In defence of the parachute, my daughter had a big stack in the freeride park at GT on Sunday. Headfirst off the lemming drop, landing shoulder & chinguard first. The shoulder didn’t do too well, clavicle now in 3 pieces. The parachute did better. The chinguard took a major impact which broke the helmet around the attachment point. Nothing came loose, nothing snapped, it just absorbed the impact and deformed within the helmet structure. Had she been wearing a normal XC style lid I’m sure she’d be missing teeth and have other facial damage.
As always it’s horses for courses, but even though she’s not an extreme rider, she liked the extra protection and confidence from wearing the parachute. Looks like she was right. Although off the lemming drop she’d actually have been better wearing a proper parachute!
Rob