wear one if you want, dont if you dont. End of stupid discussion.
Same old arguments, same old anecdotes, same old stuff trotted out regarding helmets.
If they work in the way you assume, it will be clear as day in the statistics.
It's not clear, because the evidence that they work isn't there.
It's an inch of polystyrene, not a magic helmet, and it WILL NOT protect you from a serious injury.
If it did, and the evidence was there to prove so, we would be made to wear them by law.
Tedious, but you really need to look at the evidence available;
[url] http://cyclehelmets.org/ [/url]
Raddogair - you really think experience has no bearing on how likely you are to crash? Apart from that I thought you were talking about the general situation and replied thus - if you're talking about a specific then we are at cross purposes.
Experience doesn't mean your any good at it!!. Christ, i've got 10 years experience on Lewis Hamilton driving but i'm sure he's better than it than me ( although to be fair, i've never raced him so don't officially know). And as for crashing yourself TJ, thats fantastic news, no really it is. I'm glad you've done so well but...... doesn't mean your any good at this sport. I'm sure i'd quite happily ride stuff you wouldn't but thats not because i'm wearing a helmet, its probably because your minimising the chances of you crashing.
3 weeks ago I crashed and hit my shoulder and head hard on rocky ground and cracked my Giro Hex through. After the initial "ooooofff" had subsided, I rode for another 3 hours - albeit gingerly (I had torn some ligaments in the shoulder)
Thanks Giro (I bought another Hex)
crikey, TJ has said that he takes tricky sections cautiously (walks?) when not wearing a helmet. Ergo, he appears to believe that they can, in fact prevent injury. I have landed on the road on my head and hand at speed. I broke 5 bones, none of them were my skull.
A full face helmet in a car would reduce head injuries. Are we compelled to wear them by law?
I;ve not read all the answers but my response being...
I've banged my head lots of times while out riding, offroad and on road. I doubt any of these impacts would have killed me, nor do I think my helmet will save me in a serious accident but I do know for a fact my helmets have stopped me being hospitalized.
I also think that anyone who rides 'harder' becaue they're wearing a helmet or any safety gear is a complete ****wit. Helmets have stopped me getting lots of nasty head injuries, some of which would have been permanent, they're cheap, light and once it's on you rarely notice it. Up to you though. If your head is worth nothing to you, wear nothing on it.
Rich - prevent minor ones - serious life threatening injuries they are not very good reducing or preventing. Its all about the amount of energy involved.
TJ, in my worst crash I generated enough force through my wrist to snap the end off my radius. My head hit the floor at the same time. I don't think that amount of force going through my skull would be a good thing. Do you? And if you think they only prevent minor injuries, why do you wear one at trail centres since you find them so uncomfortable?
Ok as an Emergency care practitioner ( ex Paramedic) who has spent the last 15 yrs covering the mountain bike popular routes around the South Downs...I cannot pin point any particular incident where I have been called to a biker who's life has been saved by wearing a helmet - but have been to countless accidents where the cyclist is back at work after a few days...as opposed to a longer recovery time.
It really is a personal preference - and one that I certainly wouldn't harrang someone for not adhering to.I am way too busy in my job and have seen too much innocent trauma to start taking the moral high ground about anything!
I think that the points emphasising the merits of riding to the safety clothing that you are wearing are extremely valid...but we all know that it is not always the obvious that catches us out.
Good luck!..because that is what our faint existence often amounts to in my experience!
Never once thought "damn I wish I wasnt wearing a helmet.." But I have had on occasion reason to thank **** that I am. Yes its upto the individual but dont expect ANY sympathy when you go @rse over tit & bend your noggin!
TJ the argument about helmets being uncomfortable just doesnt wash Im afraid & if your honest you will admit that..Oh Im not going to go round the houses with you on this one (regarding severity of injury) as I have a feeling we have done that before.. 😉
But hey carry on - its a free world etc etc ect..
I read about 1/2 of this thread, enough to see it's the same old same old being spouted by TJ, who's never had an accident and knows he won't if he's not wearing a helmet. TJ, I REALLY hope you never come to regret you decision. Honestly, I really do.
FYI, it's when you're pootling, when you're relaxed, when you're confident that the accidents tend to happen. I once went on a ride in the Lakes. Low level steady ride with Mrs PP. I discovered that I'd left my newly washed helmet pads back at the tent, and for about 10 seconds I considered not wearing my lid, because I thought I'd be safe. In the end I covered the scratchy velcro with some tape and put it on. 2-3 miles into the ride, I went slowly sailing over the bars trying to ride something that looked rather innocent, and bashed my head on a rock. No, it most likely wouldn't have killed me, but I'd have been off to hospital for a few stitches and my day would have been ruined.
Apart from that incident, I've gone through 3 helmets on the road, 2 of which were simple lack of attention caused by outside factors, with no obvious dangers about.
I don't find it odd that those of us that have tested their helmets (Like Jedi) wouldn't go without them, whilst those that haven't sometimes do, either......
EDIT
There are many systems of risk assessment - I know of several and have been trained professionally to assess risk
So have I.
So, how would I hande this situation if I was at work?
Well, we've had it drummed into us that it's the people that think they are fine, that have been doing a task for years, that are one of the highest risks. And only last week I was on a course where it was again reiterated that we should challenge someone or something that we thought was wrong or unsafe. Because again, ignoring an issue is when the accidents happen.
If I was to do a full RA on cycling, It would be concluded that it was a pretty risky task. After minimising said risk by making sure the equipment was up to scratch, and that the route taken was as safe as possible, the next thing would be PPE, for visiblity if cycling on the road and crash protection in all instances.
Don't try muddling me with H&S BS, TJ.... 🙂
Serious question as I wasn't riding before helmets became deemed necessary, but was there a big problem with a lot of head injuries amongst mountain bikers prior to the majority using them?
But then, it's never going to be sorted out and it'll always be a contentious issue with ingrained camps on both sides, just look at how long the helmet debate has raged within the climbing community, and shows no sign of abating there either!
PP... if you are going to use the H&S angle, shouldn't you also do as you say and make sure the route is as safe as possible? In which case you'll be riding along the flatest, easiest route.
But nobody on here ever really does that, they, like you and I, look for the 'fun' trails to ride. So why is it acceptable for us to take that particular risk, but not to take a risk of not using a helmet on a flat ride?
PP... if you are going to use the H&S angle, shouldn't you also do as you say and make sure the route is as safe as possible? In which case you'll be riding along the flatest, easiest route
I did say that. 🙂
But in the case of MTBing as a leisure activity that's rarely the desired option. And that increases the risk.
Have we covered spine protectors yet? (sorry, haven't read the thread)
Evangelising that you should wear a helmet but not bothering with a spine protector seems a bit mental to me (but I guess dogmas are mostly irrational by default). It only takes one unlucky roll onto a small stone or tree stump..
funkynick - MemberSerious question as I wasn't riding before helmets became deemed necessary, but was there a big problem with a lot of head injuries amongst mountain bikers prior to the majority using them?
simply no - there has never been any epidemic of head injuries.
Peterpoddy - you totally misrepresent what I say and you are full of inaccuracies yourself - the worst of which is:
If I was to do a full RA on cycling, It would be concluded that it was a pretty risky task
This is one of the cornerstones of the argument - cycling is very safe. It simply is not a risky activity unless you chose to make it one. The numbers of folk killed or injured each year show this.
You show your ignorance of H&S and of risk assessment.
Reack
RepacK - MemberTJ the argument about helmets being uncomfortable just doesnt wash Im afraid & if your honest you will admit that.
I don't understand - helmets are uncomfortable and sweaty. All of them - every single one. - in comparison to having nothing on your head
Hmm, lid wearing seem a real hornets nest of an issue!
Working at a trail centre its intersting to see the kind of riders we see about and how they asses the potential hazards of being out in the forest. It amazes me sometimes the lack of preperation and forethought that some people have, when did taking responsibility for your actions and self become a thing of the past?
PP... I know you did.. 🙂
And you are right, taking the easy line is rarely what we are looking for in this sport. But, and there was always going to be one of those wasn't there, why is that increase of risk acceptable, but choosing to go for a pootle without a helmet not?
For example, who is more likely to have an accident? Someone riding to the shops on a cycle path, or someone riding the trails at a trail centre?
If it's selfish to ride to the shops without a lid, then surely it is even more so to ride a trail centre...
A gnarly trail on which you must wear a helmet or you will die
[img] 
[/img]
Oh good grief.
Wearing a helmet = a good idea, probably
Not wearing one = well, it's your head
Banging on sanctimoniously about it = 🙄
Normal XC ones are simply not that good - if they save your life you are left seriously injured. If you are left with no injury they saved you from a minor injury.
As I recall, this assertion of TJ's is based on some pretty motheaten old studies, which were carried out around the time of Etto bucket lids with flouresecent lycra covers. Modern lids are MUCH better, with better retention systems, lower profiles, and more coverage of your head. People are also more knowledgeable about how to get a helmet that fits properly, and shitty "one size" helmets are much less common these days.
I suspect that for many of the people who don't wear lids, it isn't because they've made a balanced risk assessment or sworn off all forms of riding except Ambient Jeycore Lite. It's because of concerns about fashion (c.f. BMX, where no-one who wears a lid ever gets more than a footnote in Ride or Dig amgazine) or people thinking "It'll never happen to me".
Note also that this is an entirely separate debate to whether their use should be compulsory.
mr agreeable - find some studies that show your point then. Thats the best stuff I can find.
In some ways modern helmets have got worse - less and harder grade of poly and the testing regime remains very simple and obviously flawed.
Helmets are simply not that effective - and worse than helmets for other sports.
You should be agitating for better research and testing on cycle helmets 'cos a lot of what is out there is Richter poor quality.
I prefer evidence based stuff rather than faith - and the evidence is that helmets do not improve safety by any measurable amount
The big question is, I think, is that if you have a helmet, why aren't you wearing it? Surely the act of buying one must show that you appreciate it does something for you if you crash. You can't tell they're on nowadays so that's no excuse (and the bloke who said he can't hear as well when wearing one made me laugh out loud!!!). So why not? I assume you wear gloves and padded shorts and shades (there's always going to be someone who says they don't, just to be a smartarse).
If someone buys a £100 bike and doesn't buy a helmet because of cost doesn't wear one I can see why not. If you have you £2k niche machine but decide not to wear your £50 helmet as you feel like you've "assessed the risks and decided methodically that it'll be within acceptable limits for my intended skill schedule" (or other drivel as quoted above) then I'm afraid you're just making a fool of yourself.
It's because of concerns about fashion
I dunno, I always* wear a helmet for off-road biking, but I often ride to work on a cycle path without one, and it is much more pleasant/less sweaty. I'm sure fashion might be an issue as well.
*did forget my helmet once but as Id driven up to Grizedale I thought I'd go for a ride anyway - got some very dissaproving looks. I thought I'd try and take it easy but it didn't really work out like that
This pretty much sums it up for me
Wearing a helmet = a good idea, probablyNot wearing one = well, it's your head
last time i had a big off i hit head first to the rocks i crushed my helmet and it also broke and i ended up in intensive care i was pretty glad i had it on as i dont know what i would have been like without it. it may have been not as bad but i'll take my chances and keep wearing one
TandemJeremy - Member
mr agreeable - find some studies that show your point then.
There are more recent studies on cyclehelmets.org but according to you these don't test rotational impact so they're worthless. 🙄
If harder helmets are a bad thing then why do you wear a pisspot when you go out jumping on your tandem?
If less polystyrene is a bad thing than why do you bang on about rotation injuries and assert that wearing a helmet is a sure fire way to end up paralysed?
Testing for lids needs to be better but I'm not convinced that one lid which passes SNELL is automatically safer than one OF near-identical construction which hasn't been tested. They are not complicated things.
Bottom line, helmets aren't perfect but unless you can bail perfectly every time they are better than nothing.
sticks hand up in the air like a 5 year old at scool me me me.
last year i had a crash. high speed,head came into contact with a tree stunp(kind of top of head first) once the dust had settled and i realised my mates all had looks of horror on there faces it was pointed out that my helmet was in three bits. my head was fine.
so TJ what i am saying is that i am not up for running the other part of this test.
but yes you shouldnt have folk tutting at you cos you dont bother.
This is one of the cornerstones of the argument - cycling is very safe. It simply is not a risky activity unless you chose to make it one. The numbers of folk killed or injured each year show this.You show your ignorance of H&S and of risk assessment.
No ignorance at all. But you're showing your blinkered view. 🙂
And it's a blinkered view that causes the problems in many cases
Lets look at the facts - (CAUTION - This is going to get silly now, but let's follow it through... 🙂 )
You're balancing on 2 wheels.
Fairly high speeds can be attained fairly easily.
On the road you're small, virtually unprotected, travelling a lot slower than other traffic, and hard to see.
Off road the surface is astonishingy bad in comparison, and infinately variable. The bike spends time off the ground either by accident or design
Weather can make a big difference. (either hot or cold or wet etc)
Bikes can very easily be knocked off their chosen path by poor surface or wind. Even looking behind you can easily cause a weave.
The operator is untrained in most cases
There is no legal reqiurement relating to the mechanical state of the bike, or to PPE to be used.
There are few if any active safety systems on a bike (EG - ABS on a car. Airbags are passive safety, or I as I prefer to put it, 'emergency features' for when the safety has failed!)
Off the top of my head that's the risks I can think of.
Right in front of me right now are 2 blokes cutting several broken and rusted RSJs out of my weighbridge and welding new ones in. The RA/SWP I did for that had nowhere near as many hazzards (Hot work, traffic management, lifting, slips trips & falls basically) as I've just listed above. I have an inkling that if cycling were a 'work related task' it would simply be concluded that it was too risky and we'd have to find another way of achieving the task. (Told you this was going to get silly!)
The way a RA works is that you identify the risks then quatify them. If a risk is too high, steps are taken to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. If the level of risk can't be reduced below the acceptable level the task is not to be carried out.
A RA is not a 'ticket to ride' it's a logical way of assessing a task before you start it.
If I had the time and a way to host it, I'd do a RA, SWP, and Permission to Proceed for cycling for you. But sadly I don't. 😉
TJ, a couple of questions:
Do you own a helmet?
Do you have a) a ridiculously shaped head, b) a particularly bad skin disease or c) a dramatic and unconventionally hard to style hairdo, that would make a helmet unusually uncomfortable or socially suicidal?
And I am not joking, please let me know.
double post
Lets look at this from another angle.
We get a lot of accidents at the centre the majority of which are head and upper torso. I would much rather go pickup someone with a bust lid and some gravel rash rather than try to keep someone alive with severe head trauma while waiting for the medics to arrive, suddenly the forest isn't such an inviting place to be.
God theres a load of repetitive nonsense on this thread!
I wear a helmet all the time, my head feels cold if I don't and they look cool. They're also especially effective in the rain. I admit that a hat might be better suited to my needs, but I've got a helemet and it doesn't absorb water when it rains.
In my experience (12 years) as my experience has developed I've started to crash more often, my riding has developed, so I'm pushing the boundaries more often I guess. The analogy of not being able to drive as well as Lewis Hamilton even though you've watched him drive for a long time made me laugh, complete bollocks!
I agree with TJ to an extent, there is absolutely no way I would ever crash riding the trail pictured above and if I was doing trails like that I might consider not wearing a helmet on a hot day. But then I'd probably go for a different route as I quite enjoy rides with a relatively high probability of death.
What I find most interesting about this thread (Lets be honest the vast majority of whats been written above is utter crap thts already been said countless times on here and all over the internet) is all these accidents you're all having where you hit your head. I don't mean this in any sort of, 'I don't believe you' kind of way, but are you all a bit crap at crashing somehow? Now, over the years I've crashed a lot, pretty much every time I've had enough advanced warning to be able to effect an exit strategy that protects the most valuable bit of my body. I always cut my knees and arms, but rarely anything else, I've never broken any of the bones that get mentioned on here a lot, I've hit my head once. I hit my head earlier this year going over the bars down Chapel Gate, I hit the side bank of the deep gully. It's rare to ride down sometihng with a steep side like that, so I'm prepared to take that one as an anomaly.
I'm not saying don't wear a helmet, because I do, but has the art of crashing been lost over the years or do you all like to bleat on a bit and exaggerate to make a point?
robdob... what is actually wrong with assessing the risk of something before doing it, and then choosing whether to do it or not based on that assessment? You seem to have some problem with this...
Genisis - I have not advocated not wearing a helmet at a trail centre
Mr Agreebale - I simply have not said what you say I have and you need to have a look at the research
TJ, wasn't pointing fingers. Just a personal view 🙂
do you all like to bleat on a bit and exaggerate to make a point?
😆
It is, and has to be, all about free choice.
I made my choice in about 91 / 92. Wearing a lid was deeply unfashionable at the time - but a girl where I lived staggered sideways after being passed too close by a car. The car wasn't speeding (busy rush hour city centre traffic). The car didn't actually hit her - she panicked and in attempting to move sideways staggered and tripped, hit her head on a rough stone wall and died of her injuries...
Totally unscientific, but this otherwise inoccuous incident took someone's life. The lack of speed and lack of vehicle impact suggests to me that a helmet WOULD have made a life saving difference.
In another seemingly low risk incident, a colleague died cycling with his family - low speed, country lane, inocuous little tumble and head impact. Other freinds have had higher speed crashes, where they are convinced that a lid has saved them, and like most of us, I have had a few endos where head / rock / stump impact has left me dazed and confused, and thankful for wearing a lid...
SO, I wear a helmet - my choice. The risk management arguments about type of trail, speed, aggressive / cautious riding are fatuous - you believe that you control those factors, but like religion, it is BELIEF, not fact. You may be able to limit the risks, but as has been posted above, the seemingly stupid little low speed fall can do as much damage as a high speed stack
rkk - my point is that if you actually look at thee risks involved in some forms of riding they are so low as to be acceptable to me to take - yo really are talking millions to one chances.
I've no problem with that, it just seems very odd that someone would admit to a helmets usefullness by buying one, but thinks that they can predict the future with enough accuracy to be happy about not using it.
*bangs head on desk*
some mountainbiking is risky - then I wear an appropriate helmet. Some mountainbiking is not risky - then I don't wear a helmet.
Its not about predicting the future - its about assessing risk
rkk... if someone had tripped, fallen and hit their head while walking, would you now be wearing a helmet walking down the street? If not, why not if as you say all the risk management arguments are fatuous...
I've no problem with that, it just seems very odd that someone would admit to a helmets usefullness by buying one, but thinks that they can predict the future with enough accuracy to be happy about not using it.
You are constantly making judgements about risk, whether you are aware of it or not. It's not predicting the future, it's having common sense and making your own judgement about acceptable levels of risk vs levels of precaution. It's a constant trade-off and there are no absolutes.
Do you wear a helmet sat up there on that high horse?*
*Did anyone use this one yet in this thread? 😛
TandemJeremy - Member
rkk - my point is that if you actually look at thee risks involved in some forms of riding they are so low as to be acceptable to me to take - yo really are talking millions to one chances.
I absolutely agree - individually, the chances of being on the recieving end of one of these freak accidents is incredibly low, but us humans are very bad a risk perception, and it is probably risk perception rather than risk itself, that drives the majority on their decisions to waer / not to wear a helmet.
*bangs head on desk*
So you don't wear your helmet even though you are clearly prone to hitting your bonce on the neareast hard surface?