Do you wear a helmet, cap, neither or depends?

Yeah, it's a big debate isn't it?

I have a helmet but never took to it. Tried around 10 years ago when I got back into bikes to get into the habit, but didn't. Many reasons - too many to go over here. I read all the conflicting reports.
But I nearly always wear a cap...

Our school makes them sign a contract and they have to wear them if they come on a bike...which then reduces the numbers that come on bikes because they either don't have a helmet or have nowhere to put them at school,(about 6-8 out of 800 students ride their bike to school , which really depresses me) and in turn that puts more cars on the road, and makes less of them like to come on bikes because their parents see the roads as dangerous ...catch 22. I think places like Holland and Germany that put the bike at the centre of a cities transport infrastructure just creates more people who think like cyclists, and therefore protect cyclists.

And after having said all that, I had a boss about 12 years ago who was a keen cyclist, came off his bike and the front of his helmet took the brunt of a fall and he is pretty sure it saved him some serious damage. And let's not get started on the James Cracknell story...

100% always wear my helmet. My awakening came in 1982 when I was rear ended by a drunk driver. Luckily, I was ready for the impact and the driver was attempting to brake so only bad road rash as I managed to skid on the crushed wheel and stay on the bike (my original Viscount Gran Touring). I still have the rear rim with the bumper imprint as a reminder that shit happens and sometimes there's no way out. It really did save my life in 2009 when my seat post (Kestrel 500 sci) snapped without any warning. I woke up laying in the road surrounded by police and EMS. The helmet cracked and I had a bad concussion which is much better than my head cracking. EMS told me I was lucky that I had a helmet otherwise it would have been much worse. I struggled with post concussion syndrome for several years and biking was a real struggle due to balance issues. If I wasn't in love with biking, I would have stopped riding after that.

I think of snapping the buckle of the helmet the same way as I think of using my seatbelt every time I get in the car. The helmet is like an insurance policy. You hope you never have to use it but it's nice to know it's there when you need it. For those who don't wear a helmet, think about doing it for your family because they'll be left having to pick up the pieces if you ever hit your head without one.

Cheers,
Michael

In the US (New England at least), it is very rare to see anyone riding a bike without a helmet. We may be brainwashed but everyone just thinks it is a good idea and doesn't see a downside.

Always


"Statistics from the Snell Memorial Foundation"

"In bicycle crashes, 2/3 of the dead and 1/8 of the injured suffered brain injuries.
85% of bicycle related head and brain injuries can be prevented by a helmet.
Every year the estimated number of bicycling head injuries requiring hospitalization exceeds the total of all the head injury cases related to baseball, football, skateboards, kick scooters, horseback riding, snowboarding, ice hockey, in-line skating and lacrosse.
Estimated indirect costs for injuries to unhelmeted cyclists are $2.3 billion yearly.
In bicycle crashes, 2/3 of the dead and 1/8 of the injured suffered brain injuries.
95% of bicyclists killed in 2006 reportedly were not wearing helmets."

There is some peripheral evidence that Americans have softer heads so that could be a factor. Full disclosure, I am a US citizen.
Brian

I never saw the advantages of the padded hairnet, but as soon as the Bell V1 Pro came out I grabbed one and have gone through a dozen variations since then. I never ride without one. Typically on the motorcycles I've owned, my helmets cost more than the bikes themselves. I wish that were true on the bicycles.

I always wear a helmet, although I am not convinced that they would do a lot of good in the event of a serious crash. But I have a conversation in my head that goes like this: Judge "The court is sorry that you are in a wheel chair (or worse, Mrs C, sorry about your late husband) and we believe that the crash was 100% caused by the driver who was driving over the legal alcohol limit / well over the speed limit / while using their mobile phone (or all three) however, because you / your late husband was not wearing a helmet, I hold you/him partly to blame for your/his injuries and the amount of damages is consequently reduced by 50%".
So I always wear a helmet.

There's always a trade-off. If full-face bike helmets were sufficiently cooled, hitting target heartrate for intervals on the road wouldn't cause profuse sweat to run in the eyes, which introduces its own dangers. For leisurely joy riding, a full-face helmet is probably a good idea, but when training hard it's not practical. The sweat in the eyes aside, the heat generated during intense activity would be dangerous in the warm months. My Giro helmet has a vented face shield that covers the eyes and the helmet dips down to cover the ears and back of the head. A good set of cycling glasses will also offer protection from impacts for those with helmets sans face shields. It certainly makes good sense to wear a full-face helmet for riding in the woods or competing in off-road events where crashes are common and rocks and stumps are plentiful. As far as seats go, everyone's ass is different. I find the noseless ISM saddles to be comfortable and unrestrictive. I see a lot of personal preferences listed here and elsewhere, but I don't think anyone here or on any of the cycling forums I've checked into is making a fashion statement with respect to saddle choices. I've ridden from San Francisco to San Diego with one of those supposed fashion statements and never had any issues with soft tissue pain, bone problems or saddle sores. It takes training your muscles on the low end of your body to get comfortable on any saddle, wide-body, or not. I've also had a few crashes, one of which with a 1990 Kiwi helmet kept my head intact when going head first over the handlebars when a city worker had left a utility grating ajar and the front wheel went underground. My hip took a beating but the helmet crash to the back of my head caused no injury there. The emergency room doctors said I was fortunate to have been wearing a helmet. Emergency room stats do indicate some level of protection for wearing anything that covers the head. I will say, that if manufacturers made a sufficiently vented full face helmet for triathlons and time trials, I'd certainly get one.  Personally, I don't care what other people wear or use but I make choices based on my level of activity and conditioning, data from reliable sources and experiential background which is steeped in literally many tens of thousands of miles on bicycles. I suspect I am not alone.

I hope the following anecdote, which is directly about helmets, is not too far off the original topic. For a few months now I have been making an extra effort to smile and laugh. I mentioned my use of the Kiwi helmet in a prior post and it always reminds me of this:

Back in the early 90s, I was competing seriously in triathlons. Most people had not yet grown accustomed to triathlon bikes with their disk wheels and aerobars or the way triathletes dressed. On Wednesday afternoons I would bicycle to one of the local high school tracks and run either 440-yd or 400-meter intervals just like I did in high school. As I cycled into the track area at New London High School I saw two young kids sitting in the bleachers next to the track. The younger one was maybe 7 or 8 and the older perhaps 11 or 12. I was wearing my Kiwi helmet which was large and yellow and had a built-in dark visor that covered half of my face. The two walked up to me and the younger one asked, "Hey mister, are you a man or a robot?" I let out a good laugh and before I could answer the older kid smacked the younger on the head and said, "Of course he's a man you dummy" The kids were interested in the bike and I took the opportunity like I try to always do and told them all about it and the sport and why I was there.

Not long after that, a friend of mine gave me a Lambert bike because he could no longer cycle. It was a generous gift, but I had Viscounts and not Lamberts, so I went to that track a few times after that thinking I would give it to them since they didn't have a bike, but I never saw them again. I kept the bike for a few weeks and then decided to donate to the local shelter for battered women and their children. I always hoped it found its way into the life of a kid who was going through tough times and that it made some difference. I wish I had found those two kids though. The laugh they gave me was easily worth that Lambert.

Blackwizard, good point about not making helmets compulsory. I usually have an adverse reaction to being compelled. I eventually learned that when you want something done a certain way (or done at all) it is better to make it the other person's idea and then congratulate them for thinking of it.

In Massachusetts and many other states helmets are compulsory for children. I think the age varies but in Mass. it is under 16.

That looks painful, Jim! Glad you came out of it with no serious long term damage.

I’ve had a few accidents but most were back in the teenage BMX days, the worst being breaking my thumb.

In adulthood someone gave me an old 10 speed Racer around the time I didn’t have much interest in cycling other than getting from A to B, I don’t even remember what make it was but don’t think it was anything decent. Anyway, the forks snapped whilst riding down my own street (thankfully), it seemed to happen in slow motion as I went over the handlebars and somehow go into a forward roll on the road. A woman walking down the street shrieked when she saw it, I brushed myself down more embarrassed than anything but when I got home the shock and pain hit me, nothing more than bruises and grazes though.
That was the worst one I remember.