Would you wear a full face helmet for this size jump? Just learning, and the jumps I am attempting are rapidly getter bigger…

No, but wear what ever you want.

If it gives you a sense of security and therefore confidence then yes.

The size etc means nothing, if you want to do it.*

*Note a full face will not improve your chances of landing well or mitigate for a heap of other injuries….

If you own one and you’re learning why would you not?

It doesn’t matter what we’d do, smashing your face in is far more embarrassing/painful/etc than wearing a FF. Round these parts the more advanced riders wear a FF, don’t worry about it.

Maybe pop your Garmin in the rucksack before having a bash though!

Did the jump a few times and the last time I went a bit further then expected and gave myself a scare. think i will pop down to the lbs and try some on for size, seems sensible given the smashing my face in alternative that I sense might happen

*Note a full face will not improve your chances of landing well or mitigate for a heap of other injuries….

Yup. I personally wouldn’t, but it’s your face that you’ll not* be hitting the ground with.

*I base this thousands of jumps, mostly successful, over the years. The first 20 years were without a helmet and the last 5 or so with (open/FF). Of the unsuccessful attempts (maybe one in 30) i’ve not once landed on my face and only hit my head on the ground a handful of times (all within the last few years). I’ve hurt my face more while shaving 😀

No, jumps need to be 37mm higher and 132mm longer before they require a full face helmet.

No, but i’m ugly, so have less to lose.

Should you put a helmet on if you’re just riding to the shops???

Anything could happen ..nothing might.

I know of a mates girlfriend who smashed her face on the pavement, loosing teeth, just swinging her leg over a bike.

Answer to your Q woukld be if you have to ask then yes until your skills improve. If you have to buy one especially it’ll be there for when you want to tackle more gnarly stuff. The thing is once you’ve learnt this size jump you’ll want to tackle the next size up.

No, never for dirt jumping. I think you have more chance of hitting your face on the ground on a fast xc descent! With jumps, you generally have time to tell somethings going wrong, and do something about it. Full face helmets are really restrictive and uncomfy an all. I never bothered wearing a helmet when I rode dirt jumps, I only got concussion once!

Shape the take off, and put your saddle down though.

I thought DHers wore full face helmets more because of the speed they were going than the size of the jumps? Not seen many dirt jump guys wear full face helmets. Still, DJ helmets are cheap (got a Fox one for less than £20), if you can afford a full face then get one. If you do any DH then you’ll be able to use it for that too.

@ davitaylforth ..what a load of boll..ox! Your concussion could of been a lot worse and you could be having all you meals through a straw.

I see a guy in Nottingham commuting on his electric bike with a full face helmet – really your choice!

tymbian – Member
@ davitaylforth ..what a load of boll..ox! Your concussion could of been a lot worse and you could be having all you meals through a straw

Oh come on. It wasn’t that bad. I forgot what I’d done a few hours previous, that was it.

I got knocked off my road bike once and got concussed and I was wearing a helmet!

Another time, I was just crossing the road and I ended up in a coma. I wasn’t wearing a helmet!

I think in general, people just need to toughen the **** up.

no, i wouldn’t….

better to rely on your skills than a false sense of invincibility….

Ive got a FF, but find it too restrictive and ‘odd’ when doing jumps, so dont wear it.

I only wear it doing DH stuff in the Alps.

It can give you a false sence of security. When you fall off doing jumps you know its going to happen (in my experience), so bail out and you will have time to avoid landing on your face.

As said before, fast XC with a bit of gradient is far more likely to produce a crash you didnt see comming. My worst accidents were due to hitting a tree, not getting a jump wrong.

Surely coming up short on a double is a prime opportunity for a face plant? Never done it, buts its the key reason that I avoid any sizable double like the plague.

That and I’m shit…

I wouldn’t buy there’s a guy at work who commutes in with a full face helmet so I guess he would.

He wears body armour too.

The extra weight on your head may make things worse. The kids on the BIG jumps at Chicksands all wear piss-pot helmets. Arn’t FF lids for speed/trees/rocks.

I think in general, people just need to toughen the **** up.

Wow, I can smell the testosterone from here…at least I think that’s what it is. 😉

Ive come up short on doubles a few times, but that was before Id got my speed and pump sorted. They were small, so it didnt hurt.

Your only likely to do massive ones where it will hurt when you have experience, so your much less likey to get it wrong.

Now I know how far I can jump, distance wise, and can pump better to modify that, im not worried about comming up short.

So, in pretty much all cases I either clip the top, land it well, or overshoot 🙂 If you do take off slow enough to realise your not going to make it, just bail out. After a while you can judge the distances much better.

Depends, are you going to crash?

I probably wouldn’t personally, depends where it is and all that. But do whatever feels right.

alpin – Member

better to rely on your skills than a false sense of invincibility….

Or, you could rely on your skills, wear a full face helmet, and just not have a false sense of invincibility.

If it gives you a sense of security and therefore confidence then yes.

That’s a bad reason for wearing one. I had my biggest ever crash when I was wearing the most protective gear I’ve ever had one (full face, pressure suit, mx pants)…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

I had a crisis of confidence regarding jumps recently. I’ve had nerves before hitting new jumps before but this was the first time in my puff i was properly apprehensive about hitting a jump. My lack of faith in myself came about after crashing on a mid-sized step-up jump a few weeks back. I knew what caused it (rebound too fast on a new-to-me air shock) so that was a start. I built a similar sized jump (actually a little bit bigger @ around 20+ foot) to practice/suspension experiment on. I was fully padded up – big FF hat, gloves and knee/shinpads, but that wasn’t what was holding me back. My head wasn’t right. It took several timid attempts before i actually MTFU’d and hit it with enough speed to clear it. The bike behaved as i hoped it would and my confidence returned.

In short, confidence should come from knowing your abilities and not what protective clobber you have on.

and the moral of the story is wear a ful-face until your confident…and when you are confident dont wear one cause you’ll look like a d1ck. Even more so than when your wearing nappies cause a bad fall/ knock on the head caused you to loose your over your bowels.

chicksands…the downhillers doing the jumps wear full face!

No…for 2 reasons…

I don’t own a full face helmet so wouldn’t bother with it.
I’m very unlikely to actively go after a jump that large so I’d never need the ‘security’ of a full facer.

‘Security’ as it’s more in the mind I reckon…

i saw an oldish guy today riding towards asda with a full face on, it wasn’t even a mountain bike…..!

If that jump is where I think it is it will probably be twice as big next time you get down there too