• Mailbag

Friday’s Mailbag: Helmets on, helmets off, along with an occasional finger

by VeloNews.com

• October 28, 2005
• Comments Off

The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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Radios for the fans, too
Editor:
Radios must stay, and of course helmets. The sport of cycling must evolve with the rest of the modern world if it expects to maintain any kind of media presence and network coverage. Technology is a fact of life now and you can either lead or get run over by it. I’m looking forward to a pair of those NASCAR radio headphones I can wear and listen in to the teams!

Paul Johnson
Longmont, Colorado

Helmets should not be optional
Editor:
I used to ride about 100 miles a week. Three years ago, I fell off my road bike on a steep downhill and hit my head. I hit a guardrail, which prevented a 300-foot fall over a cliff. My helmet prevented my skull fracture from being worse.

A passing motorist called 911, and I was helicoptered to the trauma center. I had surgery on my collapsed lungs, and was on a ventilator for two weeks. Rehab took several months in hospital, and I returned to work a year later. I still have the remnants of the helmet.

Wearing a helmet should not be an option. Riding without a helmet is ethically and medically wrong. Thanks for letting me ventilate.

Ben Coplan
Sunol, California

It ain’t rocket science
Editor:
I too read the comments about not wearing helmets. I agree that you do see more of the effort and sweat, but the helmets are there for a reason.

I took a fall rounding a corner at 6 mph and ended up in a trauma center! I have no memory of what happened, but from what I have figured out I must have hit a rather large rock that caused my front wheel to shift and over the bar I went. Luckily I had a helmet on (and I still got a closed head injury with some lasting residual effects that I will have to learn to live with). Fortunately my sense of balance was not affected and I am back on the bike (much to my wife’s dismay).

To even think of backing off the rule about helmets in order for spectators to see the faces of riders is simply reckless.

Here are some numbers for Mr. River: It takes 10 pounds of pressure per-square-inch to fracture the human skull and the head of the average 5-foot, 8-inch adult falling off of a non-moving bicycle will hit the pavement resulting in about 12 pounds of pressure! It ain’t rocket science, is it?

Bill Levey
Reisterstown, Maryland

Sometimes, a cover-up is a good thing
Editor:
The only good reason not to wear a helmet is so everyone can see how “purdy” you are. Thankfully, I’m an ugly old dog and glad to cover up; saved my head a few times.

Dean Lyons
Boone, North Carolina

Don’t forget the fingers
Editor:
I’m all for helmet use and have used one since the days of the old Skid Lid. Remember those old 3.5-pounders? Thank goodness there were a few guys like me to fuel the investment of better equipment so that Lance can have a Giro Atmos.

However, I see nothing wrong with allowing riders to remove their helmets for mountaintop finishes and was sad to see that go away this year. By the time most mountain stages get that far, the riders are spread out and their speed is significantly reduced. And sweat burning in your eyes as it runs off that nifty brow pad, where it has been concentrating for the last 120 miles, does nothing to help a person ride safely at that point in the race.

If we fear the risk of injury when its probability is so much lower, then we should also be regulating what appears to be, based on the last couple years’ statistics, activities with a much higher risk. For example, how many lost fingers will it take before guys stop adjusting wheel sensors at 25-plus mph?

Greg Dance
Salisbury, Missouri

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The Mailbag is a regular feature on VeloNews.com. If you have a comment, an opinion or observation regarding anything you have seen in cycling, in VeloNews magazine or on VeloNews.com, write to WebLetters@InsideInc.com. Please include your full name and home town. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.