I want to know what kind of a helmet (BMX/Fullface/regular) are you using? And I mean the brand and model of your helmet. I’m thinking of buying a helmet sometime soon (I’ve been thinking about it for about 3 months now) but some recent crashes on ice and falling to my back have made me feel I need to buy one really soon. I haven’t hit my head on the ground yet but after the first crash I’ve already been wearing elbow pads.
At the moment I have some options. I most likely will go for a regular bike helmet, because they are lighter and usually have more vents. So far the best options I’ve found are from
Giro: Targa(at the moment my favorite), Skyline or Corius. (I know that Switchblade would be a great helmet, fullface/normal and all, but it doesn’t fit on my budget)
Bell: Avanti, Aquila or X-ray(it’s on sale right now, otherwise too expensive)
Mango: Escape or Flash
I did a little searching through older threads and didn’t find anything else than: “wear a helmet you moron” written every where. They had no recommendations on different kinds of helmets.
edit. If you can, tell me which helmets protect the back of your head and which don’t.
To sum it up, skate helmets offer more protection to back of neck area and can take multiple impacts (so you don’t have to worry too much about it getting knocked around).
Bike helmets are better ventilated and deal better with sweat but, cos they’re designed to crumple on impact, are single use and you have to be careful not to drop them.
If I were you I wouldn’t worry about brands cos they all, even the cheap ones, have to follow the safety standards.
I have a bike and a skate helmet, both low end (around £15), I mainly use the bike helmet cos I ride fair distance/mild muni, and it’s comfortable. If I did trials or hoppy/jumpy muni, I’d probably use the skate helmet.
Lastly, here’s a page of search results for threads that discuss relative merits of the two types: -
>I want to know what kind of a helmet (BMX/Fullface/regular) are you
>using? And I mean the brand and model of your helmet.
I am using a middle-end (if there is such a thing) bike helmet. Brand
AGU, model Testa, weight about 250 g. It can be seen a various angles
in <www.xs4all.nl/~klaasbil/snow.htm>. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen
on it, but I don’t do MUni or fast road rides without it.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
I like things that are either curved or tapered. - Steve Howard
One of the local bike shops has the Giro Targa on sale. It costs 60€ so I’ll probably go with it. It offers quite a good protection, even on the back of the head.
If you compare it to the Giro Semi, which is for BMX, there’s not too much difference on the coverage.
I have a Giro Semi (w/o the visor). It’s realy good, and saved me pretty well at the muni weekend. I was doing some light trials on the first day, and I fell, and hit my head on a rock. I barely felt it, but my helmet showed a dent. I was glad I had that particular type of helmet, cuz the hit was in a place where most bike helmets wouldn’t protect.
This is a problem with most of the cheaper helmets. They don’t usually protect the back of your head too well. I’ve noticed that the price is usually close to 60€ before you get a helmet that protects the back of your head. I’ve read some reviews and people really like the X-ray. Everyone says it fits really well. And it has one hand adjustment. So the normal price for X-ray is between 120€-130€, now I can buy it for 77€.
After crasking my regular bike and scraping the back of my head up i decised to go with a traditional skate helmet. It is snug and won’t ride up if force is applied to it. I went for the ProTec brand as they were recomended by a BMXing friend. It cost me $70Aus so it wasn’t that bad at all. Thas my 2cents
Mark
PS: it aslo passes as a waterski and snowboard helmet which is a good bonus.
True, they should all offer the same level of protection (assuming you’re comparing like with like), but different brands may fit your head better, I find the Giro helmets are a much better fit.
Use your brains as a helmet? Are you suggesting he removes his hard skull and lands on soft brain? Joking aside I think the brains method works well. You can assess dangers with your brain and avoid them as you see fit. A helmet must help crazy people who do stupid things that have them end up on their head, most people aren’t that way inclined. Having said that I felt a bit guilty when Jackie borrowed my unicycle and said she hit the back of her head on the concrete floor when she fell. Maybe it’s just crazy people and beginners who need helmets. It’s a matter of personal preference. Brain+helmet is probably the safest combo, because a helmet won’t replace your common sense.
I think I’m a beginner (only four and half months of riding, two months of more intense MUni and trials practice), and I’m sometimes a bit crazy. I tend to do stupid things because people talk me into it (is dupe the word to call me?). Actually I don’t usually even need people to talk me into trying things.
edit. And I just bought the X-Ray, it’s really comfortable.
Use your brains as a helmet? Are you suggesting he removes his hard skull and lands on soft brain? Joking aside I think the brains method works well. You can assess dangers with your brain and avoid them as you see fit. A helmet must help crazy people who do stupid things that have them end up on their head, most people aren’t that way inclined. Having said that I felt a bit guilty when Jackie borrowed my unicycle and said she hit the back of her head on the concrete floor when she fell. Maybe it’s just crazy people and beginners who need helmets. It’s a matter of personal preference. Brain+helmet is probably the safest combo, because a helmet won’t replace your common sense. [/B]
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I smacked my the side of my head pretty hard falling off a really slippery north shore obstacle on the weekend- doesn’t happen often but I was really glad to be wearing a helmet! I’ve been wearing Lazer brand helmets for the last couple of years; they seem pretty good.
I havent been using a helmet lately but just recently ive smacked my head three or four times just riding around my house on icy roads/obstacles ( it was extremely painful ) and am now really keen on buying a helmet. I think im going to go for the skateboarding/BMX style helmets, they seem to have the most protection and aesthetic appeal.
I skateboarded a few years back, and i kept my helmet from that
It’s just a plain helmet, made by pro-tec, about $30us. It does get hot, but it goes way down on the back and seems like it would do a better job if i actually did fall on it
No offense Kris, but I think you fall under the category of crazy people. How many sane people would unicycle off the labotimizer drop and live to tell the tale (repeatedly)? When I said your brain can assess dangers and avoid them, I didn’t mean hunt down dangers and ride as close to them as possible. I think helmets suit your style of riding Kris, keep on wearing them! On the (off topic) subject of drops, do you ever crush your nuts on big drops Kris? What about your ankles, do they fold back sometimes when you land? After spraining my ankle a while back, it is really weak and can’t handle very big drops, and I re-injured it a bit by going off a small (3 foot) drop, prolonging the healing process.
Risk assessment when riding is certainly difficult- most of the time it definately boils down to experience.
In the case of obviously high consequence situations like riding on a bridge railing, the consequence is obvious and it is utterly clear that the difficulty needs to be low enough that you are sure you won’t fall. I won’t try to justify this because you can’t- it’s a personal decision that must be taken very seriously.
For me, the scarier situations occur where it’s much more technically difficult and the consequences are moderate: you might hurt yourself, but then again you might be just fine if you fall properly or ride it successfully. The lobotomizer drop is in the latter category.
I’ve never bagged myself, nor broken a seat, nor bent or broken a seatpost. Personally I think that if you land properly, even if you wipe out, all of this can be totally avoided with proper technique. Avoiding drops to flat ground greater than maybe 5 feet would probably probably help to- drops to flat suck! Sometimes I feel like making a bumper sticker that says, “Friends don’t let friends drop to flat”.
I have jammed my foot up towards my shin before (quite a few times), and this hurts- I agree. I used to wear ankle supports (although I don’t right now), and although they help greatly with twists and also compression from jumping off high things, they don’t help this problem. Ultimately it’s better I think to try to avoid this by using good technique on drops.
