RE: protective gear,forming unicyling clubs
> We’ve been pretty firm about requiring our kids to wear helmets and wrist
> guards when they unicycle. However, after viewing the inspiring No Limit video
> which they received for Christmas (in which no one seemed to wear protective
> gear), the lobby is on for us to loosen up.
This brings up some interesting questions. TCUC, the club featured in the video,
has been around for more than twenty years. In that way, you can say they are
“old school”. Not that the school is very old.
Widespread helmet use, even for bicyclists, is mostly in the last ten years or
so. During that time, bicycle helmets have become very available and affordable
(and safer), laws have gone into effect requiring helmet use, and the wearing of
helmets has become very commonplace, taking away the stigma of wearing one.
Until recent years, helmets for unicycling weren’t an issue because basically
nobody wore them. Unicycles are safer than bikes in many ways, most notably in
speed. They just don’t go as fast. But this is not to say you can’t fall down,
even at low speeds, and potentially suffer a brain injury.
As helmet use has become more prevalent, required by law, and just more of an
obvious thing to do, we have to consider it in unicycling as well. During the
1990s, for many years we had an ongoing debate about helmets for unicycle
racing. Not about whether you should wear one, but about whether they should be
mandatory.
After a couple of years of debating, and an extremely rare call for a vote by
the entire USA membership, the free-spirited nature of unicyclists won out over
the do-it-for-your-own-good contingent. I think this was the right decision for
us at the time, as unicyclists. This is because it still leaves parents and
riders as the decision makers of how they will approach unicycling safety.
I will note that riders from TCUC were very vocal in this helmet debate. Nobody
was anti-helmet, of course, they just wanted the right to choose for themselves.
This whole thing mirrored the helmet debates that have gone on for motorcycling
in this country. I think without the specter of loss of federal highway funds,
many states would probably still let riders decide about motorcycle helmets.
Almost all 50 states (or all?) now require motorcycle helmet use, though
Minnesota was one of the last holdouts.
More recently, the 1999 National Unicycle Convention was hosted by the Panther
Pride Demo Team in Washington (who are hosting again in 2002). This is a club
that requires helmet use by all riders at all times. I think this is a very good
idea for an elementary school-based unicycle club. It protects the kids, and
also should establish good lifetime habits for when they go out and ride bikes
and do other things outside of school. Before the convention, I mentioned to
host Alan Tepper that it was his option to require all competitors to wear
helmets if he wanted, but he chose not to stir things up.
Anyway, all of this brings you back to your role as a parent, and/or as a rider.
If your kids are minors, you as a parent should make the decision. If you decide
on helmets (or I should say “for the activities for which you decide on
helmets”), you should be a role model and wear one yourself.
For small children and beginners, there is no good argument for not wearing a
helmet. It will never hurt you. Beyond the small child stage, then you can look
at different types of unicycling and their varying levels of safety.
Off the top of my head, here’s a short list of unicycling activities which I’ve
tried to list in order of “danger level”. Note: this level depends very much on
the rider’s personal abilities, experience, and other individual factors, so use
your judgment when reading it.
- MUni (any form)
- Observed Trials
- Track Racing
- Commuting/long distance, over 26" wheel
- Learning new tricks, pavement
- Learning to ride, pavement
- Freestyle, pavement
- Commuting/long distance, up to 26"
- Sports (hockey, basketball)
- Learning new tricks, gym
- Learning to ride, gym
- Freestyle, gym
NOTE: I moved up the commuting for under 26" wheel, assuming the rider is
sharing the road with cars.
Several people have accurately written in mentioning wrist guards, shin guards
and knee pads as the “most important” areas to cover. Certainly these are the
ones most injured. Of those, I would list them:
- Wrists
- Shins
- Knees Again this depends on the type of riding you’re doing. If it’s lots
of trails and distance riding, switch shins & knees. Otherwise I stand by
that list.
But the brain is the one organ that cannot be repaired, and as such you can’t
afford to break it. So you should never feel bad wearing one, or especially
requiring your kids to wear one. The danger is definitely greater when you are
on hard or rough pavement, near traffic, or riding on any irregular surface.
Indoors is a much more controlled environment (though as the room gets more
crowded the danger increases).
In the end, it’s your decision. Take the One Wheel, No Limits tape in context,
being that it’s from a club with no history of helmet use, riding indoors. Head
injuries in unicycling, especially indoors, are extremely rare, but they can
definitely happen.
What about me? I’ve been riding since 1979. I started wearing kneepads and
gloves for racing in 1980, way earlier than most. I didn’t start using a helmet
until much later, and that was originally just for downhill gliding (high
speed). Today, I always wear the helmet for any form of MUni, and for all
unicycle racing.
Stay on top, John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone http://www.unicycling.com
“I just want band-aids. And I don’t want anything else!” – 7 year old who had
fallen out of pickup truck (minor injuries) on the TV show Trauma