A few days ago I broke my helmet again. This time I was going too fast on some gravel and sped across a turn that was sharper than I was expecting. I flew off my bike. I broke my third helmet. Time to get another.
I'm totally fine, nothing broken, no stitches or anything like that but I'm still pretty banged up. Most importantly though my head is fine. No concussion or head injury at all. Fortunately my partner is a first responder so honestly a great person to be around when you're in the middle of nowhere injured and they've been keeping an eye on me but I'm definitely past any sort of concussion danger period. I wasn't that worried anyway.
But that helmet gets to go in the trash and join its friends now. Missed but not forgetten.
I'm an experienced biker...and skater and hiker and kayaker and other stuff too. I've gotten myself out of stickier situations than this but it was very hot out and very sunny and I'd had a beer and a decent lunch and was near the end of my long bike journey and I goofed. It happens. And it's not a big deal because I had my helmet on.
The last time was a skating accident. It was wet and I forgot how slippery skates get when its wet. The previous time I thought it would be fun to ride down stairs. It is and I do it all the time but probably you shouldn't. At least not without a helmet.
I see people out all the time on all sorts of wheeled things without one and I feel so much anxiety for them. I'm not particularly clumsy or anything but if you do something long enough eventually an accident might happen. I wonder if they know the impact it will have on them and their loved ones if the accident happens to them. I wonder if they know how easy it is to prevent it from being as bad as it could be.
All of my accidents were maybe my fault but I know very few bikers who haven't had similar, either because of something they did or something someone else did. They're all okay too because they all wear helmets.
So comrades please just put a helmet on. Your brain is valuable because it contains a lot of who you are, and you're probably more valuable than you think. We all take care of our bodies and minds in so many ways so please don't neglect this way. Helmets are cheap, adjusted properly they can be very comfortable too. The right kinds can be personalized with stickers and messages and really become something special to you. Hopefully you buy one and you have it for life and you never need to replace it. But if you do need to replace it that's good too, because a helmet is so much easier to replace than you are.
Anyway I'm looking forward to buying my next helmet and I hope it lasts me longer than this last one. But if it doesn't I'll be glad to because hopefully it means I'm okay when I otherwise might not have been.
So please if you're going to be doing something that could result in a head injury, no matter how unlikely, just put on a helmet. You're worth it.
Excellent post.
On a long enough timeline everyone eats it. Make sure you have a helmet on so when you do, it’s something you can do again. Bones heal, brains don’t.
brains don't
They should make a brain that heals
Brains do heal, but it takes a long, long time and there's never any garauntee of complete recovery, or even partial recovery. Plus brain damage is cumulative over time. Even bumps and shocks that don't cause any immediate symptoms can add up to traumatic brain injury. It's been a major thing with youth sports in the usa - us football involves a lot of high impact tackles and if a kid starts that at 6 or 8 by the time they're twenty they can accrue real damage that can effect them for life.
what if your helmet breaks easily and it's all a conspiracy by Big Helmet to sell more helmets when you go "woah, that coulda been my head"????
I know you're joshing but the helmet IS designed to break easily. This lets it absorb and redirect the force of the impact so effectively. Cars call it 'crumple zones' but it's the same thing.
You're supposed to replace most helmets any time you drop them even if there is no visual damage for this reason. The dropped helmet may now have cracks you can't see in the foam below the shell and in any subsequent crashes your skull may end up taking more force than it should.
I know you're joshing but the helmet IS designed to break easily. This lets it absorb and redirect the force of the impact so effectively. Cars call it 'crumple zones' but it's the same thing.
SURE, or maybe that makes sense or maybe BIG HELMET GOT TO YOU
Im js man, like, expand your mind, unless... you can't, because the helmet stops you!
That's why there's third party testing and helmet certifications. Do not trust DOT helmet certification because manufacturers can self-certify and the standard they self certify to is decades out of date. ECE certification actually requires real third party testing.
GET A ROTATIONAL IMPACT HELMET
There are inexpensive MIPS helmets that cost around the same as other helmets and are no bulkier, but they will absolutely save you from being severely injured where others would fail to do so.
The new ECE 22.06 motorcycle helmet standard tests for rotational impact too
Yes! If you're on anything motorized, doing downhill cycling, or MTB, get an ECE 22.06 helmet. Do not settle for DOT!
If you're just a casual cyclist or short distance commuter in a bike-friendly, low traffic area with lots of separated bike trails and sidewalks everywhere like I am now, a full face helmet is probably overkill.
The last time I got hit by a car I was in an ECE 22.05 helmet with MIPS (because I got it before the 22.06 spec came out) and even though my head bounced off the car's windshield hard enough to crack it, I was able to walk away without any injuries more serious than some nasty scrapes and bruising. My leg guards probably saved me from broken bones too.
My new helmet, paid for by the driver's insurance, is ECE 22.06.
I posted elsewhere in this thread about the racket that is the DOT standard. It only tests for linear impact, it has much too high limits on allowable impact, it doesn't require a chinbar, and worst of all, it allows manufacturers to SELF TEST.
Yeah, it's crazy how bad testing standards are with things, and you just have to stick with the most up to date one and it'll be the least insufficient at best.
I have to rely on a more functional polity's testing standards because my own hasn't updated its standards for like half a century.
As a general rule it seems always better to get gear that is certified to eu standards over us standards.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Back in 2019 I was hit by a car when I was riding without my helmet. Got a nice concussion out of it, a few weeks of amnesia, and spent a few months recovering from the TBI.
If I had been wearing a helmet I would still have had months of FMLA with merely a broken shoulder and have played so many video games. Alas, the screens gave me headaches, all I could do were books of Sudoku puzzles!
Don't be like me. Think of video games.
Yeah much easier to sit up in bed rest and heal when your brain is working. I'm glad you pulled through comrade
I am sorry comrade, for biking without my helmetThey're expensive but not as expensive as a concussion I know
It's okay it's not too late. Go get yourself a basic one it's better than nothing. Your brain is worth protecting
Yeah I gotta nose around to bike shops, fwiw last time I biked was months ago so I haven't been risking my dumbass head. I want one of those nice rotational impact ones tho.
Comrade Helmet we present you with, 
, posthumously for service in keeping comrade InfamousBLT's brains where they belong.But if you do need to replace it that's good too, because a helmet is so much easier to replace than you are.
This makes me tear up a little because I don't wear a helmet maybe because I don't value myself enough, thank you for this sweet post, you are right
I've been lucky to only scrub out a couple of times with roughly 20 years of biking in a sleepy college town and then city with deece bike infrastructure. I'm also a chubby fit guy who takes it easy on my bike commute.
But still, I have a family to provide for now so I'm going to go to my local bike shop tomorrow and get a good helmet. Recs would be appreciated
Get a MIPS helmet that fits you and is comfy. That's the only recommendation. What's most important is that you wear it. The helmet you wear is the better than the helmet you don't regardless of any other qualities of the helmet.
I'm using this site to select mine. They do testing in the effectiveness of them at preventing concussions.
https://helmet.beam.vt.edu/
In addition to MIPS, the ASTM certification is more protective than the CPSC one for bike helmets.
yeah I probably should be more consistent, I'm around 50% in the summer and 100% in the winter. Its kinda miserable in the summer (I may just need a nicer helmet with better airflow) and I'm a pretty conscious biker and stick to streets and paths and such (and live somewhere where I'm usually on half decent cycling infrastructure and drivers aren't too aggro), but on the off chance I take the wrong kind of fall...
Its one of those things where I rationalize that the stats aren't actually that great on a helmet improving your safety in my kind of mild urban cycling situation, which is true, but on the other hand it can basically only help (though there is the phenomenon where drivers treat un-helmeted bikers with more caution, but I don't know the stats on that very well and kinda doubt it generalizes that well).
people on e-scooters without one are nuts ngl, especially the older/smaller ones that can get tripped up by friggin anything, but its normalized to go 15-20+mph on them down the goddamn sidewalk so I think helmets are a lost cause with the rental ones at least
Yeah for me it's just not worth the risk. If your head bounces off the pavement because a taxi decides that they're gonna open the door into you it's worthwhile to have something between your skull and the road. Keep yourself safe comrade you deserve it too
Yes,
, 
We need you around, comrades!
I was a bike courier for a bit and very few wore them, though I always did. People got concussions and didn't care, but they may later on. I ate it a couple times but just got some scars on my legs and bruises on my arms but my head is mostly fine but I blame that on my birth and the crowd-surfing incident of 2011
Yeh. It's easy to be indifferent about your health when you're 23 and can walk off major injuries, but when you're sixty all those old injuries will add up to a lot of misery. Wearing ppe is about protecting all the people you'll become in the future, too. They deserve your kindness.
Definitely seconding your point on helmets. On another note, it's such a nice feeling to have a pint and bike around on a summer day, I wish summer wasn't coming to an end here!
It really is. I have lots of breweries in a great biking distance from me so I do a bike and beer frequently
I got a concussion and almost had to get my brain scanned for injuries when I crashed off my bike. That was with the helmet. Helmet got broken into pieces. Without it, that would have been my head.
