There’s a thread in one of my favorite comic strips, Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery, about bicycle helmets. Check out the comments. I was hooked the first time I logged in.
I normally stay out of the helmet wars. I confess to being irked when the first question / statement folks make when they hear I’m a biker is, “You wear a helmet, right?”
I reply that the more appropriate questions would be, “Do you ride like a vehicle, obeying all of the appropriate traffic laws? Do you ride WITH traffic, not against it? Do you have plenty of lights and reflectors so you’re visible? Do you take the lane when necessary? Do you signal? Are you always aware of your surroundings?”
Helmets: parachutes for your head
That magic foam hat is just like a parachute: it’s only needed if things go horribly wrong. And, just wearing one doesn’t mean it’ll save your life.
Now, having said that, I’m going to tell you why I never get on my bike without a helmet these days. Here’s a message I wrote to the phreds on January 7, 2007, explaining why. It’s a long story and it doesn’t have a happy ending.
A place for my mirror
For the record, I wear a helmet on the road. I don’t think it has magical properties, but it’s a good place to mount my rearview mirror and it takes care of the scenario where some pond-scum lawyer says,
“Yes, my client DID squash your client like a possum with his Hummer, but YOUR client wasn’t wearing his helmet.”
My riding partner, Mary, and I took off for a jaunt on the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, one of our favorite riding spots. Holidays, rain, etc., had kept her off the bike since our impromptu century in November, so she was ready to hit it.
It was a perfect day
It was a perfect day, clear, about 82 degrees with a 4-6 mph cross headwind. She was in the groove, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the right rhythm going and she left me in the dust. At our normal seven-mile rest stop, she was a quarter-mile ahead of me.
Figuring I might just need to top off the tank, I popped an energy gel and split an energy bar with Mary. We called my brother in Missouri to rub in our great day, then hit the road.
The gel helped, but Mary still took the lead by a good tenth of a mile. The bill of my cap was pulled down and I was looking down slightly, so I didn’t see her until I was about 100 feet from her. Oh, great, I thought, she’s rubbing in that I’m so slow. She’s stretched across the trail pretending to take a nap until I can catch up.
Nobody gets road rash for a joke
That’s when I noticed that her bike wasn’t on its kickstand and that the rear wheel was still spinning. When I got even closer, I saw that this wasn’t a joke. Nobody goes to all the trouble of getting road rash for a joke.
I was still expecting her to sit up, embarrassed at taking a header on a clear, straight path.
