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Then why don't you wear a helmet when you're walking on ice as well? I'm not saying helmets don't work, I'm saying it's not very likely to hit your head at hig

• arethuza 11y ago
  Well, I do wear a helmet while skiing - largely because I witnessed an accident where a stationary skier was hit on the head by a flailing T-bar.
• falcolas 11y ago
  Having known someone who died to a head injury from falling down from a standing position; speed matters little, other than giving you more time to react. Just the acceleration from gravity is enough to fuck your head up pretty badly. Head injuries are nothing to take lightly.
• wpietri 11y ago
  > Then why don't you wear a helmet when you're walking on ice as well? Because bikes constrain falls. Millions of years of evolution plus my own personal practice means I'm pretty good at falling safely. But when I am wrapped around a bike, a lot of that goes out of the window. Also, I'd like to see some stats on your "not very likely". In 20 years of adult riding, I've fallen twice at low speeds hard enough to crack a helmet. And that's not counting the time as a kid I knocked myself unconscious on a low-speed ride. > because you forgot your helmet Is this a problem people have? When I'm not riding, I clip my helmet to my bike. This doesn't strike me as a particularly challenging habit to develop. Maybe just keep necessary equipment together? That sounds easier than trying to decide whether the odds are small enough to risk traumatic brain injury.
  • carlob 11y ago
    > Also, I'd like to see some stats on your "not very likely". In 20 years of adult riding, I've fallen twice at low speeds hard enough to crack a helmet. And that's not counting the time as a kid I knocked myself unconscious on a low-speed ride. And in 28 years of both adult and kid riding, with some years totaling over 3000 km, I've fallen several times, even cracked a couple of ribs, but never once hit my head. See that's the problem with anecdotal evidence. > I clip my helmet to my bike Do that in Rome, you'll come back to find none.
    • wpietri 11y ago
      > See that's the problem with anecdotal evidence. I'm not the one who said "not very likely". I'm not offering my story as evidence, just as an explanation for why I'd like evidence. > Do that in Rome, you'll come back to find none. I was speaking of the "I am going riding now" case. In Rome can you leave your bike outside overnight? In SF you can't, so people store bikes and helmets indoors. In which case, I'd submit that storing them together is a pretty good idea. Helmet theft might be a problem here in the "I am already out riding" case. Where I worry about that here, I clip my bike to my bag, so again it's not a "I forgot my helmet" problem.
• Angostura 11y ago
  > I'm not saying helmets don't work, I'm saying it's not very likely to hit your head at high velocity on the ground if you were going 10 km/h. Because if you fall over while walking, you're likely to manage to get your hands down before you head hits the ground. You have nothing to lose by getting your hands down quick. By contrast, when you run into problems while cycling, your instinct is to try and regain control of the bike. You don't immediately drop the handlebars, You keep your hands on the bars and try to steer/brake. Moreover you're likely to go over sideways and only one hand tends to be able to break the fall. A fall from a bike and a fall from your feet is a massively different thing.