Another little nugget for the helmet debate!

thelawnet

Is this thing still on?

meanredspider

CiB wrote:

Cycling in open countryside - attacked by tiger
L^

---

H

Wrong again!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-h ... s-13731670

Where EXACTLY can I get that elephant gun....? :shock:

tarquin_foxglove

CiB wrote:

...when I'm riding across countryside and the only danger is Ted in his Land Rover and that daft bint who runs the hairdressers who doesn't really pay too much attention but isn't much of a danger per se.

Just as risky as the city according to Nicola Brady, Hi-Vis, lights (& probably a helmet) are required at all times.
From the Guardian...

With all that & big cats on the loose as well, just do yourself a favour & drive (while wearing a helmet), so much safer "it's a no brainer"

dueceone

cee wrote:

on the american rugball stuff....(there is a point near the end....wait for it! )

there was an interesting article in a magazime a while back about the reason for NFL players requiring so much protection vs none in rugby.....

I can't remember what or when, so you will have to take my word for it.....but it reached the conclusion that it was all an arms race.....that the protective equipment itself was causing a lot of injuries (not on the tackler....on the tacklee)....and that actually...the protective equipment was mostly to protect against your opponents protective equipment.

that also ties in nicely to your point about the helmet and pads giving you a sense that you could throw yourself into tackles harder than you would, had you not being wearing the protective equipment.

Not really anything like the difference in how I would imagine you cycle with or without a helmet, but...maybe you strap a helmet on then just ride full pelt into parked cars....I dunno?

OK... so now you've gone from reaching for any justification possibly to trying to make some even more ignorant comparrison between rugby, american football, and cycling... Holy shit your thought process is splintered!

First off, none of the three relate back to one another... at all.

How many times to you find yourself traveling over 50kph in either rugby or american football?

How often do you find yourself with the opportunity to go to knee and tuck and roll or offer up the shoulder instead of the head when you're on your way down while on a bike as compared to either rugby or football?

As for why american football requires pads while rugby doesn't... that's just laughable right there... Is there even one person in all of professional rugby who's over 300lbs that can run a sub 4.8 second 40yd dash while benching 225lbs 35 times and posting a broad jump over 10ft and vertical over 3ft??? The level of athletecism and raw explosive power on the field in the national football league is not equaled anywhere in the world. The impacts that those pads are protecting against are on par with vehicle collisions. Tell me this... apart from Darren Bennet (a PUNTER) has there ever been a single rugby player who was able to transition to the NFL and last more than a season or two? Rugby produces some tough ass kickers but that's about all they can offer up to compare to the NFL.

I guess this is where all you anti-helmet mob manage to get your ideas in the first place... a complete and total failure to understand the basic physics behind the activity and the resultant energy levels present. If you actually think that a 5'10", 200lb rugby player moving at average speed produces impacts on par with a 6'6" 300lb football player moving significantly faster then I suppose it's not so hard to understand why you grapple with the basic idea that something between your head and the concrete would mitigate the impact energy.

And... last but certainly not least... if you actually slam yourself in to things simply because you're wearing pads, that actually answers a lot about why you don't wear a helmet. Most people stop doing that sort of thing around 4 years-old or so but if you haven't grown out of it, I guess a helmet would represent a pretty serious risk to your safety.

cee

dueceone

With that reply....you have just confirmed that you don't actually read the thread.

Good effort.

greg66_tri_v2.0

You join us on day 97 of the hostage crisis. The sides remain deadlocked...

MonkeyMonster

http://www.anirudharao.com/index.php?/project/kranium/

CyclingBantam

cee wrote:

dueceone

With that reply....you have just confirmed that you can't actually read and have little better to do with your time than troll on the internet.

Good effort.

Fixed that for you...

Clever Pun

MonkeyMonster wrote:

http://www.anirudharao.com/index.php?/project/kranium/

Cardboard.. on your head???

Stick to the mask debate

dueceone

CyclingBantam wrote:

cee wrote:

dueceone

With that reply....you have just confirmed that you can't actually read and have little better to do with your time than troll on the internet.

Good effort.

Fixed that for you...

LMAO... Oh, wow... You two sure got me!

On one hand we have a few jackasses who fail to understand the basic function of a helmet in an impact and who attempt to question it's viability as a tool to prevent serious injury while, on the other hand, we have someone stating facts in support of helmets that are so obvious they really ought to be well known to anyone over the age of 12 or so...

There definately are some illiterate trolls on one side of this debate...

CyclingBantam

I wear a helmet. I see a benefit for them. Just because we are on the same 'side' of the debate doesnt mean I don't think you are talking a load of rubbish.

cee

see heres the rub....and proof that dueceone didn't read the thread....

I wear a helmet. I always do. Every time I get on my bike....its just part of the getting on the bike routine for me.....habitual if you like.

The trouble with things that are obvious to a 12 year old.....is that they are often over simplified.

I am not on any side of the debate....I believe that helmets reduce the severity of a lot of impacts....however, i am realistic enough to think that when skudding your head off the concrete at 30mph, you are just as likely to get a brain injury by the brain hitting the inside of the skull....

And the physics of that is immutable. head falling at 30mph.....head stops suddenly (deceleration of polystyrene bubble included)....brain doesn't. Brain hits inside of skull....potentially life changing brain injury could result.

Thats one thing a helmet doesn't do....reduce the force with which your brain hits the inside of of your skull. It only makes a reasonable difference on the external.

This has happened to car drivers, who even with an air bag, in quite minor, slow speed crashes.....and no actual head trauma....got life chainging brain injuries...

And for that reason.....I restate....it isn't just as simple as a 12 year old (or some adults) would understand.

I will continue to not throw around insults...its not my style....I prefer to state my views in a calm manner.

rjsterry

Dueceone keeps talking about 'scientific facts' and the energies involved in a crash, so let's do a quick calculation. The most stringent test for cycle helmets (non-full face) is currently Snell B-95. This specifies test impact energies of 110 joules for a flat anvil, and 72 joules for a hemispherical or kerbstone anvil.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf

Taking a figure of 5kg for a head, and a speed of about 30mph/50km/h, the kinetic energy of your head will be 0.5 x 5 x 14² = 490 joules or 4 to 5 times what even the few helmets that pass this test are designed to protect from.

Don't get me wrong: I think that helmets have their place, and in a lot of situations will provide useful protection, but in the frequently cited 50km/h down-hill dash, if your head hits the tarmac at that speed, you're screwed anyway.

snailracer

rjsterry wrote:

Dueceone keeps talking about 'scientific facts' and the energies involved in a crash, so let's do a quick calculation. The most stringent test for cycle helmets (non-full face) is currently Snell B-95. This specifies test impact energies of 110 joules for a flat anvil, and 72 joules for a hemispherical or kerbstone anvil.

http://www.cyclehelmets.org/papers/c2023.pdf

Taking a figure of 5kg for a head, and a speed of about 30mph/50km/h, the kinetic energy of your head will be 0.5 x 5 x 14² = 490 joules or 4 to 5 times what even the few helmets that pass this test are designed to protect from.

Don't get me wrong: I think that helmets have their place, and in a lot of situations will provide useful protection, but in the frequently cited 50km/h down-hill dash, if your head hits the tarmac at that speed, you're screwed anyway.

Thing is, your head doesn't hit the tarmac at 30mph - it skids along parallel to the road at that speed, but the vertical component of the impact is about 15mph which is a good match with the impact energy the helmet is designed to handle.

As well as kinetic energy, if you calculate how thick the helmet needs to be to prevent brain damage by limiting deceleration to 90g or less, the thickness comes out at about 2.5cm, which not-amazingly is how thick most helmets are.

My conclusion is that bike helmets are not designed on a completely unrealistic basis.

meanredspider

Absolutely - in theory at least, it doesn't matter what speed you are doing - your head will hit the Tarmac at the same vertical component of velocity.

cee

meanredspider wrote:

Absolutely - in theory at least, it doesn't matter what speed you are doing - your head will hit the Tarmac at the same vertical component of velocity.

Makes sense....in the pure physics of it

presumably assuming a flat smooth surface....and on the level?

My problem with the pure science viewpoint is that....roads are full of potholes and grooves and debris, and have kerbs at the side etc etc....

so it may not be the vertical impact that gets you....but a quickly following horizontal one.

wgwarburton

cee wrote:

...My problem with the pure science viewpoint is that....roads are full of potholes and grooves and debris, and have kerbs at the side etc etc....

so it may not be the vertical impact that gets you....but a quickly following horizontal one.

...and lets not forget that if you do bounce your helmet off a bit of tarmac it may "grab" when it makes contact (especially if the exterior can deform, ie not a hard shell, like a m/c one). Anyone care to speculate on what the effect of a sudden twist from the side of a helmet might do to your brain?

In my experience, though, these are pretty unlikely scenarios- I've come off on grit, diesel or ice quite a few times over the last 30-40 years and not hit my head at all. Tends to be knees, elbows, hips and shoulders that take the impact!

Interesting question that raises- what's the experience of the helmet-wearers in this scenario? Have you banged your helmet off the road when you've skidded out?

Cheers,
W.

EKE_38BPM

Is this thread still going? Blimey, thats long, even for a helmet thread.

Why do people bother? Don't bother answering, I won't read this thread again.

meanredspider

so it may not be the vertical impact that gets you....but a quickly following horizontal one.

All the more reason to wear a lid. The energy transmitted to your bounce will be 12mph-worth less (usually at least half). Lids don't work up to their design limit then become completely useless above it.

meanredspider

WGWarburton wrote:

...and lets not forget that if you do bounce your helmet off a bit of tarmac it may "grab" when it makes contact (especially if the exterior can deform, ie not a hard shell,

In my experience, though, these are pretty unlikely scenarios- I've come off on grit, diesel or ice quite a few times over the last 30-40 years and not hit my head at all. Tends to be knees, elbows, hips and shoulders that take the impact!

Interesting question that raises- what's the experience of the helmet-wearers in this scenario? Have you banged your helmet off the road when you've skidded out?

Cheers,
W.

Polystyrene doesn't really have a tendancy to "grab" but flake off. It's very poor in tension as it is very good in compression.

I fell off on diesel and, like you, had abrasions to my arm and leg. I saved abrasion to my nose by skidding along on my lid - my nose being millimetres from the road surface. There was no "grab". It's also quite difficult, to me at least, to envisage a situation where you will get this so-called rotational injury without there also being some significant impact. You have to be reasonably upside-down before the top of your head is touching the ground. I can't really picture how it's going to happen without it being accompanied by a good smack. Possibly by why no-one seems to reference any cases of it actually happening.

tailwindhome

WGWarburton wrote:

...and lets not forget that if you do bounce your helmet off a bit of tarmac it may "grab" when it makes contact (especially if the exterior can deform, ie not a hard shell, like a m/c one). Anyone care to speculate on what the effect of a sudden twist from the side of a helmet might do to your brain?

Would a helmet by more or less likely to grab than hair, skin and bone?

Not sure what you mean by the bit in bold.

Interesting question that raises- what's the experience of the helmet-wearers in this scenario?

As a teenager I pretty much rode helmetless all the time, though did once wake up at the side of the road with a bump my head and no idea what had happened.

I use a helmet when I feel that the risk of an 'off' is high enough and the possibile consequences great enough to warrant the mild inconvience of wearing one.

As was piointed out nmany times on thjs thread, and on others, everyone's perception of 'where the line is' is going to be diffent. There's no need to abuse them for this and definitely no need to legislate

tailwindhome

God but I hate that bouncy scroll bar thingy when you're typing a post

meanredspider

TailWindHome wrote:

God but I hate that bouncy scroll bar thingy when you're typing a post

Are you using Internet Explorer? If what you are describing is what I think it is, try the "Compatibility View" button (next to the address like a broken sheet of paper) - that seems to do the trick.

hmbadger

WGWarburton wrote:

cee wrote:

...My problem with the pure science viewpoint is that....roads are full of potholes and grooves and debris, and have kerbs at the side etc etc....

so it may not be the vertical impact that gets you....but a quickly following horizontal one.

...and lets not forget that if you do bounce your helmet off a bit of tarmac it may "grab" when it makes contact (especially if the exterior can deform, ie not a hard shell, like a m/c one). Anyone care to speculate on what the effect of a sudden twist from the side of a helmet might do to your brain?

In my experience, though, these are pretty unlikely scenarios- I've come off on grit, diesel or ice quite a few times over the last 30-40 years and not hit my head at all. Tends to be knees, elbows, hips and shoulders that take the impact!

Interesting question that raises- what's the experience of the helmet-wearers in this scenario? Have you banged your helmet off the road when you've skidded out?

Cheers,
W.

I've only been cycling a couple of years, and my only off resulted in quite a smack of (helmeted) head on road. Hardly felt it - frankly amazed at how effective the helmet was.

I'm not sure as to why I hit the road in the way that I did, possibly something to do with SPDs. All too quick really. If you're angling towards a viewpoint that people wearing helmets will bang their heads more because they perceive that their helmets will save them, then I think that you'd be barking up the wrong tree (another one).

shouldbeinbed

Anyone fancy watching a Stewart Lee DVD & eating Marmite toasties


Let the poor thread die with dignity

tailwindhome

shouldbeinbed wrote:

Let the poor thread die with dignity

I disagree - make it a sticky

wgwarburton

TailWindHome wrote:

...
Would a helmet by more or less likely to grab than hair, skin and bone?

IMHO: more.

Not sure what you mean by the bit in bold.

A helmet with a soft exterior (polystyrene, without a full shell) is more likely to grip the tarmac on impact (like a soft-compound tyre) than one with a hard shiny exterior like a fibreglass Motorcycle helmet.
This has been suggested by some researchers as a possible cause of rotational injuries to the brain, potentially accounting for an increased proportion of serious head injuries over relatively minor ones. Insufficient evidence for firm conclusion. More research required etc.

It's a complex and subtle issue. Not really worth debating.. better to focus on issues that matter like sweaty heads and looking a bit daft... those are probably the real reasons why people don't wear helmets ,as it obvious to anyone who thinks about it that they simply must make you safer... isn't it?

Cheers,
W.

wgwarburton

hmbadger wrote:

...If you're angling towards a viewpoint that people wearing helmets will bang their heads more because they perceive that their helmets will save them, then I think that you'd be barking up the wrong tree (another one).

No, I'm not. That's a different argument that I wasn't making. Thanks for your interest, though.

Cheers,
W.

roger_merriman

*wimper*

dhope

Did someone mention Stewart Lee and Marmite?
Mmmmmm, controversy on toast.