Why do I now ride my ebike with light motorcycle gear?

[MadRhino]

I have to admit that I did ride almost all my life without a helmet. Well, when I started horse riding, helmets were not common. Nobody were wearing them either when I tried at bull riding, we were riding with a straw hat back then. Motorcycling was different: I started without a helmet but here they voted the helmet law when I was in my 20’s and I hated it. In Trial competitions helmets were mandatory. I started late MTB riding, no helmet until I got into Downhill hard core. I was riding my first ebikes without a helmet on the street, but wearing one in the mountain most of the time. Now they included the ebikes in the helmet law, I have no choice after they fined me every week.

I never had a head hit in my riding life, 60 years riding everything that had been available. Last year I had a solid head hit during the maple sugar season, working in the forest with a helmer on. Left me with damages that had not completely cured yet, ear, eye socket and upper jaw. It is getting better and I have no more pain, but given my age I believe some damage won’t heal completely.

I always told the kids to wear a helmet although I was not, but most of all I trained them riding techniques and safe riding habits.

 

[Ianhill]

I wouldn't recommend a good head strike ive been hit with a boomerang stuck in my meat, a bear bottle from 30ft height to the nogging needed stiches inside and out then the one that got me was a metal bar cross my eyebrow.

It happened in school freek accident seen a metal pole from a basket ball posts swing like ot was a trebuchet and catch me better than any baseball bat, it dropped me to the floor cold struck my body and i bounced back up tingling like mad with in them 3 seconds one side of my face turned into elephant man and closed my eye complete up rocky wouod habe been proud wish i had a helmet on then 20 years later still not right just listen to me ffs smacked the silly rite in to me.

Broke my leg a treat and arms on a bike but ive managed to protect my head but thats just luck ive seen the danger coming and took avoidance and still ended up joe mangle.

 

[SlowCo]

[youtube]NpVncWxyMJw[/youtube]

 

[donn]

And for the Danish perspective:

[youtube]0m-c4GixUpg[/youtube]

 

[Chalo]

Hey, there are control freaks and suggestible dingdongs everywhere. But not nearly as many in Copenhagen as what we're used to.

 

[larsb]

Nice to know that you keep track on us scandis from the other side of the pond. Keep helmeting

You know you’re actually one of us Chalo! Just too young to realise it

 

[pullin-gs]

Some of us have made it much longer with no helmet at all, by employing the more reliable protection of not riding foolishly.

That works great until you realize that you have zero-control of what the other road users do. I was wish the "foolish" SUV driver that rear-ended me at stop light drove with your ethics. It was messy.

 

[pullin-gs]

There's no net added safety from wearing a helmet, and whole population studies bear that out whenever they occur.

Sources please for these "studies"?
Here is a collection of a few dozen that suggest otherwise:
https://www.rinehardtlawfirm.com/statistics-dont-lie-bicycle-helmets-save-lives-and-reduce-injuries/

 

[Chalo]

There's no net added safety from wearing a helmet, and whole population studies bear that out whenever they occur.

Sources please for these "studies"?
Here is a collection of a few dozen that suggest otherwise:
https://www.rinehardtlawfirm.com/statistics-dont-lie-bicycle-helmets-save-lives-and-reduce-injuries/

Pro helmet "studies" cherry-pick small groups, fail to account for drops in total ridership, and a bunch of other characteristic tricks I've seen for decades. That's what happens when you're using "research" to prove something you believe, instead of trying to find out what's going on really.

If you can count the number of cyclists killed or injured in a whole population in a given span of time, and you can quantify the number of cyclists and cycling miles during the same time, and you can characterize the rate of helmet use during the same time, you have numbers that aren't cooked for a specific purpose. Then you can compare against other time periods that had different rates of helmet use (like almost all of our youthful years), and see whether helmets make a positive difference in the big picture.

Spoiler-- they don't.

I used to wear helmets. I had a Bell V-1 Pro when that was the thing, and I bought the first Specialized microshell helmet I ever encountered. With experience, I developed an impression that wearing the helmet made enough stray noise to put me at increased risk. Later, when I rode a motorcycle for primary transportation, I noticed the same thing-- this one piece of safety equipment reduced my situational awareness by a lot (which in itself isn't very safe).

Bicycle helmets provide probable, measurable protection against impact. But they seem to also increase the likelihood of suffering such an impact by enough to nullify their protection on average.

See cyclehelmets.org for a lot more analysis with sources and citations.

 

[larsb]

this one piece of safety equipment reduced my situational awareness by a lot (which in itself isn't very safe).

I’d disagree here on many reasons. Noise tiredness and bumblebees being two of them.

”Easy rider” sure is a good movie to promote the dream of riding but for most riders it stops at that.

When doing any longer trip on a bike at 120kph you start to love noise dampening, not having sore eyes from the wind and no hard hits from all the bugs you didn’t have to get in your face.