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Bontrager’s WaveCel material more effective at preventing concussions than MIPS

242 points by Alex3917 7y ago

blakesterz 7y ago
The funny thing about helmets, any bike helmet, is that the don't protect against EVERY accident, but they do help protect sometimes. I raced for a few years and my helmet saved me some serious injuries at least twice that I know of. They aren't perfect, and they don't need to be. They help sometimes and almost never make things worse, that's about all we can hope for. If someone made a helmet that's better sometimes, then that's a good thing. It'll help someone at some point.
- hermitdev 7y ago
  I used to road race in my 20s. I never crashed in the handful of races I did as a Cat 5 amateur, though I had a few close calls like having to bunny hop onto a sidewalk to avoid someone that didn't hold their line through a corner (almost won that race, came in second) and facing terrible, rutted roads in the Chicago criterium with the prospect of around a 15 foot drop over a wall into grant park garage ramp. That said, I've crashed innumerable time over the years, often at speed. As a teen, crashed several times on a dirt road at over 45 miles an hour without wearing a helmet. Been over the handle bars at least 6 times. Been T-boned by a car on a training ride. Through all that, Ive managed to never hit my head. How? No clue. Just luck I guess. Didnt wear a helmet as a kid, but as an adult I wont get on a bike without on. Only injury above my knock I've had was when I dumped my road bike at 25 mph when I lost the rear end in a corner. Landed on my side, rolled onto my stomach and dragged my chin on the pavement for a bit. Broke my left hand and burnt my finger tips from that one, too. Got up and rode 5 miles home... If I were still riding, I would definitely get one of these helmets. A lot of my gear is already Bontrager (helmet and 2 pairs of cycling shoes), and all 3 of my bikes are Trek (Bontrager is a Trek subsidiary).
  - minikomi 7y ago
    Looking forward to the replies by people who did hit their head hard, but weren't wearing a helmet.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      There is a whole country of serious bike riders who don’t use bike helmets (the Netherlands). It turns out that if you design your biking infrastructure well enough, it isn’t really a problem.
      - mises 7y ago
        That is bad advice. It remains advisable to wear a helmet. What you are saying is roughly equivalent to, "If car infrastructure is sufficient, we will no longer need helmets." At best the need is reduced.
        u801e 7y ago
        Do most motorists wear helmets while driving?
        nkurz 7y ago
        Does the fact that they don't mean that they shouldn't? Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia did a study and concluded that wearing helmets in cars would prevent many serious injuries: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-science-for-motorists.html http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-scien...
        dahart 7y ago
        That’s a straw man. Most motorists wear seat belts, because seat belts prevent the most common injuries (including head injury) in small to medium crashes. Helmets don’t protect motorists from common injuries, while they do protect bicyclists from common injuries.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - bitL 7y ago
    I fell numerous times both on bike (worst at 40mph) and skis (worst at 60mph), and started with both at around age 3, so I might have the same automated instincts as you do. Never anything more serious than scratches on the sides of my body. Recently hit by a (slow) car that didn't yield, again the fall was automatic and both me and bike were more-less OK (bent front wheel only). I still don't wear helmet for either biking nor skiing, only for bike downhills I get an F1 helmet and full-body armor.
    - petre 7y ago
      Instincts are next to useless in the event of steering (stem, fork, handlebar) failure. It all happens so fast that you barely have time to react.
      - bitL 7y ago
        Yeah, happened to me once (steering stem broke) and twice (saddle screw broke). Instantly on the ground. Again, lucky, nothing serious, just bruises. I can imagine during a downhill at 60mph I could be easily killed...
  - Fricken 7y ago
    You're good at wiping out, it's a reflexive skill, like a trained boxer blocking or dodging a punch. There's maybe a split second between when you recognize a crash is inevitable, and when you actually hit something, and the decision you make in that moment is critical. Those who haven't cultivated the skills might panic, or freeze up, or just exercise poor body mechanics and then they have a story afterwards about how their helmet saved them from something worse. Or not.
    - gibspaulding 7y ago
      Years riding BMX has taught me the truth of this. I remember when I was younger doing an x-up (turning the handlebars backwards in the air so your arms make an x) over a pretty big jump. This was something I'd done many times before, but this time, while trying to straighten out before landing, my handlebars got tangled in my shirt and stuck at a 90 degree angle. Somehow, instead of landing in that very unfortunate position, I managed to stuff my bike down between my legs and behind me before, reasonably gracefully, sliding down the landing on my knees. I was completely unscathed, but a little baffled as to how. I ride a lot more conservatively now and a lot less regularly so I don't fall very often, but it seems like when I do, that lack of practice shows. I don't seem to get as lucky any more.
      - Fricken 7y ago
        Ha, I came pretty close to suggesting in my previous comment that BMXers, particularly pros, take the art of wiping out to the next level.
  - zachrose 7y ago
    My 15-year-old carbon fiber fork had a catastrophic failure two weeks ago. I’ve no idea what happened exactly but I came to in the emergency room a few hours later with road rash and a concussion. It took me almost two weeks for my brain to feel 100% again. My helmet cracked where I hit my head. Who knows where I would have been without it.
- bitL 7y ago
  They increase risk of some more serious injuries. Also, with helmet mounted cameras which are very popular they are pretty much accidental killers if hit at the right angle/force.
KingFelix 7y ago
How does this make 2nd place after 9 minutes? Is Hacker news pay to play ? I mean this sounds great, and the contrarian version of me says, no way its all marketing. Discuss
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Alex3917 7y ago
  I submitted this because I bought one of these today. Obviously I have no way of independently verifying whether or not they work as advertised. What I will say though is that if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months, which means that if you're a tech consultant or run a startup then you're basically out of a job. So in comparison paying $150 for something that lasts 3 years seems conceptually like a very good bet. My general outlook, which is why I like this, is that it's relatively rare in life to find things where you can improve your health or increase your life expectancy just by swiping your credit card without needing to do any additional work or anything else unpleasant afterwards, so one should take advantage of these opportunities when possible. (Another good example is HEPA filters, where you just swipe your credit card and plug it in and that's it, and although there are limited studies on HEPA filters themselves there is a very clear link between air pollution and mortality risk.)
  - EamonnMR 7y ago
    > if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months I had a concussion recently and my doctor said nothing of that nature. I would love to have had a helmet which was better able to handle the impact though! Definitely the least fun altered state of consciousness that I have experienced.
    - chimeracoder 7y ago
      Depends in the severity. Some people literally can't handle it after a concussion, even if they try. It's pretty miserable for them. And severity of impact does not correlate strongly with severity of symptoms.
saagarjha 7y ago
I was curious what MIPS stood for in this context, and apparently it's "Multi-directional Impact Protection System".
flyinglizard 7y ago
There’s a bunch of helmet technology in mountain biking in the recent years. MIPS is one, 6D ODS is another (I have helmets with both). I wish I could see them compared.
resoluteteeth 7y ago
There is some controversy about this: https://www.outsideonline.com/2392896/trek-wavecel-helmet-controversy https://www.outsideonline.com/2392896/trek-wavecel-helmet-co... Also, some people argue that MIPS is probably not as effective in real life as in tests because people simply don't fasten helmets tight enough for it to matter (and the same may apply to these helmets with respect to shear forces), but I don't know if this has been scientifically tested.
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Nice helmet, however they rarely if ever protect the chin, why is that? In my many years of riding I've fallen on the back of my head zero times and on my chin twice, as a kid.
- sliken 7y ago
  Full face helmets do exist for bikes, for downhillers. There's big downsides in weight, cost, and less airflow (they are hot). But for downhill folks, especially those that race it's worth it. For pretty much close to 100% of non-downhill bikers, it's not. The chin is not a particularly common injury for bicyclist.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    While the direction of the responses went to "full face" bmx/motorcycle helmets, I was thinking more of a chin strap/protector like football helmets sometimes have: https://nationsfootballclassic.com/best-football-chin-straps-reviewed/ https://nationsfootballclassic.com/best-football-chin-straps... These are not significantly heavy or hot.
- persistent 7y ago
  These guys make full-face helmets and of course you can always just wear a motorcycle helmet. https://bike.kaliprotectives.com/helmets/ https://bike.kaliprotectives.com/helmets/ But it's a tradeoff. Full-faced helmets give the helmet another point of leverage on which to break your neck. On the other hand they won't erase your face, which is nice.
  - entee 7y ago
    Motorcycle helmets are just not ever to be worn while biking. They are designed for vastly different forces at vastly different speeds than a bike helmet. Not to mention that they will breathe very very very poorly, though I'm a little unsure how these wavecell helmets will breathe. Like the Scott helmets, lots of tiny holes seems like not as good as big holes for airflow.
btrettel 7y ago
A university website linked to in the article suggests that a helmet that costs half as much as the one advertised in the article performs slightly better: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html Look for "Lazer Cyclone MIPS". Edit: Unfortunately it appears that this particular helmet has been discontinued: https://www.bikeforums.net/general-cycling-discussion/1174734-lazer-cyclone-mips.html https://www.bikeforums.net/general-cycling-discussion/117473... But there are others that perform about as well that are similarly priced.
bytesmith 7y ago
The study cited is questionable. The best independent source for helmet testing IMHO is virginia tech's, which show that these are about as effective as MIPS, not 98% better as the headline suggests: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html Here's their methodology: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83760 http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83760
- cowpig 7y ago
  This is great! Is there anything like this for other kinds of helmets?
parsimo2010 7y ago
I’m going to comment with what seems to be the common sentiment here. It’s really hard to tell how effective a helmet is at preventing concussions in real life. So we/they design a test of some hypothetical concussion cause, and lo and behold, their helmet is very effective in that test. Note that this is a different test than the ones used to prove that MIPS was better than a styrofoam helmet. The real story is that marketing probably has a bigger influence than science in this case. Several years ago helmet manufacturers hit the practical weight limit for helmets with styrofoam and carbon fiber shells. I bought a Giro Atmos over a decade ago and never needed to upgrade because the top of the line helmets were only a couple grams lighter, after a decade of “improvement.” The manufacturers noticed that helmet sales were declining, and all of a sudden “new science” appeared with a theory about concussions being caused by brain rotation and MIPS technology helps prevent that. How convenient that this appeared. The dirty secret is that literally nobody has ever seen a brain rotate inside a skull and result in concussion. It’s really hard to image a brain in motion (impossible with off the shelf equipment), so the brain rotation theory is just a hypothetical mechanism. There isn’t an ethical test for blunt force trauma in real life conditions, and bike crashes are very rarely reported if they don’t send the rider to the hospital. So the leading authority on product safety, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, doesn’t even have good numbers on concussion rates for cyclists. The bottom line is that MIPS and this new gel layer came at way too good of a time for the helmet industry for us not to be wary of the science. They can get away with it because it’s such an easy marketing sell- most people think their life is worth more than $250, so any helmet tech is a bet on the order of Pascal’s wager. If it’s snake oil I’m just out $250, but if it really is better then I just saved my life in a crash.
- duxup 7y ago
  I recall an American football study looking for concussion symptoms and impairment. They found people with a history of repeated concussions, and then as what they thought might be a group to compare to some American football linemen with no history of concussions to compare with. They found linemen with the same issues despite no concussion history. This raised the possibility that worrying about severe hits that result in a concussion was possibly missing a larger issue. It seems our understanding of brain injury and even how it comes about may be inaccurate.
tmcw 7y ago
Amazing, now we just need to make a full body suit of this material so it works with the main type of urban collision, which is being killed by a reckless SUV driver, or pulled under a box truck and crushed under the back wheels.
JaakkoP 7y ago
I wonder how’s the Swedish “airbag helmet” doing these days. It sounds like a superior solution to any regular bike helmet, but perhaps the price and/or convenience just isn’t there for the mass market.
steelframe 7y ago
I got hit by a truck earlier this year while wearing a WaveCel helmet. The outer foam cracked in two places and the cell structure on the inside collapsed in several places. The CT scan of my head came out clean and the ER physician discharged me within the hour. I think my post-incident symptoms were more indicative of shock than concussion, since I did sustain several fractures in my hand. https://imgur.com/a/LdNQSRT https://imgur.com/a/LdNQSRT https://imgur.com/a/JL5ORlg https://imgur.com/a/JL5ORlg
- leetbulb 7y ago
  That gif made my stomach sink. I've taken spills like that, but not in traffic. Super glad you walked away with only some hand fractures. Be safe, friend.
- sliken 7y ago
  Keep in mind that helmets are designed to absorb energy. In your accident it's clear that neither you, the bike, or your helmet had much traction. So instead of tumbling (caused by rotational acceleration) you just slide. I'd expect any good helmet to absorb that energy. The unique claim WaveCell/MIPS is making is that they can absorb the energy that's trying to rotate your head. I've seen no indications that this is a problem. Tires have great traction, pretty much anything else (you, skin, bike, backpack, helmet, bike gloves, etc) have very poor traction so accidents rarely impart large rotational forces. Even if they did the WaveCell is only going to absorb a minimal amount since the helmet is strapped to your head. Mips and WaveCel are claiming "Rotation causes injuries", engineering a solution to it, not proving it exists, and claiming they are safer because it. Neither MIPS or WaveCel are claiming they absorb normal impacts better than normal helmets. Generally both ANSI and SNELL have picked an acceleration and penetration standard that's a compromise between rider comfort and safety. Helmets are tested against those standards. MIPS and WaveCel have failed to prove any additional safety and instead of working with the safety standard folks are appealing directly to consumers to justify their 3-6 times price increase over other ANSI and SNELL approved helmets.
  - steelframe 7y ago
    > In your accident it's clear that neither you, the bike, or your helmet had much traction. The impact that you can't see in the video that damaged the helmet was in the collision with the side of the truck after it hit my left arm, rotating my handlebars to the right. This caused the counter-steer that slammed me into the side of the truck. The truck was moving faster than I was, so that was the source of the rotational acceleration.
pizza 7y ago
While the topic of discussion is concussion, there is some evidence that both fasting and ketosis are neuroprotective to some degree after traumatic brain injury. [0] Fasting is neuroprotective following traumatic brain injury, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.21628 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.21628 [1] Cerebral Metabolic Adaptation and Ketone Metabolism after Brain Injury, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1038/sj.jcbfm.9600543 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1038/sj.jcbfm.96005...
- Alex3917 7y ago
  Interesting. Weed is supposed to be neuroprotective as well for concussions.
mmaunder 7y ago
Knocked myself out back in the 90s on a road bike not wearing a helmet. Stitches in head. Concussion for a month. Knocked myself out 2 years ago on a mountain bike wearing a MIPS helmet. No stitches in head. No concussion. Last year wife went over the bars at whistler and took it on the face with the best carbon fiber full face downhill helmet money can buy. Pressure on her face was so much she had lines of blood under her eyes just from the pressure. Big scratches on the face-guard. But she was totally fine, not knocked out, walked it off and laughed about it later. Completely unscientific data above, but when it comes to my budget distribution these days, it goes into helmet, then pads (D3O for downhill and cross country), then bike, camelbak and rest of gear. Helmets are awesome. For reference: https://www.d3o.com/ https://www.d3o.com/ Various manufacturers use this stuff - Fox, Raceface, but my personal favorite are these TLDs. They're great for long sweaty rides and gnarly stuff. https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/raid-knee-guard?color=7 https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/raid-knee-guard?color=7 This is the helmet she was using: https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/19f-tld-d3-midnight-chrome-carbon-helmet?quantity=1&color=370 https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/19f-tld-d3-midnight-chrome-c... I'll also add that I'm not a fan of Bell's Super 3R helmet with the removable face. It's MIPS these days, but I don't feel the chin guard provides enough space in case you actually take a face hit. The more DH specific helmets have more clearance. I guess now that I've seen one work and save someone, I'm a little more picky. Thisis the Super 3R I'm referring to: https://www.bellhelmets.com/bike/p/super-3r-mips-mountain-bike-helmet https://www.bellhelmets.com/bike/p/super-3r-mips-mountain-bi... For cross country rides that have some more challenging DH, I use this helmet which breathes way more than the TLD I linked to above and has more clearance than the Super 3R: https://www.foxracing.com/proframe-helmet-matte-%5Bblk%5D-m/23310-001-M.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjwzJjrBRBvEiwA867byrst9OjRtuAQMGVTjsGdFc2qBphbQ6BpD9J4ZX_-XzKoOs15U4171hoCkp0QAvD_BwE https://www.foxracing.com/proframe-helmet-matte-%5Bblk%5D-m/... I'm sure there are tons of cyclists, XC and downhill folks on HN and we all have our opinions and experience. Would love to hear from others. YMMV considerably from mine. Stay safe!!
- blendo 7y ago
  Preach. I bought an e-bike a few years ago, and I ride 20mph _everywhere_ now. I might upgrade to a 26mph speed pedelec, at which point a full-face may be prudent. I'd recommend a white helmet, with stick-on reflective tape, to maximize visibility. And CINCH IT DOWN TIGHT. Fun times we live in -- I expect in 5 years we (in the US) will be able to buy a 45mph, 50kg e-bike (e-motorcycle?) for $3,000-$6,000. We'll need better helmets, gloves, shoes, and pads for that, but hopefully stil shy of full motorcycle regalia (known as "ATGATT", all the gear, all the time). And I like my current Troy Lee Designs helmet simply because it fits so well.
bitL 7y ago
Wasn't there an increase in serious head/neck injuries when Australia made helmets mandatory? I thought the only working protection was the Hövding airbag, which is quite expensive for one-time use.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  Last time this was posted someone pointed out that this could be because when someone dies they don't bother to report "they died but they also got neck injurys which would have caused long term damage" so since less people died, the more minor reports could have been made.
  - bitL 7y ago
    Basilar/basal skull fracture is what makes helmets dangerous in general, i.e. landing face-first on motorbikes often led to cracked bones at the bottom of the skull, often fatally. There were reports about increased rates among cyclists when helmets were made mandatory. I consider that pretty serious and not minor. Nothing is without risks it seems.
- haser_au 7y ago
  There is no consensus amongst researchers on whether mandatory helmet laws reduce injuries. I, for one, will continue wearing one and forcing my kids to wear them. As steelframe [1] posted on here, when someone else hits me, I want to survive. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20825983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20825983
  - bitL 7y ago
    There is a counter point from a brain surgeon: https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/ https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wear... There were reports of increased rates of basal skull injury, i.e. the same injury many race car drivers suffered (Dale Earnhard) and for which HANS device was invented. So on one hand you would be protected in simple accidents but on the other hand exposed to more serious ones.
neves 7y ago
Any independent tests on the subject? I've went to my goto source on the subject: the Bike Helmet institute: https://helmets.org/helmet19.htm#bontrager https://helmets.org/helmet19.htm#bontrager Their veredict: when we sent a Specter model to a lab for conventional impact test results the results were very good but not amazing.
sandworm101 7y ago
There is no market for safer bike helmets. Bike helmets are sold on the basis of look, feel, and most importantly weight. Nobody is touting real safety. Compare motorcycle helmets, which come in two radically different safety standards: DOT, for harley riders who want something that is barely legal. And SNELL, for sportbike riders who actually want to keep their face on their heads after a crash. I have never seen a bicyclist with a full face helmet on the road. Bicyclists, like the harley riders, care far more about comfort and style than actual safety. At 50kph the asphalt doesn't care whether you just fell off a bicycle or a motorcycle. Please prove me wrong. Please find me a pic of someone riding a bicycle on a road in a snell motorcycle helmet. I have seen plenty of them in the downhill community, never among commuters. My point is that this new material will not be used to make safer helmets. It will be used to make lighter and more stylish helmets that, like all the others, remain only slightly above the absolute minimum legal standards. That's the market.
- matt_j 7y ago
  Speed is a factor. A motorcycle can easily travel 60km/h - 120km/h. A bicycle is likely to be travel at 20km/h - 40km/h. 40km/h is pretty damn fast on a bike. Maybe the enthusiast guys riding the beach in the morning get up to 60km/h but that's a pretty small percentage riders.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    An impact above 60kph is beyond the design of even a motorcycle helmet. They are primarily meant to protect the head falling onto the road surface and then sliding, an impact that it similar no matter the speed. Even when standing still, a head freefalling from 2 meters (ie bicyclist/motorcyclist tipping over) strikes the ground at 22.5 kph. That single impact is the US/DOT standard for bicycle helms. They don't accommodate sliding or repeated impacts.
    - TylerE 7y ago
      Not true. Look at MotoGP crashes. They’ll hit the deck at 150mph, slide off into gravel, slide to a stop, and pop right up with nothing more than a few scuffs on their leathers.
afinlayson 7y ago
I need this for hockey asap!!!
gnicholas 7y ago
I've looked at MIPS and Wavecell helmets for bicycling. When I looked at the analysis and research, it seemed that MIPS makes more sense for snow sports, where your helmet can get stuck in snow and twist. On asphalt, or when colliding with a car, this is less likely. So I passed on getting a MIPS helmet for biking (though I should probably get one for snowboarding). When I looked at the literature on Wavecell, it seemed to be of the "up to 40x better" variety. To a lay person like myself, that seemed suspicious because I have no idea what the common accident types are, and the literature didn't seem to indicate that it was more protective in the common scenarios. The article linked here does seem to make that case, but as others have noted it reads a bit like an advertisement. I am actually planning on getting on getting one of these helmets simply because its shape fits my head very well, and in talking with cyclists I've been told that having a shape that fits your head (mine is apparently more "circular" than "oblong") is the most important thing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- craftyguy 7y ago
  I was in a cycling crash earlier this year while wearing a new (2 week old) MIPS helmet. The helmet (with my head in it) hit the road pretty hard causing an indentation and deep scratches. The location of the indentation leads me to believe that the initial impact 'stuck' to the asphalt then slid as the coefficient of friction was quickly surpassed. I had absolutely no injuries to my head or neck (with that could be said about my elbow, which I apparently landed on full-force). I have since replaced that helmet with another MIPs one, but I haven't heard of the Wavecell helmets until now. I'll have to consider those the next time I'm shopping around for a new helmet, hopefully this time it'll be after the current one has 'expired' naturally.
- petre 7y ago
  > On asphalt, or when colliding with a car, this is less likely Unless you have one of those textile covered urban fashion helmets which do not slide on asphalt and also risk breaking intervertebral disks or neck bones.
emptybits 7y ago
Not to detract from how amazing WaveCel might be. Any safety material advancement is great news. But this is assumes we need new head protection to fit the old moulds, so to speak. OTOH, there are or will soon be options to replace our foam brain buckets with high-tech collars/airbags that may (?) be less sweaty and may (?) provide more coverage in a crash (chin, back, sides, etc.) One example: https://hovding.com/how-hovding-works/ https://hovding.com/how-hovding-works/
- modernerd 7y ago
  Hövding is exciting because it's a new approach rather than an iteration on old helmet designs. They claim you still have a 90% risk of head injury with a traditional helmet at 25km/h, but only a 2% risk with Hövding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yOAkMZpbww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yOAkMZpbww That's a pretty significant improvement if true. The only reason I don't currently own one is that they say it's not as ergonomic for those using road/drop bar bikes. Presumably this is due to the weight of the air canister and battery in the pod that sits behind your neck, since the riding position is less upright. If any road bike users wear Hövding, I'd be interested to hear about your experience.
- magicalhippo 7y ago
  That airbag "helmet" seems susceptible to pointy objects and edges, like the edge of a sidewalk. Also it's not designed for MTB use, which is understandable but quite limiting.
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
I am reminded of this study [0] that claims that "Bicyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be struck by passing vehicles". What's to be done? Buy the helmet that reduces concussions by 98%? Or don't buy a helmet at all, and trust that you won't get in an accident? That's quite the conundrum. [0] http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/archive/overtaking110906.html http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/archive/overtaking110906...
- Alex3917 7y ago
  > What's to be done? Wear a helmet, and don't ride on streets with cars.
  - craftyguy 7y ago
    > and don't ride on streets with cars. In some cities in the US, which is just plain wrong. For example, in Portland OR you cannot lawfully ride a bicycle on the sidewalk unless you're avoiding some road hazard (cars do not count, unless it's on fire or something).
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    So basically, "don't ride"
- dahart 7y ago
  Depending on where you live, it might be illegal to ride without a helmet. Personally, I would ignore both this study and the WaveCel marketing material, and look at results of actual outcomes in collisions. Boston and New York both, just for example (many cities & states do this, and so does the NTSB), publish data on how often helmets prevent brain injury, statistically speaking. [1][2][3] (Note that NYC is so sure helmets save lives, they’re spending millions to distribute them for free. There’s a decent chance it’s saving money overall.) > Or don’t buy a helmet at all, and trust that you won’t get in an accident? Well, do what makes you feel safer and obeys the laws. But trusting that you won’t get in an accident because of that study you cited would be a dramatic, and possibly dangerous mis-interpretation and mis-understanding of that study’s results. While there’s some controversy over that study admitted by the author, even if you take it a face value, it’s saying that without a helmet cars pass 4.4 feet from him, and with a helmet, they pass 4.1 feet from him on average. That might be a bit more dangerous, but what’s the actual accident rate? You can’t conclude anything about that from his 2 accidents, and the U.S. standard for vehicles passing bikes is 3 feet, so he’s demonstrating that with or without helmets, drivers are on average passing safely. If you want to take the studies at face value, then try to calculate the expected value, which is risk multiplied by cost. It’s wrong to suggest that it’s a toss up just because there exists evidence in both directions, when the magnitude of the evidence may be overwhelmingly unidirectional. Clearly many people here don’t believe the 98% improvement WaveCel claims, but suppose you take it at face value. To decide what do to about it, you need to know what the increase in concussion risk is due to vehicles passing you more closely. Don’t call it a conundrum, find out. How often does an average of 4.1 feet of room result in concussion over 4.4 feet of room? (BTW, do note the 98% number that WaveCel is advertising is relative to other kinds of helmets, not relative to the unprotected skull. Statistics on outcomes seem to consistently show 80%-90% effectiveness for wearing any kind of helmet, but don’t take my word for it...) [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml [2] https://www.cityofboston.gov/news/uploads/16776_49_15_27.pdf https://www.cityofboston.gov/news/uploads/16776_49_15_27.pdf [3] https://helmets.org/stats.htm#effectiveness https://helmets.org/stats.htm#effectiveness
dreamcompiler 7y ago
Off-topic but it's really annoying to try to read an article with 30% of my mobile screen taken up by a sticky ego title. Please fight back against marketdroids who ask you to do this.
m0zg 7y ago
People buy $300 bicycle helmets?
frereubu 7y ago
OT: The pointless euphemism "unplanned dismounts" in the intro paragraph made me laugh out loud.

242 points by Alex3917 7y ago

The funny thing about helmets, any bike helmet, is that the don't protect against EVERY accident, but they do help protect sometimes. I raced for a few years and my helmet saved me some serious injuries at least twice that I know of. They aren't perfect, and they don't need to be. They help sometimes and almost never make things worse, that's about all we can hope for. If someone made a helmet that's better sometimes, then that's a good thing. It'll help someone at some point.

hermitdev 7y ago
I used to road race in my 20s. I never crashed in the handful of races I did as a Cat 5 amateur, though I had a few close calls like having to bunny hop onto a sidewalk to avoid someone that didn't hold their line through a corner (almost won that race, came in second) and facing terrible, rutted roads in the Chicago criterium with the prospect of around a 15 foot drop over a wall into grant park garage ramp. That said, I've crashed innumerable time over the years, often at speed. As a teen, crashed several times on a dirt road at over 45 miles an hour without wearing a helmet. Been over the handle bars at least 6 times. Been T-boned by a car on a training ride. Through all that, Ive managed to never hit my head. How? No clue. Just luck I guess. Didnt wear a helmet as a kid, but as an adult I wont get on a bike without on. Only injury above my knock I've had was when I dumped my road bike at 25 mph when I lost the rear end in a corner. Landed on my side, rolled onto my stomach and dragged my chin on the pavement for a bit. Broke my left hand and burnt my finger tips from that one, too. Got up and rode 5 miles home... If I were still riding, I would definitely get one of these helmets. A lot of my gear is already Bontrager (helmet and 2 pairs of cycling shoes), and all 3 of my bikes are Trek (Bontrager is a Trek subsidiary).
- minikomi 7y ago
  Looking forward to the replies by people who did hit their head hard, but weren't wearing a helmet.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    There is a whole country of serious bike riders who don’t use bike helmets (the Netherlands). It turns out that if you design your biking infrastructure well enough, it isn’t really a problem.
    - mises 7y ago
      That is bad advice. It remains advisable to wear a helmet. What you are saying is roughly equivalent to, "If car infrastructure is sufficient, we will no longer need helmets." At best the need is reduced.
      - u801e 7y ago
        Do most motorists wear helmets while driving?
        nkurz 7y ago
        Does the fact that they don't mean that they shouldn't? Researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia did a study and concluded that wearing helmets in cars would prevent many serious injuries: http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-science-for-motorists.html http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/australian-helmet-scien...
        dahart 7y ago
        That’s a straw man. Most motorists wear seat belts, because seat belts prevent the most common injuries (including head injury) in small to medium crashes. Helmets don’t protect motorists from common injuries, while they do protect bicyclists from common injuries.
      - deleted 7y ago
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- bitL 7y ago
  I fell numerous times both on bike (worst at 40mph) and skis (worst at 60mph), and started with both at around age 3, so I might have the same automated instincts as you do. Never anything more serious than scratches on the sides of my body. Recently hit by a (slow) car that didn't yield, again the fall was automatic and both me and bike were more-less OK (bent front wheel only). I still don't wear helmet for either biking nor skiing, only for bike downhills I get an F1 helmet and full-body armor.
  - petre 7y ago
    Instincts are next to useless in the event of steering (stem, fork, handlebar) failure. It all happens so fast that you barely have time to react.
    - bitL 7y ago
      Yeah, happened to me once (steering stem broke) and twice (saddle screw broke). Instantly on the ground. Again, lucky, nothing serious, just bruises. I can imagine during a downhill at 60mph I could be easily killed...
- Fricken 7y ago
  You're good at wiping out, it's a reflexive skill, like a trained boxer blocking or dodging a punch. There's maybe a split second between when you recognize a crash is inevitable, and when you actually hit something, and the decision you make in that moment is critical. Those who haven't cultivated the skills might panic, or freeze up, or just exercise poor body mechanics and then they have a story afterwards about how their helmet saved them from something worse. Or not.
  - gibspaulding 7y ago
    Years riding BMX has taught me the truth of this. I remember when I was younger doing an x-up (turning the handlebars backwards in the air so your arms make an x) over a pretty big jump. This was something I'd done many times before, but this time, while trying to straighten out before landing, my handlebars got tangled in my shirt and stuck at a 90 degree angle. Somehow, instead of landing in that very unfortunate position, I managed to stuff my bike down between my legs and behind me before, reasonably gracefully, sliding down the landing on my knees. I was completely unscathed, but a little baffled as to how. I ride a lot more conservatively now and a lot less regularly so I don't fall very often, but it seems like when I do, that lack of practice shows. I don't seem to get as lucky any more.
    - Fricken 7y ago
      Ha, I came pretty close to suggesting in my previous comment that BMXers, particularly pros, take the art of wiping out to the next level.
- zachrose 7y ago
  My 15-year-old carbon fiber fork had a catastrophic failure two weeks ago. I’ve no idea what happened exactly but I came to in the emergency room a few hours later with road rash and a concussion. It took me almost two weeks for my brain to feel 100% again. My helmet cracked where I hit my head. Who knows where I would have been without it.
bitL 7y ago
They increase risk of some more serious injuries. Also, with helmet mounted cameras which are very popular they are pretty much accidental killers if hit at the right angle/force.

KingFelix 7y ago

How does this make 2nd place after 9 minutes? Is Hacker news pay to play ? I mean this sounds great, and the contrarian version of me says, no way its all marketing. Discuss

deleted 7y ago
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Alex3917 7y ago
I submitted this because I bought one of these today. Obviously I have no way of independently verifying whether or not they work as advertised. What I will say though is that if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months, which means that if you're a tech consultant or run a startup then you're basically out of a job. So in comparison paying $150 for something that lasts 3 years seems conceptually like a very good bet. My general outlook, which is why I like this, is that it's relatively rare in life to find things where you can improve your health or increase your life expectancy just by swiping your credit card without needing to do any additional work or anything else unpleasant afterwards, so one should take advantage of these opportunities when possible. (Another good example is HEPA filters, where you just swipe your credit card and plug it in and that's it, and although there are limited studies on HEPA filters themselves there is a very clear link between air pollution and mortality risk.)
- EamonnMR 7y ago
  > if you get even a minor concussion, that means you can't look at any electronic device for 3+ months I had a concussion recently and my doctor said nothing of that nature. I would love to have had a helmet which was better able to handle the impact though! Definitely the least fun altered state of consciousness that I have experienced.
  - chimeracoder 7y ago
    Depends in the severity. Some people literally can't handle it after a concussion, even if they try. It's pretty miserable for them. And severity of impact does not correlate strongly with severity of symptoms.

saagarjha 7y ago

I was curious what MIPS stood for in this context, and apparently it's "Multi-directional Impact Protection System".

flyinglizard 7y ago

There’s a bunch of helmet technology in mountain biking in the recent years. MIPS is one, 6D ODS is another (I have helmets with both). I wish I could see them compared.

resoluteteeth 7y ago

There is some controversy about this: https://www.outsideonline.com/2392896/trek-wavecel-helmet-controversy https://www.outsideonline.com/2392896/trek-wavecel-helmet-co... Also, some people argue that MIPS is probably not as effective in real life as in tests because people simply don't fasten helmets tight enough for it to matter (and the same may apply to these helmets with respect to shear forces), but I don't know if this has been scientifically tested.

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Nice helmet, however they rarely if ever protect the chin, why is that? In my many years of riding I've fallen on the back of my head zero times and on my chin twice, as a kid.

sliken 7y ago
Full face helmets do exist for bikes, for downhillers. There's big downsides in weight, cost, and less airflow (they are hot). But for downhill folks, especially those that race it's worth it. For pretty much close to 100% of non-downhill bikers, it's not. The chin is not a particularly common injury for bicyclist.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  While the direction of the responses went to "full face" bmx/motorcycle helmets, I was thinking more of a chin strap/protector like football helmets sometimes have: https://nationsfootballclassic.com/best-football-chin-straps-reviewed/ https://nationsfootballclassic.com/best-football-chin-straps... These are not significantly heavy or hot.
persistent 7y ago
These guys make full-face helmets and of course you can always just wear a motorcycle helmet. https://bike.kaliprotectives.com/helmets/ https://bike.kaliprotectives.com/helmets/ But it's a tradeoff. Full-faced helmets give the helmet another point of leverage on which to break your neck. On the other hand they won't erase your face, which is nice.
- entee 7y ago
  Motorcycle helmets are just not ever to be worn while biking. They are designed for vastly different forces at vastly different speeds than a bike helmet. Not to mention that they will breathe very very very poorly, though I'm a little unsure how these wavecell helmets will breathe. Like the Scott helmets, lots of tiny holes seems like not as good as big holes for airflow.

btrettel 7y ago

A university website linked to in the article suggests that a helmet that costs half as much as the one advertised in the article performs slightly better: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html Look for "Lazer Cyclone MIPS". Edit: Unfortunately it appears that this particular helmet has been discontinued: https://www.bikeforums.net/general-cycling-discussion/1174734-lazer-cyclone-mips.html https://www.bikeforums.net/general-cycling-discussion/117473... But there are others that perform about as well that are similarly priced.

bytesmith 7y ago

The study cited is questionable. The best independent source for helmet testing IMHO is virginia tech's, which show that these are about as effective as MIPS, not 98% better as the headline suggests: https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/bicycle-helmet-ratings.html Here's their methodology: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83760 http://hdl.handle.net/10919/83760

cowpig 7y ago
This is great! Is there anything like this for other kinds of helmets?

parsimo2010 7y ago

I’m going to comment with what seems to be the common sentiment here. It’s really hard to tell how effective a helmet is at preventing concussions in real life. So we/they design a test of some hypothetical concussion cause, and lo and behold, their helmet is very effective in that test. Note that this is a different test than the ones used to prove that MIPS was better than a styrofoam helmet. The real story is that marketing probably has a bigger influence than science in this case. Several years ago helmet manufacturers hit the practical weight limit for helmets with styrofoam and carbon fiber shells. I bought a Giro Atmos over a decade ago and never needed to upgrade because the top of the line helmets were only a couple grams lighter, after a decade of “improvement.” The manufacturers noticed that helmet sales were declining, and all of a sudden “new science” appeared with a theory about concussions being caused by brain rotation and MIPS technology helps prevent that. How convenient that this appeared. The dirty secret is that literally nobody has ever seen a brain rotate inside a skull and result in concussion. It’s really hard to image a brain in motion (impossible with off the shelf equipment), so the brain rotation theory is just a hypothetical mechanism. There isn’t an ethical test for blunt force trauma in real life conditions, and bike crashes are very rarely reported if they don’t send the rider to the hospital. So the leading authority on product safety, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, doesn’t even have good numbers on concussion rates for cyclists. The bottom line is that MIPS and this new gel layer came at way too good of a time for the helmet industry for us not to be wary of the science. They can get away with it because it’s such an easy marketing sell- most people think their life is worth more than $250, so any helmet tech is a bet on the order of Pascal’s wager. If it’s snake oil I’m just out $250, but if it really is better then I just saved my life in a crash.

duxup 7y ago
I recall an American football study looking for concussion symptoms and impairment. They found people with a history of repeated concussions, and then as what they thought might be a group to compare to some American football linemen with no history of concussions to compare with. They found linemen with the same issues despite no concussion history. This raised the possibility that worrying about severe hits that result in a concussion was possibly missing a larger issue. It seems our understanding of brain injury and even how it comes about may be inaccurate.

tmcw 7y ago

Amazing, now we just need to make a full body suit of this material so it works with the main type of urban collision, which is being killed by a reckless SUV driver, or pulled under a box truck and crushed under the back wheels.

JaakkoP 7y ago

I wonder how’s the Swedish “airbag helmet” doing these days. It sounds like a superior solution to any regular bike helmet, but perhaps the price and/or convenience just isn’t there for the mass market.

steelframe 7y ago

I got hit by a truck earlier this year while wearing a WaveCel helmet. The outer foam cracked in two places and the cell structure on the inside collapsed in several places. The CT scan of my head came out clean and the ER physician discharged me within the hour. I think my post-incident symptoms were more indicative of shock than concussion, since I did sustain several fractures in my hand. https://imgur.com/a/LdNQSRT https://imgur.com/a/LdNQSRT https://imgur.com/a/JL5ORlg https://imgur.com/a/JL5ORlg

leetbulb 7y ago
That gif made my stomach sink. I've taken spills like that, but not in traffic. Super glad you walked away with only some hand fractures. Be safe, friend.
sliken 7y ago
Keep in mind that helmets are designed to absorb energy. In your accident it's clear that neither you, the bike, or your helmet had much traction. So instead of tumbling (caused by rotational acceleration) you just slide. I'd expect any good helmet to absorb that energy. The unique claim WaveCell/MIPS is making is that they can absorb the energy that's trying to rotate your head. I've seen no indications that this is a problem. Tires have great traction, pretty much anything else (you, skin, bike, backpack, helmet, bike gloves, etc) have very poor traction so accidents rarely impart large rotational forces. Even if they did the WaveCell is only going to absorb a minimal amount since the helmet is strapped to your head. Mips and WaveCel are claiming "Rotation causes injuries", engineering a solution to it, not proving it exists, and claiming they are safer because it. Neither MIPS or WaveCel are claiming they absorb normal impacts better than normal helmets. Generally both ANSI and SNELL have picked an acceleration and penetration standard that's a compromise between rider comfort and safety. Helmets are tested against those standards. MIPS and WaveCel have failed to prove any additional safety and instead of working with the safety standard folks are appealing directly to consumers to justify their 3-6 times price increase over other ANSI and SNELL approved helmets.
- steelframe 7y ago
  > In your accident it's clear that neither you, the bike, or your helmet had much traction. The impact that you can't see in the video that damaged the helmet was in the collision with the side of the truck after it hit my left arm, rotating my handlebars to the right. This caused the counter-steer that slammed me into the side of the truck. The truck was moving faster than I was, so that was the source of the rotational acceleration.

pizza 7y ago

While the topic of discussion is concussion, there is some evidence that both fasting and ketosis are neuroprotective to some degree after traumatic brain injury. [0] Fasting is neuroprotective following traumatic brain injury, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.21628 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jnr.21628 [1] Cerebral Metabolic Adaptation and Ketone Metabolism after Brain Injury, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1038/sj.jcbfm.9600543 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1038/sj.jcbfm.96005...

Alex3917 7y ago
Interesting. Weed is supposed to be neuroprotective as well for concussions.

mmaunder 7y ago

Knocked myself out back in the 90s on a road bike not wearing a helmet. Stitches in head. Concussion for a month. Knocked myself out 2 years ago on a mountain bike wearing a MIPS helmet. No stitches in head. No concussion. Last year wife went over the bars at whistler and took it on the face with the best carbon fiber full face downhill helmet money can buy. Pressure on her face was so much she had lines of blood under her eyes just from the pressure. Big scratches on the face-guard. But she was totally fine, not knocked out, walked it off and laughed about it later. Completely unscientific data above, but when it comes to my budget distribution these days, it goes into helmet, then pads (D3O for downhill and cross country), then bike, camelbak and rest of gear. Helmets are awesome. For reference: https://www.d3o.com/ https://www.d3o.com/ Various manufacturers use this stuff - Fox, Raceface, but my personal favorite are these TLDs. They're great for long sweaty rides and gnarly stuff. https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/raid-knee-guard?color=7 https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/raid-knee-guard?color=7 This is the helmet she was using: https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/19f-tld-d3-midnight-chrome-carbon-helmet?quantity=1&color=370 https://shop.troyleedesigns.com/19f-tld-d3-midnight-chrome-c... I'll also add that I'm not a fan of Bell's Super 3R helmet with the removable face. It's MIPS these days, but I don't feel the chin guard provides enough space in case you actually take a face hit. The more DH specific helmets have more clearance. I guess now that I've seen one work and save someone, I'm a little more picky. Thisis the Super 3R I'm referring to: https://www.bellhelmets.com/bike/p/super-3r-mips-mountain-bike-helmet https://www.bellhelmets.com/bike/p/super-3r-mips-mountain-bi... For cross country rides that have some more challenging DH, I use this helmet which breathes way more than the TLD I linked to above and has more clearance than the Super 3R: https://www.foxracing.com/proframe-helmet-matte-%5Bblk%5D-m/23310-001-M.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjwzJjrBRBvEiwA867byrst9OjRtuAQMGVTjsGdFc2qBphbQ6BpD9J4ZX_-XzKoOs15U4171hoCkp0QAvD_BwE https://www.foxracing.com/proframe-helmet-matte-%5Bblk%5D-m/... I'm sure there are tons of cyclists, XC and downhill folks on HN and we all have our opinions and experience. Would love to hear from others. YMMV considerably from mine. Stay safe!!

blendo 7y ago
Preach. I bought an e-bike a few years ago, and I ride 20mph _everywhere_ now. I might upgrade to a 26mph speed pedelec, at which point a full-face may be prudent. I'd recommend a white helmet, with stick-on reflective tape, to maximize visibility. And CINCH IT DOWN TIGHT. Fun times we live in -- I expect in 5 years we (in the US) will be able to buy a 45mph, 50kg e-bike (e-motorcycle?) for $3,000-$6,000. We'll need better helmets, gloves, shoes, and pads for that, but hopefully stil shy of full motorcycle regalia (known as "ATGATT", all the gear, all the time). And I like my current Troy Lee Designs helmet simply because it fits so well.

bitL 7y ago

Wasn't there an increase in serious head/neck injuries when Australia made helmets mandatory? I thought the only working protection was the Hövding airbag, which is quite expensive for one-time use.

jdnenej 7y ago
Last time this was posted someone pointed out that this could be because when someone dies they don't bother to report "they died but they also got neck injurys which would have caused long term damage" so since less people died, the more minor reports could have been made.
- bitL 7y ago
  Basilar/basal skull fracture is what makes helmets dangerous in general, i.e. landing face-first on motorbikes often led to cracked bones at the bottom of the skull, often fatally. There were reports about increased rates among cyclists when helmets were made mandatory. I consider that pretty serious and not minor. Nothing is without risks it seems.
haser_au 7y ago
There is no consensus amongst researchers on whether mandatory helmet laws reduce injuries. I, for one, will continue wearing one and forcing my kids to wear them. As steelframe [1] posted on here, when someone else hits me, I want to survive. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20825983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20825983
- bitL 7y ago
  There is a counter point from a brain surgeon: https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wearing-cycle-helmets/ https://www.cnet.com/news/brain-surgeon-theres-no-point-wear... There were reports of increased rates of basal skull injury, i.e. the same injury many race car drivers suffered (Dale Earnhard) and for which HANS device was invented. So on one hand you would be protected in simple accidents but on the other hand exposed to more serious ones.

neves 7y ago

Any independent tests on the subject? I've went to my goto source on the subject: the Bike Helmet institute: https://helmets.org/helmet19.htm#bontrager https://helmets.org/helmet19.htm#bontrager Their veredict: when we sent a Specter model to a lab for conventional impact test results the results were very good but not amazing.

sandworm101 7y ago

There is no market for safer bike helmets. Bike helmets are sold on the basis of look, feel, and most importantly weight. Nobody is touting real safety. Compare motorcycle helmets, which come in two radically different safety standards: DOT, for harley riders who want something that is barely legal. And SNELL, for sportbike riders who actually want to keep their face on their heads after a crash. I have never seen a bicyclist with a full face helmet on the road. Bicyclists, like the harley riders, care far more about comfort and style than actual safety. At 50kph the asphalt doesn't care whether you just fell off a bicycle or a motorcycle. Please prove me wrong. Please find me a pic of someone riding a bicycle on a road in a snell motorcycle helmet. I have seen plenty of them in the downhill community, never among commuters. My point is that this new material will not be used to make safer helmets. It will be used to make lighter and more stylish helmets that, like all the others, remain only slightly above the absolute minimum legal standards. That's the market.

matt_j 7y ago
Speed is a factor. A motorcycle can easily travel 60km/h - 120km/h. A bicycle is likely to be travel at 20km/h - 40km/h. 40km/h is pretty damn fast on a bike. Maybe the enthusiast guys riding the beach in the morning get up to 60km/h but that's a pretty small percentage riders.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  An impact above 60kph is beyond the design of even a motorcycle helmet. They are primarily meant to protect the head falling onto the road surface and then sliding, an impact that it similar no matter the speed. Even when standing still, a head freefalling from 2 meters (ie bicyclist/motorcyclist tipping over) strikes the ground at 22.5 kph. That single impact is the US/DOT standard for bicycle helms. They don't accommodate sliding or repeated impacts.
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Not true. Look at MotoGP crashes. They’ll hit the deck at 150mph, slide off into gravel, slide to a stop, and pop right up with nothing more than a few scuffs on their leathers.

afinlayson 7y ago

I need this for hockey asap!!!

gnicholas 7y ago

I've looked at MIPS and Wavecell helmets for bicycling. When I looked at the analysis and research, it seemed that MIPS makes more sense for snow sports, where your helmet can get stuck in snow and twist. On asphalt, or when colliding with a car, this is less likely. So I passed on getting a MIPS helmet for biking (though I should probably get one for snowboarding). When I looked at the literature on Wavecell, it seemed to be of the "up to 40x better" variety. To a lay person like myself, that seemed suspicious because I have no idea what the common accident types are, and the literature didn't seem to indicate that it was more protective in the common scenarios. The article linked here does seem to make that case, but as others have noted it reads a bit like an advertisement. I am actually planning on getting on getting one of these helmets simply because its shape fits my head very well, and in talking with cyclists I've been told that having a shape that fits your head (mine is apparently more "circular" than "oblong") is the most important thing.

deleted 7y ago
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craftyguy 7y ago
I was in a cycling crash earlier this year while wearing a new (2 week old) MIPS helmet. The helmet (with my head in it) hit the road pretty hard causing an indentation and deep scratches. The location of the indentation leads me to believe that the initial impact 'stuck' to the asphalt then slid as the coefficient of friction was quickly surpassed. I had absolutely no injuries to my head or neck (with that could be said about my elbow, which I apparently landed on full-force). I have since replaced that helmet with another MIPs one, but I haven't heard of the Wavecell helmets until now. I'll have to consider those the next time I'm shopping around for a new helmet, hopefully this time it'll be after the current one has 'expired' naturally.
petre 7y ago
> On asphalt, or when colliding with a car, this is less likely Unless you have one of those textile covered urban fashion helmets which do not slide on asphalt and also risk breaking intervertebral disks or neck bones.

emptybits 7y ago

Not to detract from how amazing WaveCel might be. Any safety material advancement is great news. But this is assumes we need new head protection to fit the old moulds, so to speak. OTOH, there are or will soon be options to replace our foam brain buckets with high-tech collars/airbags that may (?) be less sweaty and may (?) provide more coverage in a crash (chin, back, sides, etc.) One example: https://hovding.com/how-hovding-works/ https://hovding.com/how-hovding-works/

modernerd 7y ago
Hövding is exciting because it's a new approach rather than an iteration on old helmet designs. They claim you still have a 90% risk of head injury with a traditional helmet at 25km/h, but only a 2% risk with Hövding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yOAkMZpbww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yOAkMZpbww That's a pretty significant improvement if true. The only reason I don't currently own one is that they say it's not as ergonomic for those using road/drop bar bikes. Presumably this is due to the weight of the air canister and battery in the pod that sits behind your neck, since the riding position is less upright. If any road bike users wear Hövding, I'd be interested to hear about your experience.
magicalhippo 7y ago
That airbag "helmet" seems susceptible to pointy objects and edges, like the edge of a sidewalk. Also it's not designed for MTB use, which is understandable but quite limiting.

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

I am reminded of this study [0] that claims that "Bicyclists who wear protective helmets are more likely to be struck by passing vehicles". What's to be done? Buy the helmet that reduces concussions by 98%? Or don't buy a helmet at all, and trust that you won't get in an accident? That's quite the conundrum. [0] http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/archive/overtaking110906.html http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/articles/archive/overtaking110906...

Alex3917 7y ago
> What's to be done? Wear a helmet, and don't ride on streets with cars.
- craftyguy 7y ago
  > and don't ride on streets with cars. In some cities in the US, which is just plain wrong. For example, in Portland OR you cannot lawfully ride a bicycle on the sidewalk unless you're avoiding some road hazard (cars do not count, unless it's on fire or something).
- lacampbell 7y ago
  So basically, "don't ride"
dahart 7y ago
Depending on where you live, it might be illegal to ride without a helmet. Personally, I would ignore both this study and the WaveCel marketing material, and look at results of actual outcomes in collisions. Boston and New York both, just for example (many cities & states do this, and so does the NTSB), publish data on how often helmets prevent brain injury, statistically speaking. [1][2][3] (Note that NYC is so sure helmets save lives, they’re spending millions to distribute them for free. There’s a decent chance it’s saving money overall.) > Or don’t buy a helmet at all, and trust that you won’t get in an accident? Well, do what makes you feel safer and obeys the laws. But trusting that you won’t get in an accident because of that study you cited would be a dramatic, and possibly dangerous mis-interpretation and mis-understanding of that study’s results. While there’s some controversy over that study admitted by the author, even if you take it a face value, it’s saying that without a helmet cars pass 4.4 feet from him, and with a helmet, they pass 4.1 feet from him on average. That might be a bit more dangerous, but what’s the actual accident rate? You can’t conclude anything about that from his 2 accidents, and the U.S. standard for vehicles passing bikes is 3 feet, so he’s demonstrating that with or without helmets, drivers are on average passing safely. If you want to take the studies at face value, then try to calculate the expected value, which is risk multiplied by cost. It’s wrong to suggest that it’s a toss up just because there exists evidence in both directions, when the magnitude of the evidence may be overwhelmingly unidirectional. Clearly many people here don’t believe the 98% improvement WaveCel claims, but suppose you take it at face value. To decide what do to about it, you need to know what the increase in concussion risk is due to vehicles passing you more closely. Don’t call it a conundrum, find out. How often does an average of 4.1 feet of room result in concussion over 4.4 feet of room? (BTW, do note the 98% number that WaveCel is advertising is relative to other kinds of helmets, not relative to the unprotected skull. Statistics on outcomes seem to consistently show 80%-90% effectiveness for wearing any kind of helmet, but don’t take my word for it...) [1] https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/bicyclists/biketips.shtml [2] https://www.cityofboston.gov/news/uploads/16776_49_15_27.pdf https://www.cityofboston.gov/news/uploads/16776_49_15_27.pdf [3] https://helmets.org/stats.htm#effectiveness https://helmets.org/stats.htm#effectiveness

dreamcompiler 7y ago

Off-topic but it's really annoying to try to read an article with 30% of my mobile screen taken up by a sticky ego title. Please fight back against marketdroids who ask you to do this.

m0zg 7y ago

People buy $300 bicycle helmets?

frereubu 7y ago

OT: The pointless euphemism "unplanned dismounts" in the intro paragraph made me laugh out loud.