make blanket statements about the safety of cycling one way or the other. Folks like downhill mountain bike racers are obviously taking significant risk. And there is a "new breed" of road-race-emulating cycling enthusiasts who make statements like "If you don't crash every XXX miles you're not going hard enough" and who have indeed made their riding dangerous through a mix of bad attitude and appalling skill level.

OTOH, there are folks who cruise around by themselves at 15 MPH and have developed a useful skill set over and good decision-making ability over many years of careful cycling. These riders hardly ever fall and may well consider crashing to be completely avoidable.

So the former group assumes that all cycling is extremely hazardous and wonders about the sanity of anyone riding bare-headed, while the latter group experiences bike riding as hardly different from a walk in the woods and can't imagine why someone would be so consumed with the idea of falling off a bike and suffering horrific injuries. It's no wonder that there's friction on helmet threads.

wsbob

That's a good question. The helmet design passing those tests, would bolster its credibility.

This may be quite a smart idea...ribs providing the impact resistance zone, rather than the relatively solid composition of foam used in conventional bike helmet design and construction. I seem to recall having seen ribs in a box configuration under the skin of a bumper of the type commonly used for motor vehicles. The bumper I saw also had foam injected inside the cells made by the ribs.

A smooth plastic shell forms the outermost layer of the cardboard helmet, just as it does most conventional bike helmets. That means aerodynamics between the two types of helmets could likely be the same. The outer skin would also help to distribute force of impact more effectively over a greater area of the cardboard ribs, than exposed edges of the cardboard ribs themselves could.




Even though cardboard used for the ribs is made waterproof by having been treated with an acrylic compound, in terms of biodegradability, maybe this is better than foam.

closetbiker

I'd be very surprised if these make any kind of significant cut into Bell's marketshare.

Bell has worked very hard to expand their sales and eliminate competition. I doubt if they'd sit still if people were interested in buying these.

skye

The key problem is that you clearly have no understanding of the biomechanics of head injury. Even in a world of crash-test dummies, your argument holds no water. First, velocity of head impact can be significantly higher than velocity of vehicle impact (see cervical acceleration/deceleration injury, for example). Second, your analysis is lacking any understanding whatsoever of the coup/contrecoup mechanism of localized brain injury, while, as others have already pointed out, utterly ignoring the rotational component of diffuse brain injury, the most common and lethal kind. (All of these are rare among cyclists, but that is apparently beside the point).

You have, in short, so utterly oversimplified the physics involved as to make your "analysis" laughable.

I tell you what. Get some foundational understanding under your belt, maybe some White & Punjabi, for starters. Then come back, mebbe we can talk.

jfmckenna

That's awesome

What a great idea.

njkayaker

It's ironic that closetbiker's common complaint about "helmeteers" is that they call him names.

skye

Actually, that's not a common complaint of his at all. However, if you want to make something up and then accuse him of it, go for it. On the other hand, nobody has trotted out the "organ donor" yuk-yuk for about 37 posts, so maybe you could just recycle that.

njkayaker

It's not the most common thing he complains about but he talks about it repeatedly. It's actually reasonable to complain about it but he probably shouldn't be doing it himself.

===================

Here, he complains about someone else being insulting.

sknhgy 

I'm thinking about the crazy tan lines us baldies would get.