The Helmet Was Very Good Idea

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Paradox

Paradox

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Joined
May 29, 2006
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Location
Holderness, NH, Avatar: Pine Marten on Mt Field
This last Wednesday evening I was coming down an unfamiliar road (Piper Hill Road in Meredith, NH) doing about 42+ on my two hour-old Trek Madone when I saw a right angle turn about 200' ahead. I hit the rear brake and it slid to my right. Then I recall getting up and staggering toward a mailbox when a woman stopped to help. My helmet is cracked in several places, with a nice dent just off the midline. An ambulance can't be as much fun as a helicopter ride.

Pictures show things are improving rapidly.
 
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Nice! You are, no doubt, going to get some trail-riding advise from this post!!

Hope things heal nicely. Your patients most love looking at you in their face - lol. No dental work needed?? I know a good dentist! ;)

Now... how's the bike doing??
 
Helmets are very important. Several years ago I was hit by a car when I was riding home from work. Even with a helmet I had a severe concussion and needed to be Medevac'd to a trauma center. I shudder to think about the injuries if I did not have the helmet on.
 
I got a new bike. It was a fancy 3 speed ‘English’ bike with skinnier wheels and lever thingies on the handlebar. My father said he’d give me a dollar if I learned to ride by the time he got home from work. I thought that would be easy ‘cuz I could ride my brother’s bike (1 speed Columbia). What I didn’t know was that those ‘lever thingies’ on the handlebar were the breaks rather than peddle backwards like on my brother’s. The stump at the corner of our yard became my break. Helmets weren’t in back then. I have a scar in the middle of my nose to remind me. I was about 6. I got my dollar.

Heal well!
 
The only residual may be some numbness in my lower lip. It is starting to get some tingle in it now but it may be several weeks and never be normal. (I had about 40 stitches in my lower jaw at the depth of the vesitibule between my teeth and lip, the oral surgeon sucked out alot of sand, tar, grass, and poison ivy.) My right leg is pretty banged up but I can walk with pain as I have a broken fibula but it is better off not casted. I have a nasty gash in my groin probably from the seat horn that will keep me off the bike for a while. Hands and teeth in perfect shape.

The bike: frame cracked near the lower bracket of the read wheel support, rear wheel tacoed, handlebar in two pieces. Trek has a crash replacement program that I am waiting for a report on. :)
 
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Dude, that's tough! Hope you heal quickly.

BTW, You should use on of your photos as your Avatar. It will clearly win the most spectacular injury category :p

Marty
 
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"two hour old Trek Madone"

All right, if youre gonna crash that thing so soon, why don't you just hand it over... I'll take good care of it :D
Don't worry, I think I've seen Lance crash his too ;)
 
Wow! that's a pretty impressive crash. Hope you heal quickly. Have sometimes thought a knarly face is a sign of a life well-lived ...

Helmets are amazing things in terms of protection. I was recently on a multi-day ride, and saw a few noggins that would have been in bad shape had it not been for the helmet. One fellow commented as he lay on the pavement with what appeared to be a broken upper arm and possibly collar bone that it was the best $15 he ever spent. His helment was broken in a couple of places, but his head didn't have a scratch.

Question re: helmets, and perhaps people like Tim would comment - is there really any substantantial differences, safety-wise, between the $15 Wal-Mart/KMart helmet and the $150 variety at your LBS? Aside from swoopy-do racing stripes/color/etc? My hunch is there isn't, as they all have to meet minimum safety requirements, but what say you experts?
 
Wow

WOW!
helmets = good! luckily thats all the damage you received, seems like it could have been much worse at those speeds.

so whats the deal with treks crash replacement program?
pretty sweet if it works out for you.

where are the photos of the bike??
 
Kevin Rooney said:
Question re: helmets, and perhaps people like Tim would comment - is there really any substantantial differences, safety-wise, between the $15 Wal-Mart/KMart helmet and the $150 variety at your LBS? Aside from swoopy-do racing stripes/color/etc? My hunch is there isn't, as they all have to meet minimum safety requirements, but what say you experts?
Click to expand...

I've never owned a Wal-mart cheap-o helmet but I regularly purchase my helmets off the last-year rack. USA Cycling, the US bicycle racing sanctioning body has a policy:

At all times when participating in or preparing for an event held under a USA Cycling permit, including club rides, all licensees who are mounted on a bicycle must wear a securely fastened helmet that meets either the US DOT helmet standards or one of the following standards:
(1) American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Standard Z90.4;
(2) Snell Memorial Foundation Standard "B" or "N" series;
(3) American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard F-1447.
(4) Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard CAN/CSA-D113.2-M;
(5) U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) standard for bicycle helmets;
(6) European Committee for Standardization (CE EN1078) standard for bicycle helmets

Helmets which meet this standard (so printed inside the helmet, usually, on a sticker) should all be equivalent, safety-wise.

I can say that if a helmet does not fit you properly or is not worn properly (level, not too far forward or backward), and snugly, it's not going to perform to its rated ability.

I bought a 1-year old Giro off the REI clearance rack once for $29. That's the least I've ever paid. Sunlight and heat destroy, over time, the structural integrity of the helmet, so you should keep them out of the heat and UV when not in use, and get a new one every 2-3 years or whatever the manufacturer recommends. I wouldn't buy one that was more than a year old.

One other tip - some manufacturers have (or had) a crash-replacement policy. In some cases, they use the crashed helmet (and in Paradox's case the photos) and details for quality control / improvements.

The main differences with the more expensive helmets are:

  • Superior adjustability
  • Better ventilation
  • Lighter weight

Tim
 
Paradox:
Glad to hear that you are likely to heal to ride again.

<Putting my scientific helmet on>
It is a commonly accepted "truism" that bike helmets reduce head injuries, but the evidence is contradictory and inconclusive. For instance, a study in New Zealand showed no reduction in serious injury rates as voluntary helmet use increased and a cost-benefit analysis of the New Zealand helmet law showed the cost of the helmets was larger than the savings in injuries. Also, there can be negative effects such as children strangled by helmet straps.

I'm not trying to start an argument/discussion to find the "truth" here, just trying to make people aware that there is legitimate evidence both for and against the purported safety advantages of bike helmets. A fairly complete-looking review of the issue can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet.

General warning: some of the proponents and opponents can get rather religious in their zeal...

BTW, the above article notes that broken helmets are common in real accidents, but significant crushing of the foam liner is uncommon. Crushing of the foam is the intended mechanism of energy absorbtion.
<scientific helmet off>

I personally wear a bike helmet--I believe it will certainly protect me from small injuries (scrapes etc), but do not know if it will protect me from serious injury.

Doug
 
I wonder if the lack of reduction of serious injury in the New Zealand experiment was due to the helmet wearers taking more chances ????
Was terrain and speed a controlled part of the experiment? Not likely possible to quantify that.
 
Glad you're okay and no permanent injuries. Especially dental work.......I bet you know a good dentist or two! :cool:

Can you get collision insurance on bikes???

Heal fast!!
 
Glad to hear that you will be ok. Yesterday while riding on a local trail I came upon another rider who took a good digger. However this guy was not wearing a helmet and had an egg the size of an ostrich's on his head. A few minutes later one of his buddies did the same thing.
 
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