Protecting Your Image

Over the past few years, I've noticed more cyclists--particularly of the commuting and utilitarian variety--wearing "urban" bike helmets.

Now, I get that not everybody likes the look of racing helmets.  But, in terms of aesthetics, our lids have come a long, long way from the days of the "Skid Lid" and "Turtle Shell".  Today's helmets are sleeker and better-ventilated than anything available thirty or forty years ago (save, perhaps for the "Skid Lid").  Plus, they offer at least some choice in colors.  When I got my first helmet--a "Turtle Shell", of course!--you could have it in any color you wanted as long as it was white.

If you have seen my bikes, you know that I'm not apathetic about their appearance.  You have also probably figured, by now, that I don't want to ride with a helmet that clashes terribly with my bike or clothes. 

Still, I try to be at least somewhat practical.  If I had to choose, I'd rather have a comfortable helmet (which, for me, means good ventilation above all else) than one that will get me admitted to the trendiest bike café.  I feel the same way about the clothes I wear while riding:  while I usually ride to work in whatever I wear on the job, my skirts are usually A-line or flared and my pants are really pants, not second layers of skin.  Also, my heels are never higher than the profile of the tires I ride. ( I will let you interpret that as you will!)

Back to helmets:  Whether it's finished in matte black or covered with tweed, if it offers any kind of protection, it's still going to look like a helmet.  Thus, for the truly image-conscious, the only solution is one that isn't visible until it's doing its job.

Believe it or not, a Swedish company has created such a helmet.  Actually, the Hovding (which means "chieftain" in the native tongue) isn't really a helmet so much as it's, as the company's website proclaims, an "airbag for cyclists". 

An airbag it is--one that, when deflated, fits into a collar the cyclist wears.  (One can debate how fashionable it is.  Let's just say it's not to my tastes!)  Upon impact, the "helmet" puffs up around the cyclist's head.  Good thing:  Any cyclist who has even half as much fashion sense as I have (which may not be saying much) wouldn't want to ride his or her city's boulevards encased in such a thing.

The idea of the Hovding is, if nothing else, novel.  However, when I saw it, I had this question:  If I'm riding at, say, 40 KPH (which, believe it or not, I still do sometimes!), will the bag be deployed quickly enough?  Also, I have to wonder whether its effectiveness. affected by whether the cyclist takes a tumble on his or her side or hits something head-on.

Let me tell you: Wearing a helmet isn't so bad.  It just takes some getting used-to.  And even the least expensive helmets available today are better-ventilated, lighter and offer more protection than anything that was available when I first started covering my dome.
 

Do Helmets Attract Cars?

I'll be the first to admit that my skills at scientific reasoning and statistical analysis aren't the best.  Still, I had to wonder when I came across a study claiming that bicycle helmets attract cars.

All right, that last statement is an exaggeration.  What the study really concluded is that drivers give less room to cyclists wearing helmets than to bare-pated ones, or those wearing other kinds of headgear.

That same study also implied that whatever protection a helmet affords is cancelled out by the narrower berths drivers give to helmeted cyclists and an alleged tendency of cyclists to take more risks when they have armor on their domes.

It leads me to wonder whether some study concluded that wearing seat belts encourages drivers to speed, take tight turns or even drive after drinking.  After all, wouldn't a seat belt lull a driver into a false sense of safety?

Wouldn't it also cause trucks to pull closer, or for planes to fly lower over the driver who wears one?

Passing: How Close?

Here's something I can't believe I missed.

Six years ago, Scientific American's blog reported on a study about helmet-wearing.  According to British researcher and cyclist Ian Walker, motorists give a wider berth to helmetless (Is that a real word?) cyclists than to those of us who don hard shells.  

How did he come to this conclusion?  He attached ultrasonic sensors to his bike and allowed 2300 motorists to overtake him as he pedaled in and around Bath.  His data indicated that drivers passed 3.35 inches closer to him when he wore his helmet than they did when he was bareheaded.

He also conducted another experiment: On some of his rides, he wore a wig of long brown locks to make him look like a woman from behind.   When motorists thought Ian was Lana, they gave him an average of 2.2 more inches to ride, he said.

His findings are interesting, to say the least.  Now, I have no experience in conducting experiments like his.  But I have to wonder just how good his data actually is.  After all, he was the only test subject. So, I have to wonder whether other factors might have influenced the way motorists passed him on the road.

From Bike New York

 From all of my experience of cycling, I honestly don't know whether  wearing a helmet influences the amount of room motorists give me.   Then again, about the only times I notice how much of a berth I'm granted are when the cars are close enough to scrape the crocheted back off my glove.

As for the male-female thing: Most mototrists may well be giving me more room than I got when I was Nick. But, every once in a while, some male driver pulls up close to me and whistles, makes a comment like "Nice legs!" or finds some other way to annoy me.

In spite of Walker's findings, or any others, I'll most likely continue to wear my helmet.  While it may cause drivers to ride closer to me, I want to have it on if I'm in an accident. Once, when I flipped over (through no fault of any motorist), my helmet broke in two but I emerged with nothing more than a few scratches on my left arm and leg.  Another time, a tiny Vietnamese truck driver flung his door into me, causing me to do an unintentional cartwheel on my head.  I came out of that with a sprained wrist.

   

Bicycles Are Beautiful. Bill Cosby Says So.

If you see a picture of people riding one of these and smiling, don't believe it.  They're probably gritting their teeth.

"One of these" refers to the "boneshaker".  Who made that trenchant observation about navigating one of those wood wheeled wonders?

Why, it was none other than everybody's favorite dad--in the 1980's, anyway.  I'm talking, of course, about Bill Cosby.

He uttered those immortal lines in "Bicycles Are Beautiful", a safety program he made during the 1970's "bike boom".  It's charming, even quaint, for a number of reasons.  One, of course, is seeing a younger Cosby.  But it's also interesting to see bikes, cars and the California landscape of that time.  Also, only one cyclist is wearing a helmet. Ironically, that cyclist got "doored" in the program.  And his helmet looked more like something a motocross or dirt-bike racer might wear. Given that the only alternative to that kind of helmet was the "leather hairnet" (which offered about as much protection against head injuries as the rhythm method offers against unplanned pregnancy), it's understandable that no one else was wearing helmets.

However, to his credit, Cosby dispelled some widely- (and wrongly-) held notions, such as the one that cyclists should ride against traffic.  Also, in watching the program, Cosby was not only admonishing cyclists to be vigilant and obey rules; he was also--as he has so often--promoting respect and civility.  I don't know whether or not he was an active cyclist, but the title of the program seems to reflect his attitude about bicycles and cyclists.

Still, I can't get over the fact that he pronounces "bicycle" as "buy-sigh-kle".

From A Hairnet To A Tortoise Shell

How many of you rode "leather hairnets"?  


I never did, and never had any wish to do so.  I never saw the point of them.  


Now, how many of you rode this helmet?:

If you did, you remember that it was the original Bell "Tortoise Shell."  Actually, I'm not sure that was the actual model name, but that's what everybody (at least, everybody I knew) called it.


When it was introduced in 1975, it was as much an advance over the leather hairnet as a Commodore computer was over an abacus or a slide rule.   I finally started riding with a Bell about seven or eight years after it was first introduced.  My mother gave it to me.  


A few years later, I replaced it with another Bell.  By then, the "Tortoiseshell" seemed like a dinosaur:  My new Bell had more ventilation, was lighter in weight and offered even more protection than my old helmet.


And, most important ;-), it came in a dazzling array of colors:  black, yellow, red, blue and white.  The original Bell was the photograph negative of the Model T:  You could have it in any color you wanted, as long as it was white.


Believe it or not, every once in a while I see someone riding an original Bell.  They were indeed well-made.  The thing is, I get sweaty.  Plus, if I'm going to ride more than a couple of hours, the weight of the helmet matters.


Still, the original Bell helmet is one of bicycling's evolutionary "leaps," along with Mavic's hook-bead rims, the slant-parallelogram derailleur and sealed bearings.

On Our Heads

I'd been cycling about a decade when the issue of helmet-wearing became, as Cardinal Dolan might say, one of the "settled questions" of the cycling world.  By that time, even old-timers who'd been cycling--and, in some cases, wearing "leather hairnets"-- before I was born were wearing the "tortoise shells" that Bell and a couple of other companies made. 

I started thinking about those days when I saw this photo: 

We all know that the lovely young lady would be safer in a helmet.  But she certainly wouldn't look any better.  In fact, this might be one of the few times in my life that I speak in favor head scarves.  

Hmm...I don't know anything about Sharia law, so I don't know whether she could wear a helmet over her scarf.  Now I'm thinking about a guy with whom I used to train. He wore a helmet over his yarmulke; when I was "drafting" him, I could see the fringes of his tallit dangling below the hem of his jersey.

I wouldn't see anything wrong witht that young lady wearing a helmet, as long as its color doesn't clash with that of her scarf.  I don't know whether the imams would share my opinion, though.