Forum menu
joolsburger - Member,,,,,,,,,,, I think people are silly if they don't wear them but ultimately it's their head.
I regularly ride uphill with my helmet hanging off the end of my bars, I get hot otherwise. ,,,,,,,,,,,
Are you admitting to be silly then not wearing one all the time?
Or have you decided that going slowly on a doubletrack the risk is low enough that you are prepared to accept it?
Horses for courses I never said all the time. If you're pottering about I can't see the need for a helmet, I never wear one when I'm on the tow path for instance. On a 20 minute climb I'm into comfort so it comes off. When I say silly I mean if your doing some proper fast MTB, it's really worth wearing one in my experience.
Tend to agree with you. Its all about rational risk asessments
"Not really much to do with OP, but at the weekend I saw a couple of blokes riding the black run at Laggan without helmets. I commented to their mates that the black was probably not the place to ride without a helmet."
What always baffles me a bit is the guys who carry them around but never wear them... I've seen this on McMoab, which is pretty much the place at Kirroughtree where if you're only going to wear a helmet for 10 minutes all day, is where you'd do it... And at various spots of Innerleithen too, and on the nevis red. Why even bother taking it? I've got no major issue with people who choose not to wear helmets most of the time but that's just plain daft.
Absolutely I'll decide when a helmet is warranted. Like just before faceplanting a steep roll in two weeks ago!! Bell do a cheap replacement scheme luckily enough.
So long as we still have the freedom to choose I'm happy
I don't wear a helmet on my uni commute (all roads) but I wear one nearly all of the time otherwise; don't wear one to uni because its a hassle carrying a helmet about all day and don't rate my chances, even with a helmet, if I get hit by a car....
I didn't used to wear helmets, but then I bought a "decent" helmet and just got into the habit of doing it. I've fallen off a fair few times, never hit my helmet. Dented one when I hit a branch but it I wasn't wearing a hat I think I'd have missed the branch with my head anyway.
Its just a matter of weighing up the risk. Yes there is always a chance of serious impact (even at slow speeds) but its not as likely as goign very fast down a hill or whatever.
Okay, I'm calm again now. I'd call 999 _every single time_. I'm the first out of the car if I see an accident, and the first to rush to see what the cause of the thud is.
It.Just.Makes.Me.So.Cross. Sorry. I'll never get the image of my mum looking like frankenstein out of my head.
Always wear a helmet? No. Always wear a lid on rides out on trails and roads? Yes.
It's all about "acceptable risk." Pretty much everything we do carries some form of risk and has some means of mitigating that; it's a constant trade-off between careful and over-cautious. I could get hit by a car crossing the road, so I could decide never to cross roads, or only do it at designated crossings, or just look both ways and pay attention before I cross.
I know people who rock-climb without a helmet. I know people who do it without a rope. I know people who've jumped out of aeroplanes without a reserve, or an AAD (safety device), or seen on TV very occasionally without a parachute at all. I've read at length skydiving post-mortems where one of the questions asked is "would an AAD have prevented this accident?" - it's often 'yes' and yet still people won't use them. I see people overseas without motorbike helmets, and teenagers here without even a pair of gloves, and it makes me wince. Ultimately though, it's their call, they've made a choice and have to suffer the sometimes terminal consequences.
If I'm riding the bike 10 yards from the car to the front door, putting on a lid is probably overkill; granted it's not a 100% risk-free activity, the bike could spontaneously combust or something perhaps, but I'm making the decision not to wear a helmet when trundling down the path to my house after assessing the potential risk. If I'm on the trail I'll always wear one, because it's no hardship to do so, it beats carrying it, and I've only got the one head. As a friend of mine once said, "I don't care what statistics say, it -will- be me."
The other thing of course is how many people actually wear their helmets properly? From what I have seen a small minority have the straps correctly done up.
I managed to completely misjudge going up a tiny kerb at about 2mph, due to being half asleep (6:30 am).
Keeled over sideways, clipped in, and landed on my helmet on nice hard concrete.
I always wear a lid off road, because although the consequences of a fall may be less than on road (i.e. all road crashes are onto something hard, off road landings are usually softer!) I'm more likely to be pushing it a bit off road, so offs may be more likely. On road I tend not to, but the traffic here is generally quiet & well behaved.
I find it a bit odd that someone will always bring up a risk in ANY circumstance no matter how 'safe'. If your going to say that riding at 3mph without a helmet is dangerous, you really have to say that as a pedestrian you need one as well! People actually have been hurt or killed falling over as a pedestrian. I think there is a bit of a culture of seeing danger everywhere. I prefer not to see safety equipment as something that's going to keep me out of trouble. Instead I like to think about what I & everyone else is doing & keep myself safe that way. After all, if I get run over by something big a helmet isn't going to help much anyway. Prevention being better than cure & all that.
Orange - very true - active and passive safety. Active safety helps you avoid accidents, passive reduces the impact of accidents.
classic STW thread 🙂
[url=
Even the pros take their hot lids off sometimes 😉