I bought a helmet the other day, and I ordered some gloves, cos I didn’t like their selection. I told the salesman that the first thing I will hit when I fall off my unicycle is my hands and not my head. The other night I was riding on gravel with a road tire in the light of the moon and I came off, grazing my hands. It was funny cos it proved that the gloves (for me) are more important than a helmet, so I went and got some cheap fingerless gloves today. I thought the people from the helmet debate might be interested in hearing about my purchase anyway, even though I bought it to satisfy the organisers of the Day-night thriller for the safety aspects of their event. It’s going to be fun to see how my 29" unicycle goes against the mountain bikes in the 12 hour race- me and Tony Melton are team ‘Unicycle.com Allstars’ hahah.
Re: Helmet purchase
Ooooh, I hope you got a camo one to match your backpack!
Good luck in the race Rowan! I bet you and Tony will beat many bike teams. In all my unicycling I hit my head once: on a tree that I didn’t duck enough for. But I sure have slammed and scraped my hands a lot of times. I advocate helmets when riding offroad (or Cokering). I remember so well that time in Moab when Beau fell down on a rocky fireroad and knocked himself out by hitting his head. Due to the helmet he had no real injury at all.
About gloves, I’ve always preferred fingerless, either wristguards for offroad or just padded bike gloves for Cokering on road. At the recent Calif Muni Weekend, I rode all 3 days using full-fingered wristguards and really liked them. When it’s not too hot, the extra security gained by having your fingers completely covered seems great. Plus your hands stay clean.
–Nathan