8 ms·

Bicycle helmets haven't changed since their introduction

40 points by robg 13y ago

PencilAndPaper 13y ago
I dont have time to read the whole of this very interesting but LONG article to see if he mentions airbag helmets. I am skeptical about how well these airbags protect one's face, but its an interesting new take on protecting your head. http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how They also have airbag jackets for motorcyclists http://www.bikebone.com/Air-Vest-Motorcycle-Airbag-Hit-Air.htm http://www.bikebone.com/Air-Vest-Motorcycle-Airbag-Hit-Air.h...
- mdesq 13y ago
  I've seen air vests for horseback riding as well. I wonder how horseback riding helmets compare to bicycle helmets.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Although they aren't designed for impact mitigation, there are also airbag vests for snowboarders and skiers in case they get caught in an avalanche. The vest inflates large enough and helps you "float" to the top of the snow wave that engulfs you.
- deelowe 13y ago
  Might be worth noting that the motorcyle ones were developed in MotoGP and have been crash tested several times now. Here's an example from a couple weeks ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv88fiB3v6w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv88fiB3v6w They both walked away from that. These are a godsend for the motorcycle racing community. Now they just need to come down in price.
EvanAnderson 13y ago
Obligatory invocation of Neal Stephenson, by way of a prior HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390110
notatoad 13y ago
A little bit like bicycles themselves. sure, we've got full suspension and electronic shifting and remote lockouts and carbon fibre and all kinds of other fun stuff now, but it's all really just garnish. a bicycle you buy today is not fundamentally different from a bicycle you might have bought 100 years ago. all the core mechanisms are identical.
- revelation 13y ago
  They are all garnish because there is no culture around bicycles as everyday transportation. So it's become an enthusiast market with flashy inventions but little improvement in the core categories like reliability or safety. It's a market where all you can buy is the kids plastic version of a Porsche or a literal Porsche.
  - mesofile 13y ago
    Actually, there has long been a strong culture of bikes as transportation for ordinary people in Europe, and to a great extent this has bled over to US cities as more commuters have taken up cycling and created a demand for more utilitarian gear. In the late 90s I had the same complaint you make above, but this is no longer the case. Along with their road and MTB lines all the major marques have introduced a range of 'street' or 'city' models. The real challenge of improving anything in cycling, from an industrial design perspective, is that a bike is a product whose primary virtue is minimalism. Adding features can be useful for certain niche markets (suspension for downhillers, aero bars for racers) but for the most part a bike is only improved when one can deliver the same (or improved) characteristics of handling, comfort and durability while using less material. Sometimes this is a question of design improvement, but this is rare -- many designs recur over decades (like integrated headset bearings) without ever really becoming essential. More often improvements come from better materials and fabrication techniques.
  - cgh 13y ago
    You clearly are not Dutch or Danish.
- davidw 13y ago
revelation 13y ago
They haven't changed because they are an obvious dead end. Professional sports aside, it makes no sense to force an everyday commuter to wear such a thing for a very dubious return in safety while we put up with automobile transport and retarded city designers. Bicycle helmets are the equivalent of telling homeowners they should build a nuclear bunker for their home because we have no interest in ensuring safety standards for nuclear reactors fearing that could cause prices to go up.
- steelframe 13y ago
  Cyclists can and do suffer head impacts for any number of reasons, many not having anything to do with motorists or city planning. Personally, I've had several close calls with suicidal squirrels and rabbits on downhill segments. Also, it turns out that railroad tracks is a leading cause of injury according to the UBC BICE study: http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/ http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/
  - thrownaway2424 13y ago
    Motorists also suffer from head injuries. Head injury is the leading cause of death for motorists who die in crashes. Therefore, motorists should also wear helmets.
    - PencilAndPaper 13y ago
      I had a friend who once speculated that if the government wanted to discourage driving, they could mandate that driver wear helmets. Considering how dangerous and destructive driving is, maybe its a win-win.
    - steelframe 13y ago
      Agreed.
- ajross 13y ago
  Cite for the "bike helmets are ineffective" assertion? It's belied by the statistics in the linked article, among other things like fairly straightforward intuition...
cbr 13y ago
"If an incremental safety improvement results in higher manufacturing costs, the realized value of the improvement must outweigh those costs." That actually sounds pretty reasonable.
- VLM 13y ago
  The real cost is anyone who ever wore an old model helmet who ever got into an accident of any sort will sue them the moment they change to a new model. Picture yourself on the stand at trial trying to explain why you didn't safety recall every model 1 after you released model 2. So did you intentionally design model 1 to be faulty? It'll just be awful. This huge headache has also been an issue for general aviation. The third reason is improvement R+D costs money, and with virtually no protection from Chinese copies, all that money is lost unless you can convince people to pay more for a genuine helmet rather than a cheap copy with the same improvement. You can imagine some poor embattled CEO saying "forget it all, just license this years disney characters, put some yoga pants in the ads, and call it good".
- steelframe 13y ago
  How much incremental value would you put on permanent brain injury vs. a mild concussion?
stox 13y ago
Although the appearance has not changed much, the mechanics have. Helmets built in the mid 1970's were too hard. As a result, during certain accidents, they would enhance the likelihood of breaking one's neck. Later designs would absorb much more of the impact, providing greater protection.
steelframe 13y ago
As someone who cycles thousands of miles every year and who has smashed a helmet on the pavement in the past, I happily paid over $200 for a MIPS helmet -- the only one I could manage to find for sale in the U.S.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sliverstorm 13y ago
For what it's worth, motorcycle helmets are in a similar position. As I read this article, it's like a flashback to a similar article about motorcycle lids. Both are spec'd and designed for crazy impacts that are not frequent in the real world, and sacrifice low-speed impact protection in the process. I suppose you could say helmet standards are like an example of unintentional, slightly misguided test-driven development.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  I've always thought Motorcycle helmets are most effective at low speed due to their mass.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. How would their mass reduce effectiveness at speed?
devilshaircut 13y ago
If you want protection from injury on your bicycle, you are better off with a motorcycle helmet than a bicycle helmet, end of story. As has been stated by previous posters, bike helmets are largely ineffective. Bike helmets solve the cyclist protection problem for a small subset of crashes. The only real innovation I've seen in bike helmets lately is this: http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how Without this kind of total reimagining of bike protection, I doubt it is possible to innovate on what is currently classified as a helmet for cyclists. EDIT: Link already posted by a previous poster, of course.
- steelframe 13y ago
  I agree that a motorcycle helmet would offer more protection than your typical bicycle helmet. Unfortunately, a motorcycle helmet is a complete non-starter for road cyclists. No one I ride with would even tolerate a full-face mountain biking helmet. I've been watching the airbags closely since they were first introduced. I look forward to standards bodies developing test methodologies and certifications around them. Then, I'll look forward to the reliability reports and injury statistics as they are adopted.
  - devilshaircut 13y ago
    Of course it is a non-starter. I agree, and I would never wear a motorcycle helmet on my bike. I don't even wear a helmet. My point is simply that the degree of protection a bicycle helmet offers is oversold.
- MartinCron 13y ago
  Once you go that far, you might as well ride a motorcycle or a scooter. You can wear much better safety gear and are fast enough to keep pace with traffic.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    Once you go that far, why not drive an SUV? You won't even notice all the scooters and pedestrians you run over! The reason we ride bicycles is that bicycles are perfect vehicles, and require no "safety gear" whatsoever.
kamjam 13y ago
This was a really interesting read. To think that all this research spawned off a visit to the bike shop to replace his daughters bike helmet! The Air Attack perfectly illustrates what drives most helmet innovation: performance For most everyday commuters, some safety is required at a reasonable price. So a $40 helmet will suffice. For more serious and avid cyclists, they will more likely splash out for the more expensive honeycomb MIPS design. It took a while for the article to get there, but I was thinking all the time I was reading this about the lightweight honeycomb bike helmets that the British Cycling Team adopted for their Olympics: http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/crux-product-design-creates-new-helmets-for-british-cycling-team/3034708.article http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/crux-product-design-creates... http://www.trackcyclingnews.com/olympics12bchelmets.html http://www.trackcyclingnews.com/olympics12bchelmets.html Extensive testing found that aluminium honeycomb, often used within the aerospace industry, worked well as a material for the helmet core. When combined with the unique dual shell, it was said to outperform previous designs in terms of absorbing impact energy efficiently and ensuring deceleration forces weren't transferred to the wearer.
mixedbit 13y ago
Inflatable bike helmet hidden in a scarf is quite a revolutionary idea in this space (already on the market, but expensive): http://gizmodo.com/5949067/the-ridiculous-high+concept-inflatable-bike-helmet-is-finally-buyable http://gizmodo.com/5949067/the-ridiculous-high+concept-infla...
nether 13y ago
Helmets have changed substantially since their introduction, starting with the "hairnet" designs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#History_of_designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#History_of_desi... also shown in the classic film Breaking Away), better foam/shell materials, fitting, visors that protect the nose from ground contact, and specialization toward different types of cycling. Full-face helmets are used in mountain biking for frontal impacts.
pconf 13y ago
This isn't really an educational article. I say that because of the studies it selectively cites and the conclusions they reach. For example it's fine to call a facial skin abrasion a "head injury" if you are clear about that definition in the research. It's another thing to cite research about "head injuries" and helmet use without mentioning what they means by a head injury. The article also fails to cite research that contradicts the authors bias. Academic work such as Robinson's longitudinal study of AU or numerous pieces in the British Medical Journal (as referenced at http://www.boycottbell.com/ http://www.boycottbell.com/ ) appear to have been carefully avoided. For these reasons, and the fact that Bicycling Magazine is heavily funded by helmet advertising, it would be naive not to see the advertising influence in this article which goes out of its way to appear to be educational. The unfortunate result of this sort of "journalism" is that people with little cycling experience and no knowledge of epidemiology read it and assume it is true despite the fact that 98% of the world's bicycling population don't wear helmets and their incidence of true head injuries are uniformly lower among them than the US' helmeted riders. Another downside to this propaganda is that many kids never take up cycling in the first place and many of those who do ride are afraid to venture outside of bike paths, sidewalks and super-low-traffic routes. From a foreigner's perspective this illustrates American's naivete with regards to sales and marketing and their relatively undeveloped bicycling ecosystem. I for one hope both of those dysfunctional cultural attributes improve with the rising price of petrol.
rdouble 13y ago
In the USA people tend to ride bikes with frame designs inspired by either road or mountain racing bikes. This type of bike geometry makes it easy to get thrown over the handlebars and land on your head should you have an accident. However, in countries like China, the Netherlands and Denmark, the most popular bikes are typically upright designs that haven't changed much in 100 years. These bikes are pretty much impossible to get thrown over the handlebars, and as such you will never land on your head. The same goes for beach cruisers, bromptons, citi bikes / velib, kids bikes and anything described as a "leisure" bike. For cyclists who use this sort of bike it doesn't matter that bike helmets haven't changed much, because they are unnecessary for safety, anyway.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Your position seems to presume that you cannot receive a head injury in a bicycle accident without being thrown over the handlebars, which is rather emphatically not the case.
  - freiheit 13y ago
    If you fall to the side at low speeds, you're more likely to land on your shoulder or arm. (knee and hip are likely involved in such a fall, too)
  - rdouble 13y ago
    Sure, it's theoretically possible but you'd have to try pretty hard to hit your head falling off a dutch bike. Anyone who manages that should probably not be riding a bike in the first place.

40 points by robg 13y ago

I dont have time to read the whole of this very interesting but LONG article to see if he mentions airbag helmets. I am skeptical about how well these airbags protect one's face, but its an interesting new take on protecting your head. http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how They also have airbag jackets for motorcyclists http://www.bikebone.com/Air-Vest-Motorcycle-Airbag-Hit-Air.htm http://www.bikebone.com/Air-Vest-Motorcycle-Airbag-Hit-Air.h...

mdesq 13y ago
I've seen air vests for horseback riding as well. I wonder how horseback riding helmets compare to bicycle helmets.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Although they aren't designed for impact mitigation, there are also airbag vests for snowboarders and skiers in case they get caught in an avalanche. The vest inflates large enough and helps you "float" to the top of the snow wave that engulfs you.
deelowe 13y ago
Might be worth noting that the motorcyle ones were developed in MotoGP and have been crash tested several times now. Here's an example from a couple weeks ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv88fiB3v6w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv88fiB3v6w They both walked away from that. These are a godsend for the motorcycle racing community. Now they just need to come down in price.

EvanAnderson 13y ago

Obligatory invocation of Neal Stephenson, by way of a prior HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4390110

notatoad 13y ago

A little bit like bicycles themselves. sure, we've got full suspension and electronic shifting and remote lockouts and carbon fibre and all kinds of other fun stuff now, but it's all really just garnish. a bicycle you buy today is not fundamentally different from a bicycle you might have bought 100 years ago. all the core mechanisms are identical.

revelation 13y ago
They are all garnish because there is no culture around bicycles as everyday transportation. So it's become an enthusiast market with flashy inventions but little improvement in the core categories like reliability or safety. It's a market where all you can buy is the kids plastic version of a Porsche or a literal Porsche.
- mesofile 13y ago
  Actually, there has long been a strong culture of bikes as transportation for ordinary people in Europe, and to a great extent this has bled over to US cities as more commuters have taken up cycling and created a demand for more utilitarian gear. In the late 90s I had the same complaint you make above, but this is no longer the case. Along with their road and MTB lines all the major marques have introduced a range of 'street' or 'city' models. The real challenge of improving anything in cycling, from an industrial design perspective, is that a bike is a product whose primary virtue is minimalism. Adding features can be useful for certain niche markets (suspension for downhillers, aero bars for racers) but for the most part a bike is only improved when one can deliver the same (or improved) characteristics of handling, comfort and durability while using less material. Sometimes this is a question of design improvement, but this is rare -- many designs recur over decades (like integrated headset bearings) without ever really becoming essential. More often improvements come from better materials and fabrication techniques.
- cgh 13y ago
  You clearly are not Dutch or Danish.
davidw 13y ago

revelation 13y ago

They haven't changed because they are an obvious dead end. Professional sports aside, it makes no sense to force an everyday commuter to wear such a thing for a very dubious return in safety while we put up with automobile transport and retarded city designers. Bicycle helmets are the equivalent of telling homeowners they should build a nuclear bunker for their home because we have no interest in ensuring safety standards for nuclear reactors fearing that could cause prices to go up.

steelframe 13y ago
Cyclists can and do suffer head impacts for any number of reasons, many not having anything to do with motorists or city planning. Personally, I've had several close calls with suicidal squirrels and rabbits on downhill segments. Also, it turns out that railroad tracks is a leading cause of injury according to the UBC BICE study: http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/ http://cyclingincities.spph.ubc.ca/injuries/the-bice-study/
- thrownaway2424 13y ago
  Motorists also suffer from head injuries. Head injury is the leading cause of death for motorists who die in crashes. Therefore, motorists should also wear helmets.
  - PencilAndPaper 13y ago
    I had a friend who once speculated that if the government wanted to discourage driving, they could mandate that driver wear helmets. Considering how dangerous and destructive driving is, maybe its a win-win.
  - steelframe 13y ago
    Agreed.
ajross 13y ago
Cite for the "bike helmets are ineffective" assertion? It's belied by the statistics in the linked article, among other things like fairly straightforward intuition...

cbr 13y ago

"If an incremental safety improvement results in higher manufacturing costs, the realized value of the improvement must outweigh those costs." That actually sounds pretty reasonable.

VLM 13y ago
The real cost is anyone who ever wore an old model helmet who ever got into an accident of any sort will sue them the moment they change to a new model. Picture yourself on the stand at trial trying to explain why you didn't safety recall every model 1 after you released model 2. So did you intentionally design model 1 to be faulty? It'll just be awful. This huge headache has also been an issue for general aviation. The third reason is improvement R+D costs money, and with virtually no protection from Chinese copies, all that money is lost unless you can convince people to pay more for a genuine helmet rather than a cheap copy with the same improvement. You can imagine some poor embattled CEO saying "forget it all, just license this years disney characters, put some yoga pants in the ads, and call it good".
steelframe 13y ago
How much incremental value would you put on permanent brain injury vs. a mild concussion?

stox 13y ago

Although the appearance has not changed much, the mechanics have. Helmets built in the mid 1970's were too hard. As a result, during certain accidents, they would enhance the likelihood of breaking one's neck. Later designs would absorb much more of the impact, providing greater protection.

steelframe 13y ago

As someone who cycles thousands of miles every year and who has smashed a helmet on the pavement in the past, I happily paid over $200 for a MIPS helmet -- the only one I could manage to find for sale in the U.S.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

sliverstorm 13y ago

For what it's worth, motorcycle helmets are in a similar position. As I read this article, it's like a flashback to a similar article about motorcycle lids. Both are spec'd and designed for crazy impacts that are not frequent in the real world, and sacrifice low-speed impact protection in the process. I suppose you could say helmet standards are like an example of unintentional, slightly misguided test-driven development.

DigitalJack 13y ago
I've always thought Motorcycle helmets are most effective at low speed due to their mass.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. How would their mass reduce effectiveness at speed?

devilshaircut 13y ago

If you want protection from injury on your bicycle, you are better off with a motorcycle helmet than a bicycle helmet, end of story. As has been stated by previous posters, bike helmets are largely ineffective. Bike helmets solve the cyclist protection problem for a small subset of crashes. The only real innovation I've seen in bike helmets lately is this: http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how http://www.hovding.com/en/how_it_works?/en/how Without this kind of total reimagining of bike protection, I doubt it is possible to innovate on what is currently classified as a helmet for cyclists. EDIT: Link already posted by a previous poster, of course.

steelframe 13y ago
I agree that a motorcycle helmet would offer more protection than your typical bicycle helmet. Unfortunately, a motorcycle helmet is a complete non-starter for road cyclists. No one I ride with would even tolerate a full-face mountain biking helmet. I've been watching the airbags closely since they were first introduced. I look forward to standards bodies developing test methodologies and certifications around them. Then, I'll look forward to the reliability reports and injury statistics as they are adopted.
- devilshaircut 13y ago
  Of course it is a non-starter. I agree, and I would never wear a motorcycle helmet on my bike. I don't even wear a helmet. My point is simply that the degree of protection a bicycle helmet offers is oversold.
MartinCron 13y ago
Once you go that far, you might as well ride a motorcycle or a scooter. You can wear much better safety gear and are fast enough to keep pace with traffic.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  Once you go that far, why not drive an SUV? You won't even notice all the scooters and pedestrians you run over! The reason we ride bicycles is that bicycles are perfect vehicles, and require no "safety gear" whatsoever.

kamjam 13y ago

This was a really interesting read. To think that all this research spawned off a visit to the bike shop to replace his daughters bike helmet! The Air Attack perfectly illustrates what drives most helmet innovation: performance For most everyday commuters, some safety is required at a reasonable price. So a $40 helmet will suffice. For more serious and avid cyclists, they will more likely splash out for the more expensive honeycomb MIPS design. It took a while for the article to get there, but I was thinking all the time I was reading this about the lightweight honeycomb bike helmets that the British Cycling Team adopted for their Olympics: http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/crux-product-design-creates-new-helmets-for-british-cycling-team/3034708.article http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/crux-product-design-creates... http://www.trackcyclingnews.com/olympics12bchelmets.html http://www.trackcyclingnews.com/olympics12bchelmets.html Extensive testing found that aluminium honeycomb, often used within the aerospace industry, worked well as a material for the helmet core. When combined with the unique dual shell, it was said to outperform previous designs in terms of absorbing impact energy efficiently and ensuring deceleration forces weren't transferred to the wearer.

mixedbit 13y ago

Inflatable bike helmet hidden in a scarf is quite a revolutionary idea in this space (already on the market, but expensive): http://gizmodo.com/5949067/the-ridiculous-high+concept-inflatable-bike-helmet-is-finally-buyable http://gizmodo.com/5949067/the-ridiculous-high+concept-infla...

nether 13y ago

Helmets have changed substantially since their introduction, starting with the "hairnet" designs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#History_of_designs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#History_of_desi... also shown in the classic film Breaking Away), better foam/shell materials, fitting, visors that protect the nose from ground contact, and specialization toward different types of cycling. Full-face helmets are used in mountain biking for frontal impacts.

pconf 13y ago

This isn't really an educational article. I say that because of the studies it selectively cites and the conclusions they reach. For example it's fine to call a facial skin abrasion a "head injury" if you are clear about that definition in the research. It's another thing to cite research about "head injuries" and helmet use without mentioning what they means by a head injury. The article also fails to cite research that contradicts the authors bias. Academic work such as Robinson's longitudinal study of AU or numerous pieces in the British Medical Journal (as referenced at http://www.boycottbell.com/ http://www.boycottbell.com/ ) appear to have been carefully avoided. For these reasons, and the fact that Bicycling Magazine is heavily funded by helmet advertising, it would be naive not to see the advertising influence in this article which goes out of its way to appear to be educational. The unfortunate result of this sort of "journalism" is that people with little cycling experience and no knowledge of epidemiology read it and assume it is true despite the fact that 98% of the world's bicycling population don't wear helmets and their incidence of true head injuries are uniformly lower among them than the US' helmeted riders. Another downside to this propaganda is that many kids never take up cycling in the first place and many of those who do ride are afraid to venture outside of bike paths, sidewalks and super-low-traffic routes. From a foreigner's perspective this illustrates American's naivete with regards to sales and marketing and their relatively undeveloped bicycling ecosystem. I for one hope both of those dysfunctional cultural attributes improve with the rising price of petrol.

rdouble 13y ago

In the USA people tend to ride bikes with frame designs inspired by either road or mountain racing bikes. This type of bike geometry makes it easy to get thrown over the handlebars and land on your head should you have an accident. However, in countries like China, the Netherlands and Denmark, the most popular bikes are typically upright designs that haven't changed much in 100 years. These bikes are pretty much impossible to get thrown over the handlebars, and as such you will never land on your head. The same goes for beach cruisers, bromptons, citi bikes / velib, kids bikes and anything described as a "leisure" bike. For cyclists who use this sort of bike it doesn't matter that bike helmets haven't changed much, because they are unnecessary for safety, anyway.

dragonwriter 13y ago
Your position seems to presume that you cannot receive a head injury in a bicycle accident without being thrown over the handlebars, which is rather emphatically not the case.
- freiheit 13y ago
  If you fall to the side at low speeds, you're more likely to land on your shoulder or arm. (knee and hip are likely involved in such a fall, too)
- rdouble 13y ago
  Sure, it's theoretically possible but you'd have to try pretty hard to hit your head falling off a dutch bike. Anyone who manages that should probably not be riding a bike in the first place.