4 ms·

Do you also wear boots, an armored jacket and pants? Gloves? I bike to work every day, and spent a good part of my childhood on a bike- mountain biking on trail

Do you also wear boots, an armored jacket and pants? Gloves? I bike to work every day, and spent a good part of my childhood on a bike- mountain biking on trails in the woods. I have had countless banged up knees, elbows, ankles and hands, but never had a head injury. I used to ride a motorcycle, and wore the full getup aside from pants, and I feel cyclists would be far more protected wearing a jacket and gloves. Anecdotes aside- figures from the UK (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119262/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1119262/) show that it takes 8000 years of cycling to produce a clinically severe head injury and 22000 years for one death. From that same source, roughly 1% of all head injuries admitted into hospitals are from cycling, and 60% are alcohol related. Yet people would find it ridiculous if you suggested they wear a drinking helmet. The fixation on helmets really confuses me. Its not helped that a lot of it seems to be pushed by people who seem to use it as some kind of virtue-signaling issue. There is just such a focus on a fairly burdensome piece of equipment that in a small percentage of rides in which an incident occurs, and in a small percentage of those incidents, this piece of equipment may help reduce the severity of your injuries, while all other equipment is left out of the conversation.

emanuensis 7y ago
+1 gloves
shkkmo 7y ago
> From that same source, roughly 1% of all head injuries admitted into hospitals are from cycling, and 60% are alcohol related. Yet people would find it ridiculous if you suggested they wear a drinking helmet. That is a hilarious and wonderful comparison. I'm gonna save that one for future discussion of helmets and safety.
magduf 7y ago
>From that same source, roughly 1% of all head injuries admitted into hospitals are from cycling, and 60% are alcohol related. This stat means absolutely nothing. It's coming from a place where not that many people cycle, the summary even says that cycling experienced a decline, so of course there's not going to be that many injuries from cycling when very few people are doing it. By contrast, British people drink a LOT, so of course they're going to have a lot of alcohol-related injuries. It's just like America: there's very little cycling, and a LOT of drinking and drunkenness, so it doesn't take any great intelligence to predict that there will be far more alcohol-related injuries than cycling-related ones. And yes, maybe people there should wear drinking helmets, with the way people in those two countries love to get drunk so much. >There is just such a focus on a fairly burdensome piece of equipment "Burdensome"? Are you kidding me? Something that weighs a few ounces? I guess you think seatbelts are "burdensome" too. And yes, I do wear gloves when cycling; they have pads to absorb vibration, and can be helpful if I fall and scrape my hands. They're far more "burdensome" than a helmet, since they take more time to put on (which still isn't very much).
- kevstev 7y ago
  I have to carry around a helmet- yes I find this burdensome. Real estate is hard to come by in NYC- and my commute requires a partial subway commute. When I rode a motorcycle to my job and had a cube I was annoyed by the MC helmet, but felt the risk tradeoff was worth it and could at least tuck it away. Now I am subject to the hideous open office trend, it would be a PITA. Its not the weight, its the volume, and the fact that I would have to redo my hair once I went anywhere, all to prevent an event that seems about as likely to me as winning the jackpot on a scratch off ticket. Seatbelts don't bother me at all, they are built in to the car. Still my point about a drinking helmet stands- drinking is a dangerous activity- 60% of all hospital admissions for head injuries involve alcohol. Clearly we could reduce the severity and incidence of these injuries with helmets. It would be interesting to see how many "drinking years" it would take on average to get a head injury worthy of a hospital admission. Driving is dangerous too- and in virtually any accident it seems likely your head is going to come into contact with something- even if it is an airbag, and the mv^2 is much higher- we could reduce the severity and incidence of head injuries if everyone wore a helmet, especially an NFL style helmet with a faceguard... And you accept that wearing gloves is ok, but you don't wear a jacket- so you know you may fall, and possibly scrape along the ground a bit, but you don't wear a jacket that most motorcyclists consider to be basic standard gear. Do you understand where I am going here? You assess risk a certain way and make tradeoffs in what you are willing to do to protect yourself, as do I. However, what your risk assessment has determined wearing a helmet as necessary and foolish not to, I see as just another unnecessary burden, choosing instead to wear armored gloves in winter, and accepting other risks. You may feel not wearing a helmet is something a fool does, but my years of riding have given me intuition (in other words, my developed common sense) that the head is highly unlikely to be injured, and statistics back me up on this. If I did a lot of high speed road cycling, it would probably change things, but my rides around town where I top out cruising around 15mph and if I go down a hill hit 30 for a brief minute or two, its just not necessary or reasonably useful. So wear your helmet, but I feel denigrating those that don't because your "common sense" tells you its necessary is misguided and somewhat ignorant.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >I have to carry around a helmet- yes I find this burdensome. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of biking to work yet, but if I did, I'd be using a backpack for what I hope are obvious reasons. Any good backpack these days designed for cycling has a clip on it that attaches to your helmet so you don't have to carry it around. I even did this years ago in college when I biked to class; it wasn't a burden at all. >And you accept that wearing gloves is ok, but you don't wear a jacket- so you know you may fall, and possibly scrape along the ground a bit, but you don't wear a jacket that most motorcyclists consider to be basic standard gear. Jackets are incredibly hot. Bicycles don't go fast enough to mitigate this. Some skin scrapes are preferable to getting heatstroke. >but my years of riding have given me intuition (in other words, my developed common sense) that the head is highly unlikely to be injured The problem is, if your head is injured, it's either game-over or you suffer mental problems for the rest of your life. Other bodily injuries you can usually heal from. A broken leg? It sucks, but it heals. Skin scrapes? Not a big deal usually (not at bicycling speeds). Worst case you get a skin graft but that's not normal for cycling. But a concussion can leave permanent damage; the brain doesn't heal the way the rest of your body does. To make a computer analogy, I feel like you're talking about the relative risks to various computer parts, and equating potential damage to your laptop's screen to its hard drive. The screen isn't important, nor is the rest of the laptop: you can replace them at any time. But the hard drive is unreplaceable (going back to the last backup, which unfortunately we don't have for brains yet): if anything happens to the hard drive at all, you lose all your data and all your work, and you can't replace that.

emanuensis 7y ago

+1 gloves

shkkmo 7y ago

> From that same source, roughly 1% of all head injuries admitted into hospitals are from cycling, and 60% are alcohol related. Yet people would find it ridiculous if you suggested they wear a drinking helmet. That is a hilarious and wonderful comparison. I'm gonna save that one for future discussion of helmets and safety.

magduf 7y ago

>From that same source, roughly 1% of all head injuries admitted into hospitals are from cycling, and 60% are alcohol related. This stat means absolutely nothing. It's coming from a place where not that many people cycle, the summary even says that cycling experienced a decline, so of course there's not going to be that many injuries from cycling when very few people are doing it. By contrast, British people drink a LOT, so of course they're going to have a lot of alcohol-related injuries. It's just like America: there's very little cycling, and a LOT of drinking and drunkenness, so it doesn't take any great intelligence to predict that there will be far more alcohol-related injuries than cycling-related ones. And yes, maybe people there should wear drinking helmets, with the way people in those two countries love to get drunk so much. >There is just such a focus on a fairly burdensome piece of equipment "Burdensome"? Are you kidding me? Something that weighs a few ounces? I guess you think seatbelts are "burdensome" too. And yes, I do wear gloves when cycling; they have pads to absorb vibration, and can be helpful if I fall and scrape my hands. They're far more "burdensome" than a helmet, since they take more time to put on (which still isn't very much).

kevstev 7y ago
I have to carry around a helmet- yes I find this burdensome. Real estate is hard to come by in NYC- and my commute requires a partial subway commute. When I rode a motorcycle to my job and had a cube I was annoyed by the MC helmet, but felt the risk tradeoff was worth it and could at least tuck it away. Now I am subject to the hideous open office trend, it would be a PITA. Its not the weight, its the volume, and the fact that I would have to redo my hair once I went anywhere, all to prevent an event that seems about as likely to me as winning the jackpot on a scratch off ticket. Seatbelts don't bother me at all, they are built in to the car. Still my point about a drinking helmet stands- drinking is a dangerous activity- 60% of all hospital admissions for head injuries involve alcohol. Clearly we could reduce the severity and incidence of these injuries with helmets. It would be interesting to see how many "drinking years" it would take on average to get a head injury worthy of a hospital admission. Driving is dangerous too- and in virtually any accident it seems likely your head is going to come into contact with something- even if it is an airbag, and the mv^2 is much higher- we could reduce the severity and incidence of head injuries if everyone wore a helmet, especially an NFL style helmet with a faceguard... And you accept that wearing gloves is ok, but you don't wear a jacket- so you know you may fall, and possibly scrape along the ground a bit, but you don't wear a jacket that most motorcyclists consider to be basic standard gear. Do you understand where I am going here? You assess risk a certain way and make tradeoffs in what you are willing to do to protect yourself, as do I. However, what your risk assessment has determined wearing a helmet as necessary and foolish not to, I see as just another unnecessary burden, choosing instead to wear armored gloves in winter, and accepting other risks. You may feel not wearing a helmet is something a fool does, but my years of riding have given me intuition (in other words, my developed common sense) that the head is highly unlikely to be injured, and statistics back me up on this. If I did a lot of high speed road cycling, it would probably change things, but my rides around town where I top out cruising around 15mph and if I go down a hill hit 30 for a brief minute or two, its just not necessary or reasonably useful. So wear your helmet, but I feel denigrating those that don't because your "common sense" tells you its necessary is misguided and somewhat ignorant.
- magduf 7y ago
  >I have to carry around a helmet- yes I find this burdensome. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of biking to work yet, but if I did, I'd be using a backpack for what I hope are obvious reasons. Any good backpack these days designed for cycling has a clip on it that attaches to your helmet so you don't have to carry it around. I even did this years ago in college when I biked to class; it wasn't a burden at all. >And you accept that wearing gloves is ok, but you don't wear a jacket- so you know you may fall, and possibly scrape along the ground a bit, but you don't wear a jacket that most motorcyclists consider to be basic standard gear. Jackets are incredibly hot. Bicycles don't go fast enough to mitigate this. Some skin scrapes are preferable to getting heatstroke. >but my years of riding have given me intuition (in other words, my developed common sense) that the head is highly unlikely to be injured The problem is, if your head is injured, it's either game-over or you suffer mental problems for the rest of your life. Other bodily injuries you can usually heal from. A broken leg? It sucks, but it heals. Skin scrapes? Not a big deal usually (not at bicycling speeds). Worst case you get a skin graft but that's not normal for cycling. But a concussion can leave permanent damage; the brain doesn't heal the way the rest of your body does. To make a computer analogy, I feel like you're talking about the relative risks to various computer parts, and equating potential damage to your laptop's screen to its hard drive. The screen isn't important, nor is the rest of the laptop: you can replace them at any time. But the hard drive is unreplaceable (going back to the last backup, which unfortunately we don't have for brains yet): if anything happens to the hard drive at all, you lose all your data and all your work, and you can't replace that.