I appreciate my helmet. I treat it with respect. I never leave for a ride without it. I replace it after a crash or even after helplessly watching it bound down the stairwell like some kind of deformed styrofoam slinky-dink after allowing it to slip from my grasp. (This activity also typically involves some assertions questioning what it does in its spare time, its origins of birth, and things of that nature.) Community member @chaz also recently suggested that, in accordance with motorcycle tradition, we ceremoniously cut the strap on the helmet and hang it in the VVorkshop in deference to the purpose it served us.
Suffice to say, I’m grateful for the advances technology offers us when it comes to protective headgear, because staying alive is in alignment with my strategy. But progress is the slayer of ritual and tradition, and I can’t help but look back longingly to the days when helmets were rarely worn and if they were, they consisted of thin strips of leather that, assuming it stayed on, would do little more than keep your cranium from coming apart after cracking it to bits on a cobblestone or some such object.
The hairnet was the coolest cranial accouterment ever designed, with the insulated cycling cap that fit over it being a close second. The cycling cap on its own was, of course, also a class piece of kit to be worn forwards, sideways, or backwards – made cooler only by perching a set of cycling-specific shades on top of it. A helmetless head saw hair slicked back by the wind as a byproduct of the V as riders raised their arms in triumph over the finish line. The bare noggin on the high mountain passes was a beacon of Purified Awesome, allowing us to see in all their glory the suffering faces of the riders as they moved sur la plaque over the summit.
Take a moment, fellow Velominati, to honor the Useless Headgear of our past.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Headgear/”]
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
@Marko
I hear you. Re my previous post about wearing a helmet - it was one way to get out the door (and past my mother) without getting the lecture on why helmets were good. Crashing off a steep descent on the Glennifer Braes (sans helmet, of course) and coming home with a scratched up face didn't help my cause either. I did draw the line when I came to the States in 1990 and my college room-mates parents suggested I wear an open face motorbike helmet when I went out riding. In southern Indiana in late summer. Not gonna happen.
@Oli
Hot damn, did I actually get it right?!? Thanks!
+1 to @ChrisO for an intelligently worded post against the grain of the discussion to that point and +1 to @frank for maintaining a neutral stance.
I recently read an article that suggested that research showed drivers were more likely exercise great caution passing a helmet-less rider. it seems to me either case can be argued. My kids see me coming and going for most of my rides which is probably my primary reason for wearing a helmet.
Personally, I'm not entirely convinced about the amount of protection afforded by road helmets, I think you'd need a good dose of luck to go with it especially at the sort of speeds that are achievable even on the flat. Mountain bike helmets such as the Bell Variant, Fox Flux and Giro Hex that extend lower round the back of the head would seem to offer more protection but even then I'm not convinced.
I wear a full face moto cross helmet of the time on my mountain bike although I might strap it onto the back of my camel back for longer climbs. I wouldn't be without it though any more than I'd be without armour having destroyed a couple when landing on my head/shoulder after an extended period of time in the air.
@sgt spot on, if you believe your kids should be wearing a helmet it's a pretty poor exampled to them if you don't join them. My boys both wear full face helmets - one of them has removed significant amounts of skin crashing at the skate with a regular lid and it could have been worse if his head hadn't narrowly missed the edge of the ramp.
@frank:
spot on, the Sub-6 was the reason I started wearing helmets, they added a cool factor to riding, because helmets up to then were gaudaweful, to the point i would crash just to get rid of the thing.
they have come a long way
i have to admit: on a pretty fall day, for a slow post season ride, there is nothing like heading out for an easy quiet ride w/the vermarc cycling cap, brim down just over the low setting sun, glasses parked outside the cap. Its like a slow sip on good espresso.
@ChrisO
The suggestion of the a new rule was in fact mine.. Said more in jest than ever expecting it to see added to the near biblical set of rules; I am a firm believer in the helmet. Working as a Paramedic Fireman long enough to be completely burnt out, you see a few things. It seems to me that a bike helmet's real job is to prevent many a minor injury from becoming a catastrophic one much like a construction worker's 'bump' cap. Years ago our Fire Department began to require those of us wearing old leather firefighting helmets to upgrade them to one with a heavy impact liner. An impact liner?? Think about that one.. If anything heavy enough is going to come crashing down on my head where I need an impact liner my neck will break first. Yet, they require them and I wear the 2kg beast on my head.. A quality lightweight foam and plastic bicycle lid is a dream.. and may simply keep you out of an ER for stitches or laying on the couch with a massive headache and able to ride on.. No judgement hear folks but, I find the modern lid to have purpose and also be a 'time stamp' as the styles and models change over the years.
@heinous
THAT PICTURE KICKS ASS.
@Nate, @Oli
T-A being Tirenno Adriatico? If so, I believe you're mistaken, as it's Amstel Gold. But I only know its that race because I scanned it from the book, so I'm cheating.
I view a helmet in the same category as a fire extinguisher: I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
@Chris
I've read that too Chris (drivers give cyclists with no helmet more room) and that cyclists with helmets on take more risks. I wear one on the road but I rarely wear one when I'm skating at the concrete skatepark. What I think has always stood me in good stead was years of Ju Jitsu as a youth. We practised break falls at the start of every session until it just happened by reflex, were taught how to roll out of a fall and never put out your hands to stop yourself, wrists are very easily broken.
@ Souleur
Good timing.Believe it or not just before I logged in I was looking at the exactly same photo of Bartali in a Campagnolo book.
@Frank
So can we expect a nod from a Nod Snob even when riding without a helmet?
http://www.velominati.com/etiquette/nod-snob/