- Dress for the slide, not for the ride
- ATGATT
- Gray-haired riders don’t get that way from luck
What others did I miss?
- If your helmet doesn’t have a chin bar (full or modular), you don’t care about your chin, teeth, or nose.
- wrt ATGATT, most of that gear will reduce or avoid injury. A helmet will prevent your death.
- If you don’t wear earplugs - even with a helmet on - enjoy your tinnitus and/or hearing loss. This is from wind noise, not engine noise.
A friend of mine crashed her motorbike a few years ago and her face bounced off the road. Her chin bar flexed inwards so much that it broke her nose and chipped a front tooth.
She was furious that the helmet didn’t protect her properly, until her husband who was riding behind her pointed out that she essentially landed face first at over 60mph, and that without the helmet, her face would have taken the full force of the landing.
If your helmet doesn’t have a chin bar (full or modular)
Modular helmets will not protect your face adequately in a crash. Even with a chin bar, the face part tends to open up when you hit the ground. If you value your face, get a good full-face helmet. I have an AGV K1; it’s good, fairly lightweight, acceptably ventilated, and usually under $200. You don’t need to get a Shoei or an Arai; any full-face helmet sold on e.g. Revzilla is going to be fine, as long as it fits.
Even with a chin bar, the face part tends to open up when you hit the ground.
That’s just not true.
The AGV K1 looks like a motorcycle helmet. Would you wear something that heavy duty for commuting on a 20-30mph scooter/e-bike? Or is there something else a little more lightweight?
Just remember that ATGATT means helmet, jacket, pants, gloves, and boots, and all of them have to be intended and rated for riding.
Most “riding” jeans are trash, not worth the money you pay; they’ll have a little bit of Kevlar lining, and maybe a hint of padding at the knees, but that’s not going to help you significantly. Do yourself a solid and get some real riding pants that zip to your jacket, like RevIt!, or Dianese.
Leather costs more up front, and less in the long run. Textile apparel is usually destroyed in a crash, but leather is usually good for multiple drops. I’ve had four crashes (none hugely significant; partial tear to a rotator cuff on the last one); my jacket and pants look rough, but they’re still perfectly fine for protection.
Pants and jacket should fit fairly closely; you don’t want them moving around when you crash. Loose is not your friend in a crash. They should have CE1 or CE2 inserts at the knees, hips, coccyx, back, shoulders, and elbows. You may need to buy the inserts separately.
You can get pants and jackets used safely, as long as they’re in good condition.
Get gloves with palm sliders. Replace gloves about annually if you put more than 5000 miles on your bike each year; the palms will wear thin, and protect less as they get used. Gauntlets will protect your wrists; I suggest them over shorties. How much are your hands worth to you? Spend that much on gloves. I’ve burned through multiple pairs of Alpinestars Supertech and Knox Handroid gloves, and I’m currently using Five RFX1; these are daily ride gloves for me. (Supertech gloves are nice, except the palm slider is aramid fabric instead of TPU. Is $500 a lot for gloves? Sure. It’s about $15,000 less than reconstructive hand surgery though.)
Boots should protect your ankles; they should have some kind of armored cup there if they’re leather.
Do not accept anything less than a full-face helmet. Just, don’t. Never, ever, ever buy a used helmet. Never, ever, ever buy a helmet that isn’t from a recognized brand, and from a reputable source. (Amazon is not a reputable source.) If a helmet seems too cheap to be true, do not buy it. Helmets are one-crash only; if your head touches the ground, replace the helmet.
More motorcycle specific, but here’s a couple
- What’s a five letter word for road rash?
answer
jeans
- it doesn’t matter how good of a driver you are when there’s so many shitty ones out there.
I’ve heard that one phrased a lot of ways.
EDIT: took me five tries to get the spoiler right : D
Jesus, looks like a wolverine/Sandslash/moderately miffed cat took a serious dislike to you.
Glad you’re still around.
This one is not mine, but I have been saved by a helmet before. Glad I’m still here too, thanks!
I thought it was just wrapped in plastic at first and was confused until I realized those were scratches on the front glass.
I know this. I used to ride. Got hit by a car swiping three lanes across traffic. They didn’t care to look. My head whacked the pavement hard. Got road rash and a concussion. The helmet saved my life though.
Weirdly had PTSD after trying to ride again and dropped it like a bad habit. Helmets save lives, on bicycles too y’all. Just shocking to see how many folks on both motorcycles and bicycles that don’t wear a helmet.
Yeah, that’s a common experience after bad motorcycle crashes. Glad you’re still with us!
I’ve never heard of a single person who has regretted wearing a helmet, yet people are still incredibly resistant to the idea.
I just don’t get it.
I spoke with a guy, strong cycling supporter with influence in our local government. He made it clear that he views helmets are unnecessary “with safe cycling infrastructure.”
While I get the logic, the reality is that a large number of crashes (reported as half) are single bike accidents with no involvement of another vehicle (i.e. car).
This is why, even when you look at the underreported stats from the Netherlands, cyclists have very high rates of head injuries. They don’t wear helmets, have the gold-standard cycling infrastructure, yet crack their head open.
The point is, don’t be stupid and just wear a damn helmet.
oh no never ask the dutch why they are not wearing helmets, the cyclists will send every excuse your way
One of the most absurd things I’ve gotten heavily downvoted for on reddit is for saying people should wear helmets no matter how good the cycling infrastructure is. Not that it should be mandated by law, but that it’s simply the wise thing to do. Then people are like ‘wELL I gUeSs YoU ShOUld THeN wEaR a HElmEt whiLE walKinG tOo’
Fine, then don’t wear a helmet. It’s not my head.
I didn’t use to wear one when I was a kid either but nowdays it feels like driving without a seatbelt. Hell, I might even just take my bike for a test drive around the block after having done some adjustments on it and I still go grab my helmet first.
At that point, just let them self-select out of the gene pool. In a few generations, maybe our descendants won’t be so adverse to basic self-preservation and common sense.
There’s no genetic pressure not to take chances with incredibly unlikely events with a high chance of death. That’s why we are at this point in the first place. If we want these things to stop happening, it will take using our brains and not trusting on nature to enforce it on us.
Not that it should be mandated by law, but that it’s simply the wise thing to do. Then people are like 'wELL I gUeSs YoU ShOUld THeN wEaR a HElmEt whiLE walKinG tOo
I don’t think people really understand just how devastating head injuries can be, and just how easy it is to get a tbi when on a surface as hard as concrete.
Even when doing something as simple as walking/running on wet concrete is deceptively dangerous. Every summer the trauma ward I work in has to deal with dozens of kids acquiring life altering tbi for doing something as mundane as running near a pool.
The ironic thing about bikers not wanting to wear helmets is that if you’re not lucky, you’ll end up being fit with a soft shell one at the hospital after you’ve bashed your head anyways. I’ve fit a bunch of people with orthopedic helmets for not wearing helmets over the years.
dozens of kids acquiring life altering tbi for doing something as mundane as running near a pool.
😬 yeesh, the mental image.
One of my coworkers is a story of a single bike accident. He was riding uphill on a road when his front fork broke. He went over the handle bars and head/face first into the ground. He had his helmet on, and was still knocked out. He was found in the drainage ditch on the side of the road after he was reported missing.
He has no long term damage today, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case if he wasn’t wearing a helmet
WTH how long was he out if they got to the point of reporting him missing?
You don’t have to wait a certain amount of time to report someone missing. If your partner says “On my way home” then is 2 hours late and not responding to calls feel free to report them as missing. They could’ve easily been in a major accident.
I had only fallen once with my bike as an adult. I live in Sweden and our cycling infrastructure in my town is g r e a t. The problem was that it was spring, so all the gravel/sand which had been spread during the winter was now on bare asphalt. I turned left and while the wheel turned, the bike did not.
There ain’t much good infrastructure can do about gravel on asphalt.
Thankfully I didn’t hit my head as it would’ve surely been a pretty bad accident. Instead I just hit every single boney part on my left side.
people are still incredibly resistant to the idea
in the us* (for some reason?)
helmets are pretty standard where i live, you will very rarely not see people using it.
helmets are pretty standard where i live, you will very rarely not see people using it.
Do you have laws that require them to be worn? Australia, for example, has mandatory helmet laws.
safe cycling infrastructure does nothing to prevent you from having a sudden equipment failure and finding yourself going over the bars face-first, or from just being an uncoordinated idiot who wipes out for no reason and gets a closed head injury. I had a crank fail on my bike once, snapped in half in full sprint and I wiped badly. helmet did its job and I was thankful to have it, because there’s no predicting stuff like that
Yup. I have two family members who were in serious cycling accidents. One was from a stone that he didn’t see. He didn’t have a helmet on and almost didn’t make it.
The second was city incompetence, which resulted in a crash on a bike path. They were wearing a helmet and probably only survived because of it.
I was on a group ride a few weeks back, and one guy’s bike slipped from under him (wet metal bridge) and his head slammed into metal. His helmet destroyed, but he carried on like nothing happened.
This is why, even when you look at the underreported stats from the Netherlands, cyclists have very high rates of head injuries. They don’t wear helmets, have the gold-standard cycling infrastructure, yet crack their head open.
This is just completely wrong. Netherlands overall has half the per-capita TBI deaths as compared to the US. Now, is a higher portion of their TBI deaths bike-realated – I mean sure, because lots and lots of cycling is done there – and not as much car-driving. But your chances of getting your head smashed is lower overall compared to the US, even with our stupid obsession with helmets.
This is just completely wrong.
Nope.
“While national infrastructure ministry figures report 14,000 seriously wounded cyclists in 2019, the most recently recorded year, VeiligheidNL estimates that there were actually some 80,000 injuries of which 50,000 were serious. The organisation reportedly came to its estimate on the basis of 14 accident and emergency wards’ figures.” (SOURCE)
And…
“A new report from the Dutch road safety research foundation predicts that if cyclists in the Netherlands always wore a helmet, there would be 85 fewer road deaths a year.” (SOURCE)
So yeah, while their per capita rates may be lower than some other countries (or higher when you factor in the extra 80,000 injuries they failed to include in their figures…), the fact remains that cycling infrastructure alone doesn’t prevent accidents, and helmets are one way to downgrade the severity of an injury, or avoid injury altogether.
“Don’t you know, our hierarchy of safety controls is so good, we don’t even bother with PPE at our site” said no intelligent engineer ever.
Resistance to PPE (helmets) baffling. It’s such low effort to wear. I feel naked without it because I’m just used to it (Australia, helmets by law, but also by common sense to me…)
I’ve met one; but that case was really stupid: they tried to put on their helmet while cycling and fell. Technically, that accident could have been prevented if they didn’t wear a helmet. It could also have been prevented if they put it on before they started cycling though.