Ride safe, get a decent helmet.

grudas · 27 Jul 2015 at 10:33

MrKnifey said:
Give me 10 articles where someone crashed their bike without a helmet on and got back up for a cup of tea then please..

I've crashed my bike over 10 times, both BMXING and road cycling and got up for a cup of tea

banged my head a tone of times, be it pedal slamming into my head, bike crashing right in to me on trails etc! so have my BMX'ing buddies etc!

never mind the 2-3 times a year I crash on my road bike and only recently (past 2 weeks) have I started wearing a helmet.

Jono · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:10

I feel very vulnerable when I'm not wearing a helmet, whether it's out on the road or mountain bike. I've fallen off properly (at speed) only a couple of times. Both of which I hit my head, not in a full on impact, but it scraped along the road/trail for a good distance. My arms/body took the brunt of the fall, so most of my injuries were cuts/grazes... I fell off sideways, basically.

Both falls, though I think I would have a pretty big gash in the top/side of my head head (above my ears) if I hadn't had the helmet on.

My head is where I keep my brain, which is one of the things that keeps me alive... I wouldn't ever choose to ride without one.
Luckily it doesn't seem to make cars want to pass me any closer, but that's probably just the mentality of the drivers where I live.

neil_g · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:13

grudas said:
that's a VERY extreme case, I can give you 10 more articles where people have hit their heads without helmets and survived

this is the thing. sure you might survive without a helmet, but will that be with or without a life changing brain injury?

personally id not risk putting my partner in a position where they have to wipe my arse for me.

MrKnifey · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:21

grudas said:
I've crashed my bike over 10 times, both BMXING and road cycling and got up for a cup of tea banged my head a tone of times, be it pedal slamming into my head, bike crashing right in to me on trails etc! so have my BMX'ing buddies etc!

never mind the 2-3 times a year I crash on my road bike and only recently (past 2 weeks) have I started wearing a helmet.

lol typical BMX'er bet you run brakeless as well :rolleyes:

FrenchTart · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:23

Awesome baseless assumption time.

MrKnifey · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:29

I know Daily Mail, but not wearing a helmet can cause stuff like this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...maged-son-Ryan-Smith-hit-van-cycled-work.html

grudas · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:52

MrKnifey said:
lol typical BMX'er bet you run brakeless as well

you just lost any credibility you've had.

merlin · 27 Jul 2015 at 11:58

Do any of you guys run a GPS app or something when you ride solo? So like you wife/gf/family etc can see where you are?

This has just got me thinking that if I hug a tree or headbut a rock one evening out on my own (I have no MTB friends so I'm always solo & Clent Hills is a big place) the next person to find me is likely to be a sniffer dog.

grudas · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:03

merlin said:
Do any of you guys run a GPS app or something when you ride solo? So like you wife/gf/family etc can see where you are?

This has just got me thinking that if I hug a tree or headbut a rock one evening out on my own (I have no MTB friends so I'm always solo & Clent Hills is a big place) the next person to find me is likely to be a sniffer dog.

nope, rarely ride alone tho!

well, not in the bushes... crash in london any time of day and you've got 10 people around you in 5 seconds

there was this gps/necklace thingy which allows people to track you, can't remember the name now

and I also think endomondo does a live "gps" track

neil_g · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:06

merlin said:
Do any of you guys run a GPS app or something when you ride solo? So like you wife/gf/family etc can see where you are?

This has just got me thinking that if I hug a tree or headbut a rock one evening out on my own (I have no MTB friends so I'm always solo & Clent Hills is a big place) the next person to find me is likely to be a sniffer dog.

me and the OH were looking at these recently (she rides horses so would benefit her too) but never actually go around to installing one. a good idea though.

FrenchTart · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:07

I believe Strava/Garmin also supports live tracking, though it's a bit of a pain in the arse.

Jono · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:09

FrenchTart said:
I believe Strava/Garmin also supports live tracking, though it's a bit of a pain in the arse.

Garmin supports livetrack but it's incredibly flakey as to whether or not it works. Sometimes it does, for the full ride, and other times it'll crap out after about 200m and then not update for the rest of the ride.

It's great, but it does require a 3g type signal for it to update along the route - which is quite hard to get if like me you mostly ride out in the countryside (and have a completely crap mobile provider)

Supercow · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:39

I buy the very best helmets money can buy, for these reasons alone.

Yes it doesn't make me invulnerable, but I sure as hell would prefer to hit my head with a helmet on, than without one on... AND on top of that, being one that's been tested to death by a reputable company, conforming to multiple security certificates.

I help run a local MTB spot, and if we find anyone without a lid on, we eject them, simple as that. We've had complete beginners wanting to come have a look around and pootle along the tracks, to guys who have just dropped a lot of cash on new expensive bikes, without lids (for some reason these tend to be the Eastern European lot). We treat them all the same. Have had one get quite aggressive with me about it, but still ended up forcing him out with the help from backup / numbers behind me.

On the note of Boardman riding without a lid on, that's the stupidest reasoning I ever heard for not riding with a helmet on.

The reason given, was that statistics show, it's in fact better for general health to not wear a lid, than it is to wear a lid. What they failed to mention, is that the research in question was comparing the relative merits of more people riding bikes on the road = more active population = healthier population, VS the small minority who actually fall on their head and hurt themselves. Boardman has a vested interest in selling volumes of bikes through high street retailers, so obviously he's an advocate of "not wearing a lid".

I'm severely paraphrasing above, but that's the gist of it. I understand that with road riding, you're far less likely to hit your head than in MTB... but it really is my opinion that you're a complete moron by not protecting your head in the off-chance of hitting the ground with your noggin.
I personally would have been dead, without a shadow of a doubt, in some of the crashes I had... had I not been wearing a helmet.

ubersonic · 27 Jul 2015 at 12:55

Meh, no helmet = increased chance of death, helmet = increased chance of broken neck. Personally I would rather be a corpse than a vegetable.

Supercow · 27 Jul 2015 at 13:00

ubersonic said:
Meh, no helmet = increased chance of death, helmet = increased chance of broken neck. Personally I would rather be a corpse than a vegetable.

Great, one less moron in the gene pool.

ps: you can hit your head and become a vegetable... the only outcome of hitting one's head isn't always death

... in fact, we've established already that it's pretty unlikely, statistically speaking.

Phil W · 27 Jul 2015 at 13:14

I don't do road cycling so I can't comment, however when I ride my MTB locally (lanes, roads, canal paths etc) I still wear a helmet. Much rather that take the impact than my head.

My mate hitting his head yesterday could be seen as an extreme example as it was on a MTB trail however I'm 100% confident we would have been calling for an ambulance had he not been wearing it.

Eliot · 27 Jul 2015 at 14:22

grudas said:
that's a VERY extreme case, I can give you 10 more articles where people have hit their heads without helmets and survived

the above article sums up my views completely ! don't get me wrong, I now wear a helmet but the amount of crap I got when I wasn't..

people stopping in street telling me to "put my thinking hat on" etc? cmon! IMO learning to ride is a bike is way more important than wearing a helmet.

Oh brilliant I suppose because its possible to survive without on in some cases the guy in the Daily mail article shouldn't have bothered then?

That's not an extreme case, Its hitting your head with a helmet on.

I suppose Geriant Thomas shouldn't have bothered either?

Eliot · 27 Jul 2015 at 14:23

ubersonic said:
Meh, no helmet = increased chance of death, helmet = increased chance of broken neck. Personally I would rather be a corpse than a vegetable.

I think you'll find your more likely to be a vegetable without the helmet anyway....

Eliot · 27 Jul 2015 at 14:23

Phil W said:
I don't do road cycling so I can't comment, however when I ride my MTB locally (lanes, roads, canal paths etc) I still wear a helmet. Much rather that take the impact than my head.

My mate hitting his head yesterday could be seen as an extreme example as it was on a MTB trail however I'm 100% confident we would have been calling for an ambulance had he not been wearing it.

Actually, Head + rock is game over to be honest.

FrenchTart · 27 Jul 2015 at 14:24

Supercow said:
Great, one less moron in the gene pool.

ps: you can hit your head and become a vegetable... the only outcome of hitting one's head isn't always death ... in fact, we've established already that it's pretty unlikely, statistically speaking.

To be honest the extreme end of the scale of opinion you have is nearly as bad as someone who is completely anti-helmets. Rather than make lots of assumptions read up on studies (and not just ones that conform to confirmation bias) and you'll see it's nowhere near as clear-cut as you're making it sound.

edit: Quoted the wrong person sorry.