I can't speak for anyone else but I'm protecting against Boris hair full of bugs. I suppose a hairnet would do the same job. Do they come in hi-vis?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
THE Helmet Thread
(895 posts)-
Posted 6 years ago #
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@trixie, have you tried a cycle cap? Absorbs sweat, keeps head dry. Stops helmet hair, can be worn with or without helmet
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Roibeard some of the difficultiy there is that although it is possible to observe behaviour, it’s difficult to measure effect. The only way really to do that is to measure pre/post change.
Re Netherlands, and bike lanes etc, it’s interesting that ~0.5% of cyclists in the Netherlands wear helmets, but 13% of presented head injuries are helmeted. With stats like that it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that means helmets are culpable for the higher rate.
The reality is different types of cycling, so the Netherland model of lots of cyclists on sit up bikes riding at 8mph, is not comparable to the ‘sports’ cyclists presenting at hospitals.
That difference in type of cycling is also quite important here where most (not all by any stretch) are in Lycra cycling more than 13mph fast commuting, or road cycling. That makes quite a difference to the presumption it’s safe to ride without a helmet. In some sense we’re using the same figures to compare almost different modes of transport.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Not as yet but I need to for next summer. My scalp is bizarrely sensitive to sunburn - I was close to installing a knotted hanky under my lid this year.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Baldcyclist - so how about for the UK?
Whilst I doubt that helmets cause head injuries in the Netherlands, it does appear that either the helmeted cyclists are taking greater risks in normal cycling, or doing more risky cycling.
I'd guess that driver behaviour isn't a big factor given the infrastructure.
UK data would at least remove the infrastructure confounding factor!
Robert
Posted 6 years ago # -
or doing more risky cycling.
How do you propose to separate the activities, Transport/utility cycling is inherently less dangerous than sport cycling or off road cycling especially once you remove the ever present danger of sharing the road with a black cab.
No one seriously compares the ksi stats for Isle of Mann tt to a 50cc commuter or a rally to the shopping run.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Re Netherlands Sounds like as @baldcyclist says, the helmeted ones who suffer a disproportionately high rate of head injury, are doing something different, racing perhaps, or off-road.
The sit-up, 8mph ones, who are already doing something which is actually quite safe, cycling, they are in fact safer on average than the helmeted ones. In the UK context, we don't have the infrastructure, but the risk is still of the same order as the Netherlands (although admittedly larger). So with a very low risk, and several mitigating factors against helmets (cost, inconvenience, bad hair) it is a perfectly logical decision not to wear one.
The lottery argument, that someone will be injured every week, is such a low magnitude additional risk. That's why I've never bought a lottery ticket.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I went down ravelrig road one Sunday morning with the Balerno dads (and now some women , also people from Currie, Juni green and Colinton) at the bottom of this steep hill I realised the curious feeling I was experiencing was lack of helmet. I declined to go back up the hill to get it. Cycled round forth without helmet. Felt weird.
We do occasionally report on here of cyclist being knocked down by a driver, or pothole or whatever. We state the road and whether they are up. I always have a hopeful picture in my mind of them being up with silver blanket. In the picture there is usually a helmet
Turning to what we can say from the various different data that isn't being contested?
1. Helmets will not stop you being knocked off
2. If travelling in excess of 12.5mph this is a speed beyond the BSI standard (FKA Kitemark) . Is this still accurate?
3. A & E presentations tend to be from downhill and or road cycling not commuting?
4. Injuries e.g from falling off on the tram tracks are predominantly shoulder related? (Can this be stretched to most tumble related injuries are not the sort a helmet would help with?)
5. To make something compulsory we would need more evidence? I mean if governments made decisions based on data.On How To Win The Lottery here is my top tip proffered freely (though I have never played the lottery)
Each week put the two pounds a ticket costs in a bottle. At the end of the year you will be guaranteed a £104 return.
Posted 6 years ago # -
slightly OT, but I once worked with a guy for several years who was a bit obsessed with the lottery / convinced he was going to win. He refused to ever pick any of the numbers 1 - 9 as "there's less of them so less chance they'll be picked". I guess he's not wrong, but not for the reason he thinks.
Sometimes I have to pop out of work to do some messages and can take pretty much the cycle path +90% of the way - on occasion I will forgo the helmet - feels so rebellious.
Posted 6 years ago # -
He refused to ever pick any of the numbers 1 - 9 as "there's less of them so less chance they'll be picked".
I'm struggling here. Do I want to understand?
Posted 6 years ago # -
. If travelling in excess of 12.5mph this is a speed beyond the BSI standard (FKA Kitemark) . Is this still accurate?
When I looked at this a few years ago the test was anvil dropped from two metres. I'm assuming the speed thing came from the approx velocity an object accelerates to in 2 metres under nominal gravity.
Being charitable the reporter didn't understand vector acceleration and assumed they were not useful at over 12mph of horizontal velocity when in fact the test has nothing to do with your absolute speed. Being uncharitable they were deliberately muddying the water...
Every off I've ever had I've bounced along the surface for a few metres shedding energy to friction. I have never had an anvil dropped on my head.
Posted 6 years ago # -
@Frenchy
It's OK mate he meant 'fewer'. Fewer of them.
Posted 6 years ago # -
funnily enough if you are going to engage with a thinly veiled feudal taxation system offering hope with homeopathic chances of actual success, you are better off not picking numbers 1 - 31 as most people pick dates so if you do get all the numbers there is statistically more chance of you winning the jackpot all to yourself.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I suspect you can also go with a sequence, x, x+1, x+2... [1]
Since it's random, folk don't expect such a sequence so are less likely to pick it.
Neither tactic increases your chances of winning, but should increase your chance of not sharing that win!
Robert
[1] I've no idea of the valid numbers, nor how many are picked, so the details are left for the reader!
Posted 6 years ago # -
(CCE - the only place on the web where contentious threads drift gently in the stream of consciousness...)
Posted 6 years ago # -
also - if you fill in the lottery sheet / grid thing, people tend to avoid the ones around the edges, so does not increase your chances by picking them, but decreases the chance of having to share should you win.
@ grammar pedants - you should know better / what I meant
Posted 6 years ago # -
"...I realised the curious feeling I was experiencing was lack of helmet. I declined to go back up the hill to get it. Cycled round forth without helmet. Felt weird."
I got that in 2010, when I'd popped up from the new house to the old flat to do the skirting board and had thence popped to the woodmonger. I wish I'd gone through the whole "but I was only wearing it anyway as I thought it was expected" slightly sooner, after suffering the spring and summer with a very hot head on my new longer/always-cycled commute.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I'm not a grammar pedant I was just inferring that @Frenchy might be one.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The only time a helmet would have actually done me good was when I was off collecting a takeaway from the local Indian. I was gently transitioning from the street to a pavement with a miniscule elevation on the 'flush curb'. Ironically it was because I was going so slow - less than walking speed - that my wheel twisted on the elevation and the bike tipped. Unfortunately there was a lamp post that that my head made contact with. What helmets are designed for, really. I wasn't wearing one and I had a sore head for awhile. It didn't convince me to wear one all the time though, risk is too low given my style of riding - pedestrrian.
Posted 6 years ago # -
Cycled to the shops bareheaded for thrills and giggles. Felt good. Real good.
Don't tell my mum mind. Promised her I'd always wear a magic hat.
Posted 6 years ago # -
"@Baldcyclist - so how about for the UK?"
So, to go back to NL for a bit. 13% helmeted cyclists appearing at hospitals with head injury, against 0.5% of population wearing them. Of that 13%, some will be mountain biking gone wrong. The bigger proportion is likely (of course I'm guessing) to be people on roads, and on cycle infrastructure on drop bar bikes falling off/crashing for whatever reason.
Now if you extrapolate that to the UK, and the type of cycling that we do, it's predominately dropped handle bar bikes, or even hybrids going fast. In that London, that's still happening even with infrastructure - it will be interesting to see if they slow down over time.
I remember a conversation years ago with Ansterdamized, or whatever his handle was, or the other one from Copenhagen (they were a bit preachy and annoyed me so I stopped following them), but he more are less said, 'the reason you're all falling off and banging your heads is because your clipped in and leaning forward all the time'. He certainly thought the style of riding had as much to do with the need for a helmet, as the risk because of the infrastructure, or lack of it.
So it's possible we could build a cycling utopia here, and still have higher head injury rates than much of Europe because we need to chill out and sit up...
A lot of that is conjecture, and opinion of someone else...
Posted 6 years ago # -
'the reason you're all falling off and banging your heads is because your clipped in and leaning forward all the time'.
I think there's a lot in that. You do see an awful lot of people round town on drop handle bikes who aren't off on a training ride. And the traditional image of the British cycle commuter is full-on lycra/drops.
we need to chill out and sit up...
Of course, chilling out would likely follow the provision of decent infrastructure. Until then, I'll probably feel more comfortable in traffic when going at a similar speed, which will increase the injury risk (head or otherwise) in the event of a crash/spill.
Posted 6 years ago # -
I'm pretty sure that the Dutch do not all cycle around at 8mph.
Many of them will be doing 12+ mph. Sure, Dutch bikes are generally heavy & sit-up, but that doesn't matter much on the flat and whenever there is not a headwind.
I bet if you were to examine the mode (the most common) speed of Dutch cyclists versus British ones, there wouldn't be much difference (maybe 2 or 3 mph).
Posted 6 years ago # -
I have a Pashley parabike with a 5sp Sturmey Archer gear, it’s pretty comparable to some English (design the Dutch use) bikes. It never really gets above 10mph, and I average about 8mph on it. Less if I have the trailer, think my max speed was 15mph, but I couldn’t keep that up for long. Sure there are people who are faster on that type of bike. I don’t wear a helmet on that bike, and it’s pretty much the only one I use now.
Conversely on my steel commuter I average 13/14mph on a 20 mile commute (when fit, been far from for too long) to Fife. I can get way past 20mph on that bike. I wear a helmet on that.
My carbon road bike can go quite a bit quicker than the commuter too.
Posted 6 years ago # -
two of my students caught up to me at a red light the other day, and one asked why i wasn't wearing a helmet. i gave my reasons, they nodded, the light was green, we set off.
not until later did i think it must have seemed a bit odd to the cyclist already at the lights when we arrived, that someone was asking random strangers about their safety choices.
Posted 6 years ago # -
The article on road.cc is vaguely interesting. The nice thing, at the time of writing at least, is that the comments under it are rather lovely, and although there is lots of argument, none of it is about bike helmets. I hope it stays that way.
https://road.cc/content/news/252652-study-still-indicates-drivers-give-cyclists-wearing-helmets-less-room-whenPosted 6 years ago # -
@greenroofer, good old Ian Walker
Posted 6 years ago # -
Aaargh
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-48773840
Should add, why is it that these people who've had an incident on a bike are given the air-time to push their views? Having a crash on a bike doesn't make you an expert on public health, epidemiology. materials science or all the other things that you need to understand before you should make pronouncements on the BBC about bike helmets.
RIDING A BIKE ISN'T DANGEROUS
Posted 5 years ago # -
Next time someone crashes their car, they can go on the BBC to say that speed-limiters and black-boxes should be compulsory. That's how this works, isn't it?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Posted 5 years ago #
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