After a pretty severe impact on the corner of a rock last night, my Tectal is ruined. Hit just above my right eye, stove in the outer skin and fractured the shell. Bruised my forehead and temple. However, I feel like the helmet stood up incredibly well and saved me from a potentially horrible injury.

Who’s ruined a helmet and what did you replace it with, the same or different?

Took out the chin guard on my Fox Proframe in a one sided argument with a tree. Replaced with a Troy Lee Stages, which was some what cheaper than the potential dentists bill

My daughter, after a low speed tumble off her scooter. The helmet no doubt saved her from a nasty lump on the head, but preventing a more serious injury? I’m not convinced.

Popped the rear retaining loop off my Super 3R. Helmet written off.
Replaced with a Proframe. I do miss the removable chin guard of the 3R though.

Gave myself concussion this summer I still don’t remember how!

The helmet looked fine but I binned it as after an impact that severe it had served its time.

Rip full face and thanks for preventing anything worse 😀

It was a full carbon Specalized job and it’s been replaced with a Troy lee d2.

Over the last 12 months I’ve spent £450 on POC Octal Xs. First went on a slippery corner on a road descent – definitely saved me from a serious head injury as my head hit the deck like a brick.
Second went when I dived headfirst into deep hole on a mtb descent after my bars clipped a fallen tree. The top of my head was the only thing that hit the ground, totally unscathed elsewhere. Amazing. Again, helmet did a really good job. Had some neck pain for a while.
Third went when riding Derby in Tasmania and mislanded a jump. This time my head didn’t hit the ground hard (my ribs took a couple of months to stop hurting though) but I noticed a fine crack in the polystyrene when I got home so that Octal is binned.
I feel like I’ve learned an expensive but valuable lesson from the last two: don’t be a competitive ****. And helmets are ace.

About 18 months ago. Cracked a Specialized Tactic. Replaced it with another.

I can’t say ruined, but I retired my lovely Urge Down-O-Matic this year, it’d never taken a really massive hit but it’d taken a lot of decent hits over a good few years, so I’d had my money’s worth.

Replaced it with a TLD Stage, because it was surprisingly cheap from Merlin. Very nice it is too, feels like an upgrade as much as I did like the Urge.

(I really like the Fox open face helmet I have, so when they discontinued it I bought 2 more for spares 🙂 )

Front wheel popped off a berm at BPW and I slid along the ground on my cheap Fly Racing full facer.

No doubt it saved me from some nasty facial injuries. It seemed fine structurally but I hit hard so put a hammer through it and binned it. It cost £45 4 years ago for occasional use so it didn’t owe me anything.

My 2 and 5 year old have both had new helmets after breaking theirs in accidents on scooter and bike respectively. One compacted and the other cracked. So glad they were wearing them, no harm done other than cuts and bruises elsewhere

Killed a smith forefront on a night ride at the start of winter. Lost it on a slick bend and sort of pencil dove into a tree! Replaced with the same as it fits my weird shaped head real well

My son smashed his Giro Fixture helmet at BPW.. using the Giro crash replacement scheme replaced with Fixture MIPS for the same price.

End of the summer last year, went OTB on the most innocuous of drops, rock put a hole in top of my Montaro. Also mashed up my spine, but that’s a different story.

Thought about getting something different, but I just got the same again in a different colour.

Split a Giro Hex up the front. Have to admit that what would replace it was not at the forefront of my mind as the visiting surgeon was pulling my skin around while giving a lesson to the junior doctors on facial reconstruction techniques for multi-directional lacerations

Full-on, high-speed face-plants really, really, really hurt. And having your face stitched and glued back together, in front of a room full of people, under local anaesthetic, while still concussed is a really, really, really weird experience

Good job chicks dig scars, right?

And thank you Giro. Could have been a damn site worse

Dented a 7idp headbutting a root, replaced it with a Fox Dropframe

Wrote off my specialized helmet last year, replaced it with a generic bell one, which go written off a few months back in a bad crash that resulted in me blacking out a bit, so i now have a giro montaro, which is very comfy and feels solid, so much so that i’ve got a chronicle as well now that was in the sales, giro do seem to make the best all round helmets.

Several over the years.
I usually take benefit of crash replacement – buy another helmet half price… had a few off giro and one off Kask- all through madison/lbs. Last one was a year ago. All my crashes seem to involve tree-head interface. Ha.

My fave Urge supertrail last year at Leeds bike park,big ole dents from the front down one side,I just fell of because i’m crap.replaced like for like

Trashed my old Specialized Deviant full face lid over Christmas, although I hardly ever used to wear it. Recently got the uplift/dh day bug again so it’s been replaced with a Troy Lee D2 which I picked up for £100 in the sales, far better helmet in every way

Wrote off a Bell helmet that got dented on a tree. It was just outside replacement period, so went with a Specialized Ambush Comp. It’s got a little tracker in the headband and MIPs, an adjustable peak, is light and really comfortable.

Would get another.

Speah Ambush ANGI MIPS

Replaced my old Giro Xar with a Troy Lee A1 ( or may be A2). I found I tried on about a dozen other makes and none of them suited my head shape so I would suggest trying load and go for the most comfortable.