Remember kids... always wear a helmet. (The almighty bikeradar helmet thread)

Would you rather look stupid or be stupid?

Well, that settles that then. Thank god you joined the forum

Would you rather look stupid or be stupid?

Can't I be both? It's got me this far.

But from what I have read about helmets, they are not supposed to crack or break, they are supposed to absorb energy by compressing/deforming. This means that a helmet which breaks has not done its job (at least not as it was designed to). Which is kind of worrying.

Well it's a fair guess to say it did some absorbing and compressing... and then broke isn't it?

I guess you could, but the question precludes that option! Imagine you have a choice.

If I had a choice I'd be Judy Garland but that's not going to fucking well happen.

This thread will be merged as soon as VB returns from holiday.

Disco!

It was just another dupe of the almighty helmet thread, subtly disguised but still a dupe.

Although, Buffalo Bill tweeted about something rather interesting:

Abstract of Ian Walker's study of how much room motorists give helmeted riders - less than helmetless sciencedirect.co...
Which links to this:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5S-4M645C2-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=82123ee922e62f678691defbb6f30bd5

Which is this piece of research:

Drivers overtaking bicyclists: Objective data on the effects of riding position, helmet use, vehicle type and apparent gender

Ian Walker

Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom

Received 22 June 2006;
revised 5 August 2006;
accepted 12 August 2006.
Available online 24 October 2006.

And a quick google around of the torrents reveals it's available to download, and is thus attached.

The interesting bit is probably the conclusion:

Overtaking motorists pass closer to a bicyclist when the rider wears a helmet, rides away from the edge of the road, is male, or when the vehicle concerned is a bus or heavy goods vehicle.

Based on previous work on drivers’ perceptions of bicyclists, we have suggested that many of these effects are the result of motorists making assumptions about bicyclists’ behaviours based on a brief visual assessment of their likely experience levels.

We argue that these assessments can only ever provide a poor guide to the likelihood of a collision occurring and would encourage efforts to warn motorists of the assumptions they are making and the fallibility of these.

Though I'd recommend reading the paper, it's pretty interesting.

UPDATE: It's been pointed out that attaching the PDF might be a breach of copyright, as such I've attached the .torrent file that using a program like uTorrent means that you can download it without the forum taking any risk that it is storing copyrighted material.

Just click the following link to download the Drivers overtaking bicyclists paper.

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• Drivers overtaking bicyclists.pdf.torrent

Oh, and something I always recommend when reading academic papers is to go through the references... they turn up so much more interesting background research and info.

Earlier that day.

3...2....1

if it's your time it's your time
it's like that incident on london bridge motorbike comes whizzing across the central barrier and takes out cyclist
wearing a helmet wouldn't have made a difference
how many people on here have had accidents and have received brain damage ?

I had a cerebral hemorrhage when I came off my bike (in January of this year). I had to have CT scans and was in hospital for 3 nights for observation. The cause of the hemorrhage was a pool of blood on my brain from my head being shaken around when it bounced off the road.

I was wearing a helmet at the time. It could be argued that my head wouldn't have bounced if I'd not been wearing my helmet but then all the impact would have gone directly to my skull (front left area). Although it would have most likely have bounced anyway (in addition to damaging my skull)

I don't claim that 'the helmet saved my life' or anything like that but I'd hate to think what'd have happened if I wasn't wearing it. Every doctor I spoke to usually asked me "I hope you were wearing a helmet" when they found out I fell off my bike.

For the record I couldn't give a fuck what I look like or if any of you wear a helmet.

This is just like when they made helmets mandatory on motorbikes.
I love how the anti helmet people treat this like a bible. I'm sure they've done a lot of research but it smacks of Daily Mail to me!

Incredibly Daily Mail.

I'm sure there are as many stories from people who were involved in an accident and were glad they were wearing a helmet as there are stories of people who were involved in an accident and weren't.
Meh.

http://www.yakkay.com/Covers/Paris.aspx

without wishing to get into the fors/against/bikeradar type stuff.... there's some very interesting combinations of designs & covers here!

o-oh

no

Are they for horses or bicycles?

repost x 10000.

look really fecking cool dont they. just like hats.
You can also get ones that look just like hair.

Anyone seen that clip of german girls doing tricks on bikes. Thems amazings.

Anybody heard of this Danny Macaskill something or other, hes amazing.

repost x 10000.

look really fecking cool dont they. just like hats.
You can also get ones that look just like hair.

yep.

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deepest sincerest apologies, but I hadn't seen the baseball hat & some others.... will now get coat before starting threads on mopeds/which bike/who I have seen recently....etc

that is just wrong

Motherfuckingcunting YAAAAWWWWNNNNN

I may get one of those hats, but I am not sure if I should get a Langster to wear it on. Any thoughts.