Well after today’s tumble I would say YES.

The front wheel washed out on sand at the bottom of a slight hill. Spat me over the bars and flicked the bike in the air so the rear quick release hit my head just above my ear.

Big dent in the hard helmet crust and total fracture of the thick padded bit. Quite sobering to think what would have happened without the helmet as I was on my own and miles from anywhere.

On the bright side, I get a new helmet so people might stop laughing at photos of me with the helmet perched on top of my huge head.

That’ll buff out. Just bung some Araldite on it, be good for a few years yet.

You need a helmet just going to get a paper.

Dear god, here we go again. 🙂

It is hard to know what would have happened had you not been wearing the helmet. I guess you would have had a slightly bruised head, but of course there is a possibility that the impact would have crushed your skull like a plover’s egg being hit by a Japanese bullet train sending showers of liquified brain and bright yellow pus spattering over some innocent children and an endangered panda, which would have been so traumatised by having to lick your brain out of its own nose that it mis-carried resulting in the extinction of all New Forest pandas. So, on balance I reckon it was a good thing that you had your appallingly style-less helmet perched on top of your bizarrely shaped head.

🙂

I never ride without a helmet no matter how far I am going. It makes me quite angry to see parents riding along with their kids and none of them are wearing helmets! It doesn’t matter how good you are on a bike there is always a chance you will come off and most things you will hit are hard!

Sad to see such an old piece of kit die. Were you waiting for it to come back into fashion?

How THE HELL did you crash there, FFS?

Oh.

Hang on a minute, WCA can crash anywhere, right?
😉

WOW – what a way to go almost beaten to death by your own Ti singlespeed, are you an organ donor? you should have stayed at home to look after the dog 😉

Chuckles at crispy.

Anyone can fall off anywhere. Even going bimbly can be fraught with peril. And as we know, one fall and that’s game over unless you’re wearing a helmet. You are getting a fullface for the Alps, right? And a back-plate?

😉

Where abouts in the forest is that?
Having had some thing of a smillar size hit my ear many years ago that cut through the cartalige i would also want a helmet between my head and the QR.

yeah best wear a crash hat. I wasn’t wearing one a while ago when I nipped out from work to get a sarnie and a car reversed into me sending me flying head first into the pavement. Got blood on my beanie hat I did. Stoopid driver.

Kev

could be anywhere in the forest but it looks like its near ogdens going off piste round an enclosure hmm 🙂

glad the helmet did its job, that sandy stuff can make you wash out badly

You are getting a fullface for the Alps, right? And a back-plate?

As long as he’s not riding directly in front of or behind me (i.e. crashing distance) I don’t care…..
😉

I bought my first mountain bike on the morning of September 3rd 1986. I bought my first helmet on the afternoon of September 3rd 1986 after my first ride off road on it. Coming down a rough flinty track I noticed that my hands were no longer on the bars having been bounced off and in that moment decided that a helmet might be a sound investment. and if you think WCA’s helmet is deeply unfashionable you should have seen that Vetta.

Well 23 years later I haven’t actually hit my head when falling off but I think I’ll stick with the helmet just in case.

PP – you are always within crashing distance of me.

The crash was near to Avon Tyrrell which is the site of a particular mountain bike event in the summer …

and what makes the helmet unfashionable?!? It looked lovely in 2004.

Surely a helmet over 5 years old wouldn’t have saved anything, you might as well have been wearing kev’s beanie.
(I don’t necessarily agree with what I’ve typed there, which is kinda weird)

DezB – Trust me, it did save something – ME. It may have been destroyed in the process where as a newer one would have shown less damage but believe me I was saved.

It was one of those slow motion crashed where you see the ground coming towards you, hear the ouefff as the air is pushed from you lungs on impact and then hear crunch as the bike smashes down on top of you. I laid still for a couple of minutes trying to feel if there was any bleeding. I really couldn’t believe I got away with a smashed helmet and a couple of cuts.

You can try out some of those new healing remidies on your new cuts!

Result!!!

😉

PP – well remembered. Now I just need to superglue a dog to my ankle while rubbing honey into my groin!

DezB I think another thread recently concluded that MET say their helmets are good for 8 years providing they don’t suffer impact or excessive uv exposure.

PP – well remembered. Now I just need to superglue a dog to my ankle while rubbing honey into my groin!

LOL!

Love it….

Has anyone mentioned rotational forces yet?

Where’s TJ when you need him?

Actually where is he? – has he taken the milk in OK? – is there a pile of mail behind his front door?

Or the QR may have missed your head,as the helemt looks quite thick..

tomzo – The bike landed squarely on top of me, it was only my skull (and the helmet) that stopped it hitting the ground.

Do you need a helment when bimbly

I think you should go and get your head scanned anyway mate, you’re not making a lot of sense there.

😉

Great! I have just spotted this lovely swelling above my ankle which is beginning to get painful.

I bet it is going to be a great weekend for riding too!

Good job it wasn’t half way down that hill near Westbury on Monday, would have broken it in half.

I thought I’d met WCA a couple of times, and been for a bike ride with him once.
Thing is, he didn’t fall off at all in about 90 minutes (I did – got pulled backwards off the bike when my backpack caught up in a low branch). We also cleared a bit of trail and still nobody was injured, even trivially.

WHO THE HELL WAS IT ??