I just bought a new one. Guess I better check to see if it passed. Edit: it gets 5 stars. Specialized Align ll.
Does anyone else remember those helmets from the late 80s/ early 90s where they left off the plastic skin and just used the foam with a lycra covering? I still remember seeing Curt Harnett’s shatter all over Glenmore velodrome when he crashed in a sprint race. He sat on the track apron for a moment, brushed the remaining chunks of foam out of his hair, then went looking for another helmet so he could continue in the competition.
Berm Peak did a nice video on Virginia Tech’s helmet testing facility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKbYaOiz5U4
About a year back, pre-grading change.
Berm Peak is one of my favorite YouTube channels.
The VA Tech testing methodology is meaningless anyway as a predictor. 99% of fatalities are due to car collisions, which involve crash energies way beyond what is modeled in their test.
Shouldn’t one also care about non-fatal head injuries? Of course a helmet isn’t going to help against a high speed vehicle collision, but i would very much like to avoid things like skull fractures or concussion if i could.
Bike helmets don’t protect against concussions. In order to do that, the styrofoam would need to be a lot thicker.
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_camarillo_why_helmets_don_t_prevent_concussions_and_what_might
Super old video. MIPS helmets and other advanced helmets allow the helmet to shift a little, sending more of the force away from the head.
These offer significant safety benefits.
But we shouldn’t beat a dead horse. Helmets prevent more injuries than not wearing one.
Even Dutch doctors are encouraging Dutch riders to wear helmets, because quite a few head injuries result from falls, not collisions with cars.
The push for helmets in Netherlands is mainly from the “Safe” Traffic Association (the road lobby). It is also related to the boom in souped-up Fat bikes, which come with all kinds of issues besides helmets.
Yes, the video is a few years old – but the research is solid and nothing has changed since then. MIPS is still snake-oil.
The push for helmets in Netherlands is mainly from the “Safe” Traffic Association (the road lobby).
It’s actual doctors who are advocating for it.
I remember looking into this, and not only are bike crashes unreported in the Netherlands, but head injuries are surprisingly high, too.
I know we like to use the Netherlands as the gold standard for safe cycling infrastructure, but the fact remains that people do get into crashes (on their own) with the safest cycling infrastructure in the world. We are, after all, on moving objects.
Helmets save lives and can prevent head injuries. There’s no real debate here.
I don’t think anyone would rather their head hit concrete or metal, at any speed, without a helmet on.
But, yes, there’s definitely been a greater need for helmets with the introduction of ebikes, especially for older riders. That’s a demographic that has clearly suffered a disproportionate rate of injuries.
Helmets save lives and can prevent head injuries. There’s no real debate here.
The real-world data says otherwise. Every single place that mandated helmets (or heavily promoted) saw absolutely no reduction in death/injury. The classic example is Australia – it had almost no helmet usage prior to passing a nationwide law. The law was strictly enforced with extremely high fines, and yet there was no real change comparing before/after the law. Similarly, all those cities which put in place bikeshare – it was predicted by the helmet lobby that bikeshare would cause a spike in death/injury, but this also didn’t happen. In fact, bikeshare cities perversely have lower overall death/injury.
So this is the fundamental problem with something like the VA Tech star ranking. It is just a laboratory model that does not reflect reality, and as such is completely useless.
A long ago clubmate of mine would disagree. She was launched headfirst through the passenger side window of a car that abruptly turned left in front of her. Her helmet was demolished, but her only injury was a dislocated shoulder. She brought the remains of the helmet to the next club meeting to show us.
Every single place that mandated helmets (or heavily promoted) saw absolutely no reduction in death/injury.
There are too many variables to go over every country (i.e. mandated only for kids and teens). And even when they are mandated, compliance may still be low (B.C, Canada has helmet laws for all ages, yet compliance is <70%).
That said, every study I’ve seen, including meta-data analysis, shows benefit.
For instance THIS very recent study:
“The empirical evidence based on the real-world hospital and police data as well as biomechanical studies confirms that wearing a helmet while cycling is beneficial, regardless of age and crash severity, in collisions with others or not. The relative benefit is higher in high-risk situations and when cycling on shared roads. The findings from the meta-analyses studies that have been reviewed in this paper are remarkably consistent.”
The classic example is Australia – it had almost no helmet usage prior to passing a nationwide law. The law was strictly enforced with extremely high fines, and yet there was no real change comparing before/after the law.
Wait, what? This Australia?
Quoting Professor Jake Olivier of UNSW’s School of Mathematics and Statistics and Deputy Director of the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research Centre:
"There was an immediate 46 per cent reduction in the rate of cycling fatalities per 100,000 population following the introduction of bicycle helmet legislation in Australia,” he says.
“This decline has been maintained since 1990 and we estimate 1332 fewer cycling fatalities associated with the introduction of bicycle helmet legislation to date.”
And you also have to consider that non-injuries (i.e. walking away from a fall because of your helmet) won’t be reported, so the benefit may very well be significantly higher.
All I can say is that I’d rather be wearing a helmet than not, in the event that my head hits any object, at any speed. It’s such a “set and forget” piece of gear, and I know people who have walked away from crashes (not involving cars, just crashes due to poor surfaces) yet their helmets basically crumbled upon impact. Way better than the alternative.
But you do you. I don’t want to force anyone to do something they don’t automatically see as a benefit on the bike.
As one study put it, "Unhelmeted injured cyclists were frequent commuter cyclists who generally do not regard cycling as safe yet choose not to wear helmets for reasons largely related to convenience and comfort. " 🤷♂️
There are a lot of brain injuries to cyclists that while not fatal are still harmful to a nice life. Helmets help again them. There is nothing you can do if you are hit by a car, but there are a lot of accidents where you are not hit by a car that you will survive, but it will affect your life.
