Fishdick

Most recent activity

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

  in General • 10 years, 11 months

  

  Yes, if you dive head first onto block of steel. It's like drowning in a an inch of water - sure, you can do it, but most people don't because they are conscious and use their limbs as shock absorbers/spacers to keep their heads out of harms way.

  Faceplant of Death - YouTube
  

  He didn't die. I can look up some videos of people hitting heads on concrete.
  Here:

  Head+Pavement=Bleeding Head - YouTube
  

  He didn't die. Admitted he's a retard, though.

  Drunk Guy Breaks Brick on his Head - YouTube
  

  Even he didn't die. He obviously is a retard, though.
  There's plenty more. Most don't die. So why all this scaremongering in the test video:
  "Is that survivable?"
  "Nah. You are dead. From 1 meter. Dead."

  I can understand how risky is using one's head as brakes on tarmac or lamp posts at 20+mph, but a free fall from 1m sounds bullshit.

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

  in General • 10 years, 11 months

  

  I've found this

  ARF Presents: Certified vs Non-Certified Bicycle Helmet Impact Test on Vimeo
  

  a couple of years ago, looking up helmets.
  Watched it again and suddenly realized, that a fall from 1m kills you (around 0:50s in the video, 816g with non certified helmet).

  Certified helmet from same height came up with 159g. So far so good.
  Then look at g-force comparison at 2:08s. Erm... WTF

  Car crash at 40mph - 35g? Unless it's just the decelaration the driver suffers inside, then OK, believable.

  Still, can a fall from 1m kill you? Seriously?
  Can a helmet reduce impact by ~650g? Really

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

  in General • 10 years, 11 months

  

  I'd just thought it's a fun video. Get a life.

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

  in General • 10 years, 11 months

  

  Spud Destruction #13 Are Bicycle Helmets Safe - YouTube
  

  Poor Rufus.

• Please report dangerous drivers to the police - Roadsafe. Report to plod, not just whinge here.

  in General • 11 years, 3 months

  

  Someone had mentioned "Fuck Keltbray!" stickers somwhere.

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

  in General • 11 years, 3 months

  

  So many interesting sub threads since I last looked in, I may have to stay up all night. I found that wearing a helmet while cycling at over 50mph creates a deafening roar, much worse than wearing headphones.

  I don't go over 45mph, cause my helmet wont save if I take a tumble at this speed.

  No, seriously. Does encasing your skull in a hard shell messes up acoustic effects. I don't mean a loss of hearing or something like that. I had some troubles with identifying the direction and distance the sound comes from when wearing a helmet.

  Now, to clarify, I have nothing against wearing helmets (of any kind and in any activity), but I don't want them to be compulsory either. Your choice etc.

  What I would like to see is clear information about the effectiveness of them. And this rises questions:

  • In testing they drop them on different shape anvils with some kind of headform in them. What happens if you add the weight of a rider to it. Will it affect the impact force?
    
  • Progress in technology means that there is plenty of new synthetic materials since the polystyrene foam was introduced. Are there better alternatives available now? I've seen the cardboard thing, are there any other ideas?
    
  • Research. What data is gathered when they create the statistics. Do they compare speeds of impact and resulting injuries or just count the amount of cases of head injuries and tick the box when the helmet was used without looking at the variable circumstances. Has anybody got an idea how valid the statistics really are and should the be trusted. (US Army arctic clothing research famously showed that most of body heat is lost through the head. Later it was clarified that most of body heat escapes this way if you wear warm clothing without the hat, so adequate headwear is important. Bit like the famous anegdote about a Russian scientist and a deaf spider.)
    
    

  I'm not trolling here. Just want to know how much bull is in this shit.

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

  in General • 11 years, 3 months

  

  Actually what kind of head injuries helmets prevent and to what extent?
  Do they take speed of impact, shape of object hit etc. into account for the research purposes? Importantly: do they research only cases where head injuries where sustained while wearing/not wearing a helmet and severity of this injuries, or make bad statistics based on the wrong assumptions (i.e. broken collar bone, no head injuries - helmet saved the head, without noting whether the head took any impact at all and so on).

  I know that I should read the papers myself, but surely there is someone who read it all before me and is able to explain it in few simple sentences. How it's done, what exactly it says, has it any scientific value to it?

  One thing I had noticed a while ago. When i bang my head on the wall it hurts and there is an element of concussion. With helmeted head it hurts less but the concussion is still there. You can possibly even feel the difference just slapping your head with/without the helmet.
  They obviously spread the impact over bigger surface making skull fractures less likely but I'm not that sure about concussion thing. I heard somewhere that the polystyrene lining in cycling helmets is too hard.

  It was TSG Evolution helmet btw.
  I stopped wearing it after it became uncomfortable (gone way too lose after couple of months) and provided more distraction then what it was worth.

  One more thing. Does your hearing get affected by helmet or is it just me?

• Bells People... Use them!

  in General • 11 years, 4 months

  

  Finally taken to using a whistle (after my bell got nicked, along with my front light - who nicks a bell?). It definitely gets attention. It's also pretty good at stopping me shouting expletives when something really ugly happens! But I can't help thinking most other people are just thinking "Who's the twat with the whistle?".

  Not tested out the choking possibility by crashing with it yet though...

  I use it as a warning, like shouting "Oi! look this way! There's a bike coming! What a surprise, you didn't expect this on the road, didn't you?". The idea is to get the eye contact. I whistle aggressively only at bigger cunts than myself. And don't scatter the peds when they have the right of way, and so on... I don't care what they think of me. I'm a courier so they hate me anyway. Fuck it.

  As for bad language - try to shout "Fuck you!" with a whistle in your mouth :)

  Choking is pretty unlikely, it would sooner knock yer teeth out. Whatever it does to you it's probably your least worry when you had crashed. It's not gonna rip your head off like, say, a helmet :)

• Bells People... Use them!

  in General • 11 years, 4 months

  

  I used to make sheep sounds before i got myself a whistle. Whistle is better. Just don't abuse it. Soft, quick chirp can be saying "caution", long, full blown whistle "get the fuck of the road you muppet!". Works on drivers too, better than anything else. It's either this or swearing. Bells are useless.

• Stolen bikes

  in General • 12 years, 6 months

  

  Guys, surely more than one of those Genesis models exists in London, no?

  I think we need some distinguishing features on the bike.

  My stolen Genesis had black saddle, post, bars and tape. Same white frame in size 60.