The urge to ditch the lid……..

Anyone else get it?

I know it’s stupid – I’m a bloody neuro rehab coach ffs, I work with people with acquired brain injuries.
And I’m firmly of the opinion that wearing one saved my stepdaughter’s life a few years ago

Buuuuut…….I’ve developed such an aversion to the sodding thing that I started leaving it behind on minor solo jaunts.
But as much as I enjoy not wearing one, I know I’m being selfish – I don’t want my family to have to purée my food and feed me for the rest of my life because I tried my luck one too many times.
So the lid goes back on, and I hate it.

Anyone else get the urge, or the subsequent guilt?

No. Buy a new helmet that you like wearing.

Helmets are so light, well-vented and comfy these days that I don’t mind wearing one at all.

Wear a cap. It will keep the sun off you, if nothing else!

….and yes, I’ve begun to wonder how it must feel to go….naked.

I don’t wear one for commuting or fire road bimbling, always stick one on for mountain biking. Certainly don’t feel guilty about it. I have tripped over my feet at the bottom of a flight of stairs far more than I have had accidents on the type of riding I don’t deem a helmet necessary for, and I don’t intend to start wearing a helmet every time I have to tackle a flight of stairs..

I often don’t bother on the way to work etc which everyone moans at me about but I wouldn’t dream of not doing it on the mtb.

Having come off and smacked my head last week, I’m pretty glad I was wearing a lid.
Still had one hell of a headache…

Rarely wear one in the winter, I’d much rather wear a nice winter cap. Always wear one when riding off-road or in a group.

Well you clearly know the risks and I’m not going to preach.

I’ve gone the other way, after coming back from morzine last month I found myself riding locally at much the same speeds as I was in the Alps where I was wearing full face and armour, I felt naked in my Giro zar so purchased a new D3 for Alps duty and have tossed the giro on the top of the wardrobe and started wearing my Urge enduro instead.

It’s a free world. But I bet on here I get just as much stick for owning 3 helmets as you will for not wearing one.

always wear mine, apart from that one time i popped out to pick up a curry after a day at cwmcarn

ive got 2 young kids, its just not worth it

I’ve always worn one since I started racing over 25 years ago and, especially coming from a m/cycle trials and enduro background, wouldn’t consider not wearing one on a mountain bike.
Having said that, I sometimes don’t if I’m just popping a few hundred yards down the road to my in-laws but was glad I did the other day as I stopped to try riding up a short flight of steps on the way back…….
Not unusually for me, it all went wrong and I ended up down a bank and smacking the side of my head on a tree – it hurt like f#ck with a helmet so I dread to think what it would have been like without one.

Go for it. I ride to work without a helmet (which actually breaks the law here) and sometimes go a spin on the easier trails here without one. Ride a little slower and less gung ho without it, but it feels great 😀

Have a couple of well fitting comfy helmets but still go barehead on gentle trails, strangely liberating.
Always wear one on long rides and anything techy or fast though.

I forgot my helmet on a ride up Helvelyn once and didn’t realise until I got to the top.

i actually really like them (although i’m sure i look ridiculous wearing them on my massive bonce), and i seem to have amassed half a dozen different ones (well, 3 of those are giro features in different colours!), with plans to get more soon too (a new full face and one of those new giro montaro MIPS things when they land).

Depends on the ride I do
Bimble about I wont bother and dont make the kids either.

Off road I always wear one – actually that is not true but I do if it is above gnarmac levels of riding

You are as likely to injure yourself walking as riding and its your own risk to assess.

Used to feel strongly pro wearing but TJ [ may peace be apon him] and others have persuaded / worn me down over the years on STW

I have split two helmets in crashes as well

In Holland no one wears a lid not even for dodging the Trams…In Corfu (20 yrs ago) we rode Yamaha DT’s around most of the island in T-Shirts , shorts and just sunglasses on your face, but a couple of riding mates have had biggies this year and the crash hat definitely did its job. I understand the urge but I’ll keep wearing mine for now.

I often don’t bother on the way to work etc which everyone moans at me about but I wouldn’t dream of not doing it on the mtb.

This.

Even had a woman at work go on about how you should ALWAYS wear one, and her closing remark was “well, if you ever get run over by a lorry you’d have wished you’d have been wearing one…” 🙄

Get a helmet that fits right! I’ve had two friends suffer brain injuries and although a helmet won’t prevent all of them, anything that reduces the risk for little hassle seems worth it.

Wear one sometimes off road. Have to wear one racing. Don’t wear one otherwise for thousands of miles.

RS – yes get it. No head gear, solo riding. Love it. Spent my whole childhood doing it and still enjoy it now.

But used to like canoeing/windsurfing/sailing without life jacket and solo rock climbing – all heighten the senses wonderfully. Don’t to do any of these now though, in fact don’t even do roped climbing anymore!

Always wear one on mtn. Over hanging branches etc.
Only time I wear one on road bike is if roads are wet.

I have discovered it’s normally the newbie cyclist who make the biggest fuss about wearing helmets.

pootling on the canal path with kids: no helmet.
commuting: helmet if it’s raining
road: about 50/50 with no real rationale for when I do/don’t
mtb: always take a helmet. Often if I have a lot of climbing to do I’ll start with it strapped to my pack and put it on at start of first downhill (but not DH) section. Sometimes get to bottom of first hill and realise I forgot to put it on.

As an aside, I was skiing with a guide a couple of years ago and remarked on his fine bobble hat. His view… 85% of life-changing injuries on the slopes were spinal. His advice… if you want to buy a helmet, do it the day after you buy a spine protector.

I always wear mine, if I didn’t then I wouldn’t feel right asking my kids to wear theirs.

I’ve passed a quy on the local trails a few times who has a lid that he keeps on his handle bar! It’s almost like it’s mounted to the stem? I don’t see the point in that at all.

Helmets are like shoes, if your proportions aren’t ‘normal’ then manufacturers aren’t really interested in providing you with a product that fits.

I don’t find motorbike and mtb full face helmets to be such a problem because there’s a lot more padding but normal lids just don’t fit me well. I’ve owned about 10 or so over the years and tried on god knows how many but there’s always too much pressure on my forehead and too much space at the sides.

If I tighten it up so that it’s secure then after about 20 minutes I start getting a headache. So I tend to leave it ‘comfortable but not very effective in a crash’ for uphills and tighten it so that it’s ‘secure but soon to be uncomfortably distracting’ for downhills.

Anything other than mountain biking I don’t bother wearing one.

A few of us off here (and one who is sadly no longer with us) riding our bikes

I’ve passed a quy on the local trails a few times who has a lid that he keeps on his handle bar! It’s almost like it’s mounted to the stem? I don’t see the point in that at al

Protecting his gonads, perhaps? 🙂

Funny how civilised things are in here tonight…

I can barely bring myself to ride round the garden without one (and no my garden is not enormous and full of north shore and dirt jumps). This is even more so since I nearly put an end to the family holiday last year by trying and succeeding to manual a bmx for the first time and realising how much smaller weight shift was needed a bit too late – i.e. at the point where I narrowly avoided splitting my head open on a big paving slab after landing flat on my back.

I’ve been wearing a lid for 90+% of my riding for so long it’s become totally ingrained to the extent I will pop a helmet on to ride the 1/2 mile or so to the local shops (also sets a good example to the kids).

It’s a personal thing, but for me it’s like wearing a seat belt in the car (even before that became legal). The vast vast majority of the time it’s completely pointless and unnecessary, but once in a blue moon it might just come in handy. And I kind of feel naked without it…

Fireroad slogs, I’ll take it off. Riding on roads or MTB trails, I’ll always wear a helmet.

I know the day I don’t wear mine, is the day I fall off and become a cabbage, even though I used to commute to school without one, day in, day out when I was a kid.

For that reason I wear mine all of the time, occasionally taking if off for a steep climb on a hot day.

The only times I’ve worn a helmet in the last couple of decades were cycling with a club (club rule) or in Vancouver (helmet law).

But then my off road cycling tends to be tracks and trails rather than techy. If I did hard stuff off road or cycled on road in large groups I might wear one more often.

As even the (criticised) Transport Research Lab assessment of evidence reckoned helmets would save only 10-16% of fatalities the benefits are marginal. Either cycling is safe or if it’s dangerous reducing the risk by 10-16% is pretty marginal. I think it’s safe.

http://road.cc/content/news/12058-ctc-slams-transport-research-laboratory-cycle-helmet-report

we never wore them ‘when we were kids’ because the environment wasn’t the same, car useage is increasing all the time and the amount of traffic furniture and potholes don’t help either
every journey is different from all the factors, time of day, conditions, route, purpose, everyone has different risk acceptance levels.

always for commuting
pretty much always for road rides
going to the shops riding the big tank then I may not

as for off-road, I always wear mine to prevent the kind of things that wouldn’t be life threatening but still not good, branches, etc as much as big crashes (also mitigated by my utter mincing style as a rider)

totally understand the frustration though, it’s low likelihood of a bad result…

In terms of situations where they’d help, it’s really not all that different.

I used to be doubtful of point of wearing one for ‘boring’ riding.

This was ‘just riding along’ on a cycle path, with nobody else around, about 5 minutes into my commute home a week ago.

Head is OK – Shame about the elbow and shoulder… 🙁

I shall be getting another helmet just the same and wearing it when I eventually get back on the bike (6 – 8 weeks?). Everyone else can please themselves 🙂

I had a crash at the weekend – fell lowside of the trail onto rocks. I was wearing a helmet and kneepads.

There was a moment when I knew I’d smacked my back hard onto a rock, and I hadn’t quite registered that I could feel my legs just fine.

Probably won’t be wearing a back protector when I go out next. Although I’m sure they’re perfectly comfy when you get used to them.

🙂

I’ve split one helmet (tried to wheelie on my first ever ride with SPDs) across the back. I’ve banged my head hard enough to feel dizzy for the rest of the day and there was a big stone imprint in the front of the helmet.
A friend fell off and couldn’t get up. In the end he unclipped his helmet… it took plenty of heaving to retrieve his helmet where it had been impaled on a sapling tree stump.

I’m fairly certain that two of those incidents would have been catastrophic without helmets.

I’ve been riding with a helmet since my parents got me a Tuff Top. I’ll occasionally take my helmet off for a long, hot fire road climb. My helmet stays on the bars of my bike though so even for a quick ride to the shops, it’s there and it goes on.

A couple of weeks ago, I rode to school (2km) without my helmet. I was running late and couldn’t fine it. Honestly, it was a little liberating, but not enough to warrant the risk.

I always wear a helmet, on road and off. (Although yesterday I cycled to my mates house, 2 minutes, without. Felt guilty/naked!)

Never wore one as a kid but there weren’t any H&S preachers about in the 70’s and 80’s.

I don’t actually feel my cycle helmet on.
I once drove from Windermere youth hostel, over the Kirkstone Pass on a bank holiday caravan traffic weekend, to meet a mate in Brothers Water carpark, only to find I’d left my helmet in the YH. Much to his annoyance I refused to ride and made the very slow return journey to collect my lid.
After splitting a helmet on a rock at Hamsterley in the 90’s I’ve never once (shops aside) ridden without one.

Just second nature and the law here. Lids sit next to the bikes so just pick it up on the way out for everything. So many nice comfy Lids out there for all head shapes and sizes and weights it’s hard not to find a decent one.