Previously in a post about Priorities in Protection, I said that shin pads would beat a helmet.
After hearing of AccordNSX’s accident, (sorry man) I would like to remind people to wear their helmets at all times. I didn’t put this on the original accident post a I don’t want it to look like I’m burning him.
Those times I didn’t wear my helmet because I was just going to the store have ended. For the little bit of extra warmth, and the few seconds to put it on, it’s worth it.
Just curious, are there many of us MUniers, do many not wear helmets?
i dont think a helmet would have helped in that crash.your point is well takin,but the angle of accord’s neck when his head hit(helmet or not)is what did the damage.
tuck N roll baby,tuck N roll.
now if there was a rock or something hard like that down there,a head injury would complicate the neck injury recovery time so a helmet is probobly a good idea.
I keep watching the vid over and over. I can’t believe he hung onto the bars all the way down. I normally try to eject myself from the bike. Of course, these things happen fast, and you don’t have time to think of such things. I feel safer on my uni too. I always get tangled in the bars or frame on my mountain bike. I’ve had enough hard crashes and injuries, that I wear my helmet now, but I never used to. Mojoe
That’s a really tough position to get out of. The see-saw kicked up at an akward moment. I was riding a Cannondale Jekyll 800 with a lefty on it. So when I lost a little bit of balance, the bike went to the left. Damn bicycles with their half-forks! The bike started to go left I was trying to get it to come back to the right and plummeted off the side of the wood.
I’ll admit my helmet should have been on, but like stated, it wouldn’t have done me any good in that crash. It might have even hurt me more.
Ohh well, maybe I can sell this video to one of those shows with a bunch of guys crashing on it. That’d be cool.
>Just curious, are there many of us MUniers, do many not wear helmets?
Het Beest is on order. Its arrival will make me feel one of “us
MUniers”. A good moment to change my habit, buy me a helmet (my first
for non-motorised vehicles) and don it for every MUni trip.
Not realted to NSX’s injury I got a new helmet today Pro Tec signature series, I already forgot what pro it was but it’s got carbon fiber… oooohh carbon fiber Now I just need to find some cool Uni stickers
Chex
The helmet could have saved him, but it may not have. There’s two things that I can think of, but I am not a trained neck guy.
Had a helmet been on, this would have changed the angle of impact, possibly for the better, maybe not.
The helmet most likely would have lifted up (he’s upside down) with ill-fitting straps, or if they were on securely, the pressure of the helmet still would have been unweighted. This means the softer helmet would have absorbed the harder ground’s impact, then the head would have hit the helmet getting much less of an impact. Maybe enough, maybe not.
For those who need evidence that helmets do work, here’s the abstract from the Cochrane Collaboration, one of the most respected reviewers of evidence based medicine.
> For those who need evidence that helmets do work, here’s the abstract
> from the Cochrane Collaboration, one of the most respected reviewers of
> evidence based medicine.
>
> http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/ab001855.htm
Yep.
Doesn’t mention spinal injuries, though, just head and face.
In message “Re: Helmets”,
Scott Kurland wrote…
>> For those who need evidence that helmets do work, here’s the abstract
>> from the Cochrane Collaboration, one of the most respected reviewers of
>> evidence based medicine.
>>
>> http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/ab001855.htm
All this is interesting but I wonder, to what extent are ther actually head injuries
in normal unicycling (as opposed to muniing)? Because of the way you fall of
a unicycle, which is different from a bicycle, I think it is very unlikely to hit your
head, even at high speed in a sprint.
Is this not true? Are there many known cases of head injuries?
Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc. http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508
I agree in regular unicycle riding I think it’s verry unlikley to hit your head on anything… I mean I have fallen a countless number of times and I think I have landed on me feet all but Once. and even then I only fell on my knees.
The only time when I wear my helmet is when I decide to try stupid stuff, Like trails riding :-).
being a more typically street-oriented rider myself, this is a bit of a guess, but the times when the .likelihood. of hitting your head increase are when either your motion or the riding surface tend toward the extreme. trials and trails both fall under that category in one way or the other [or both].
as has been said here and elsewhere, though… a helmet is a form of insurance… doesn’t stop the fall from happening, but it’ll save your ass in most cases, when one does.
we’re playing long odds, but the payup if you lose isn’t one i’d like to face. i have a helmet on order as we speak, having been present when adam took his spill. procrastination gets a kick in the pants on this one
>Because of the way you fall of a unicycle, which is different from a bicycle, I think it is very unlikely to hit your head, even at high speed in a sprint.
I suppose it’s easier to bail out of a unicycle compared to a bike. But still, most crashes on bikes don’t result in hitting your head either. I think most crashes are anticipated- you stick your arm out to protect yourself and break the collarbone instead. Just when you least expect it though, your head might connect with the ground first. At least, that’s how it seems to happen for me.
No I didn’t. Someone else did, honest. I replied to it… said reply is
not here.
[color=darkred]
> >> For those who need evidence that helmets do work, here’s the abstract
> >> from the Cochrane Collaboration, one of the most respected reviewers[/color]
of[color=darkred]
> >> evidence based medicine.
> >>
> >> http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/ab001855.htm
>
> All this is interesting but I wonder, to what extent are there actually[/color]
head injuries
> in normal unicycling (as opposed to muniing)? Because of the way you fall
of
> a unicycle, which is different from a bicycle, I think it is very unlikely
to hit your
> head, even at high speed in a sprint.
You could be right, but when I fall off at high (for me) speed, I tuck and
roll. I can definitely see how someone who isn’t a god of ukemi (yes,
falling down really is my best trick) could hit his head, especially if he
UPDd (?!) into a tree or a car.
Er… A helmet will save your ass? In the US sense, this suggests you’re wearing it too low; in the UK sense, wouldn’t you have to cut holes for the poor animal’s ears?
A helmet spreads the load on impact. Hit a sharp kerb edge with the helmet and you’ll get a dull blow to your head. You’ll probably still get a headache, but you’re less likely to crack your skull or split your skin.
As for decelerating the brain tissue as the helmet collapses on impact - I’ve always been a bit sceptical about that one. There must be some effect, but assuming 2 cm. of padding compresses to become 1 cm. of padding, the deceleration is over a veryy short distance, so must be pretty sharp.
There are two obvious facts:
It is rare to hit your head when you fall of a unicycle.
If you do hit your head, a helmet will reduce the severity of the injuries.
What is not obvious is the probablilty of each event. It must vary with the type of riding, the size of the wheel, the skill of the rider and so on. Each to his or her own. I usually wear a helmet for MUni, practising new skills, and for Cokering.
I have posted here several times about how I recommend always wearing a helmet. However, the other day I was waiting for my daughter to have her hair cut. While waiting I thought that I would ride around in the parking lot to kill ten or fifteen minutes. After about 20 min. I decided to check on her. So I hopped up the steps to the place and out of nowhere - KABAMM! The next thing I knew I was lying on my back and I head was ringing. Right, no helmet. I did have a ball cap on which prevented me from seeing the low hanging (massive) tree branch. Now, after three days, the pain is starting to subside but I have this groovy decoration on my bald head - huge scab. I always thought about having to go down to hit my head. Chicken Little was right!
Also, I’ve now noticed that my helmet catches a lot of low branches on the trails that are normally used by the (lower) mountain bikers.
Through my own neglect, I was painfilly reminded, always wear the helmet (at least for me!).
Yeah, I shave my head, and I always wear a helmet; if for no other reason than, if I get even a minor bump, I get a scab, and then I can’t shave until the scrape is healed. The doorways in my house are 174cm high, and I’m 178cm, so when I get up in the morning, sometimes I forget to duck, and BAM! … instant scab. I don’t want any road rash on my scalp, thank you very much!
Which brings me to this question: How does shaving your legs help road rash heal better? You can’t shave a scab (unless you’re a truly dedicated scab-farmer), and the hairs aren’t going to stop growing just because there’s congealed blood on top of them, so… Oh, never mind. Obviously, I don’t shave my legs.
Hey, Tommy, did you get checked for a concussion? Maybe you should…
The reason (one of several, I guess) to shave one’s legs is to prevent the hair from tearing the skin out on impact.
Once you wipe out, you don’t shave the scab, you shave around it and try to nurse it. You would let it heal itself, and then proceed shaving as required
>
> Which brings me to this question: How does shaving your legs help road
> rash heal better? You can’t shave a scab (unless you’re a truly
> dedicated scab-farmer), and the hairs aren’t going to stop growing just
> because there’s congealed blood on top of them, so…
From what I understand of this, shaving your legs doesn’t help road rash
heal better, instead it helps prevent it. When you have hairy legs and
you go for a slide along the road, the hairs on your legs will get caught
in the road then then tear at the skin. Without hairs you don’t have this
happen but obviously you still get road rash.
Then again, I could be talking garbage.
James (jimmy)
–
Unix: It’s not just “User-Unfriendly”:
it’s ‘Proactively User-Hostile’!
Now I just need to find some cool Uni stickers
