Jaysus cycling! (4 Viewers)

[magicbastarder]

I got 'i hope you wear a helmet' off a mate last week after coaching him through a minor brake adjustment on his bike via instagram messages.

instagram isn't *that* dangerous, surely?

personally, i know more people who have died of head injuries while hillwalking, than people who have died of them from cycling. helmets for hillwalkers.

 

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FWIW i once crashed the bike and i suspect that without a helmet, i might have broken my nose.

I once crashed my bike and with a helmet I could very easily be dead/paralyzed instead of losing a few teeth.

 

[magicbastarder]

Because of more rotational force applied to your spine?

 

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Because of more rotational force applied to your spine?

yep


I used to wear a helmet all the same. Might get a new one some time that actually fits right but I've a huge odd shaped head so hard to find one. I do wear a full face on the mountain bike thanks to the price of the replacement teeth.

 

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It was funny/interesting seeing a doctor ask if I was wearing a helmet and then admit that I'd likely be way worse off if I had of wore one.

Ps my one personal example is not an encouragement for anyone else to avoid helmets.

 

[rettucs]

It was funny/interesting seeing a doctor ask if I was wearing a helmet and then admit that I'd likely be way worse off if I had of wore one.

Ps my one personal example is not an encouragement for anyone else to avoid helmets.

definitely

I know a lad who was in a car crash and his not wearing a seatbelt saved his life as he was thrown from the car before it rolled several times. Definitely not any kind of endorsement for not wearing a seatbelt.

 

[magicbastarder]

yep


I used to wear a helmet all the same. Might get a new one some time that actually fits right but I've a huge odd shaped head so hard to find one. I do wear a full face on the mountain bike thanks to the price of the replacement teeth.

similar for me. the only helmet manufacturer i've found that fits my head is bell. ended up spending €150 on the current one because it was the only one i could find that actually fit me (my usual issue is they they sit just on the very front and vey back of the top of my head)

it has a MIPS system which AFAIK in theory should reduce the chance of rotational spine injuries, as there's an inner shell which can rotate inside the outer shell. colour me skeptical, my head is not perfectly round so i can't see how my head can rotate inside the helmet.

 

[Deadmanposting]

It was funny/interesting seeing a doctor ask if I was wearing a helmet and then admit that I'd likely be way worse off if I had of wore one.

Ps my one personal example is not an encouragement for anyone else to avoid helmets.

I knew helmets were bad

I KNEW IT

 

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I knew helmets were bad

I KNEW IT

Anecdotal evidence isn't the best to rely on.

 

[Deadmanposting]

I wear a seatbelt about half the time
The van I bought doesn't have a "BINK BINK" noise for the seatbelt and I love it

 

[flashback]

It's funny how difficult it is to find lids that fit. We got given lids at one point, and I couldn't wear them. I didn't have a concept of a well fitted bicycle helmet for years.

I picked up the first random motorbike lid because I thought it looked nice, tried it on and it fit perfectly. So I thought ALL motorbike lids fit, but I just happened to pick a specific Shoei that happened to fit.

What must be annoying is if you are a pro and you have to wear a specific brand, and they just don't fit you properly. I've never heard of riders pairing away the insides to get them to work, but the difference between a lid fitting and not fitting is massive. At one point I'd feel uncomfortable if I wasn't wearing my cycling helmet, and at the start I'd be off riding without lids on the sly because the thing was borderline painful to wear.

 

[Deadmanposting]

Anecdotal evidence isn't the best to rely on.

My main prejudice is confirmation bias

 

[magicbastarder]

i think it was CM earlier who talked about helmets reducing the chances of brain injury - and of course i agree that if someone was going to muller me across the head with a baseball bat, i'd prefer have a cycling helmet on than not.
there are occasional reports from medical organisations about the injuries they've seen, which invariably urge the wearing of helmets. but i'd draw an analogy between what they are doing, and someone who is trying to describe a landscape by looking at part of it through a powerful telescope - they clearly have the best view of their particular part of the landscape, but are not looking at it as a whole. and part of the landscape is the 'dangerisation' of cycling, this idea people have that you're likely to die from merely cycling to the shops.
it's easy for medical organisations to point to those injured who would not have been as badly injured (or killed) had they been wearing a helmet, but you can't as easily hang a story on a section of the population who are healthier as a result of cycling, rather than less healthy.

from studies i've seen, the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by a factor of between 11 and 70, depending on which report you read (and i suspect, from which country the report was compiled).

i don't know of any study which has calculated the effect of the public perception of danger of cycling, and its knock-on effect on health as a result of people being too scared to cycle.

 

[seanc]

Half the people I know think you're 60% better than 25% of statistics.

 

[Deadmanposting]

These are the best bells
Specifically ones with dinosaurs on them

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

i think it was CM earlier who talked about helmets reducing the chances of brain injury - and of course i agree that if someone was going to muller me across the head with a baseball bat, i'd prefer have a cycling helmet on than not.
there are occasional reports from medical organisations about the injuries they've seen, which invariably urge the wearing of helmets. but i'd draw an analogy between what they are doing, and someone who is trying to describe a landscape by looking at part of it through a powerful telescope - they clearly have the best view of their particular part of the landscape, but are not looking at it as a whole. and part of the landscape is the 'dangerisation' of cycling, this idea people have that you're likely to die from merely cycling to the shops.
it's easy for medical organisations to point to those injured who would not have been as badly injured (or killed) had they been wearing a helmet, but you can't as easily hang a story on a section of the population who are healthier as a result of cycling, rather than less healthy.

from studies i've seen, the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risks by a factor of between 11 and 70, depending on which report you read (and i suspect, from which country the report was compiled).

i don't know of any study which has calculated the effect of the public perception of danger of cycling, and its knock-on effect on health as a result of people being too scared to cycle.

The medical context doesn’t exclude the health benefits of cycling though. In fact, the general consensus would be that cycling is fucking great (a technical term). But in terms of landscapes, the reality is that cycling is largely done on roads shared with large, powerful machines which have a tendency to be driven by careless people. And let’s face it, accidents happen on your own - my only two bad spills were both completely solo endeavours and I got a head injury out of one of them. Guess what I wasn’t wearing because I was only spinning around the corner in a quiet estate?

However, I do agree that putting the onus on cyclists to “be safer” is wrong though, I’ve said here before that as a society we need to hold drivers far more culpable for their actions than we do. And in terms of the thing most people say to me when I say I cycle, it’s not that they hope I wear a helmet but that they could never cycle in Dublin, it’s too scary and dangerous. To me, that’s on cars, driver behaviour, and city planning - not on cyclists not being safe enough as a group.

 

[Deadmanposting]

I think there's a lot to how you cycle

Like you're not trying to obey the rules of the road, or it's not a priority
You're trying to be seen, and anticipate dumb ass behaviour. That's the primary.
Like as a matter of habit, I am looking in the back windows of parked cars I am coming up on to see if there's some doofus about to open a door on me
I'm tracking any possible pedestrian that might decide to take a short cut out onto the street

But also, I trust no fucker to use their indicator and I will split lanes at any crossroads I feel like it.
Traffic lights are more or less only for telling me what other people are doing.
If you're angry and beeping at me? It means you've seen me. And you're less likely to kill me (hopefully).
I've seen people killed from obeying lights and rules.

So while I don't think the onus should be on us to make the roads safer, I do think a certain way of biking is gonna get you home safer, it's just not pretty. And you probably wouldn't talk about it at parties.

 

[magicbastarder]

i've been out on the bike twice around north county dublin, since sunday morning. not a single bad overtake, lovely weather, nice bit of climbing. perfect conditions.
i did pass where the collision occured today, however.

 

[rettucs]

I think there's a lot to how you cycle

Like you're not trying to obey the rules of the road, or it's not a priority
You're trying to be seen, and anticipate dumb ass behaviour. That's the primary.
Like as a matter of habit, I am looking in the back windows of parked cars I am coming up on to see if there's some doofus about to open a door on me
I'm tracking any possible pedestrian that might decide to take a short cut out onto the street

But also, I trust no fucker to use their indicator and I will split lanes at any crossroads I feel like it.
Traffic lights are more or less only for telling me what other people are doing.
If you're angry and beeping at me? It means you've seen me. And you're less likely to kill me (hopefully).
I've seen people killed from obeying lights and rules.

So while I don't think the onus should be on us to make the roads safer, I do think a certain way of biking is gonna get you home safer, it's just not pretty. And you probably wouldn't talk about it at parties.

agree with all of this. Safety doesn't necessarily involve complying with the law, and vice versa. There were certain lights I would always break because it was safer to do so than wait for the lights to turn green. You also develop an instinct as regards what a motorist is going to do. Its a hard one to explain because its not something you can learn, or teach to someone. Its something you acquire with time. But you do have to be paying attention to what is going on. Like, is there a bus stop nearby. Can you see over all the parked cars to know someone isn't going to walk out in front of you. Is there an obstacle in the road, if so, how are young going to navigate around it.

the post from @Cornu Ammonis is spot-on. The reason its so dangerous for cyclists is because of planning and cunts in cars.

 

[magicbastarder]

It's one reason I hate SUVs. Because twenty years ago, you could see clear over the vast majority of private cars, for other cars, pedestrians etc.
And crucially, other drivers cannot see you behind SUVs.