Skid lids: a crash course

by Simon Handby in At home on 16.06.08

It’s Bike Week 2008, and organised events are taking place across the country. Not least of which was Sunday’s London to Brighton bike ride, an event that it’s always too late to enter by the time I remember that I want to. Honest.

Anyway, three equally disorganised friends and I took to the trails and had a thoroughly enjoyable day of our own. But, after I managed to go flying on a downhill stretch, I was left thanking my crash helmet – and not for the first time.

Personally, I’m very much in favour of the humble cycle helmet, but there’s a big debate among cyclists and the medical community as to whether they’re really all that effective. The consensus at sites like Why Cycle is that helmet wearing is a good thing, while on Cyclehelmets.org it seems to be that their protection is exaggerated, and that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the small risk of a serious injury while doing so.

There’s no doubt that a expanded polystyrene crash helmet, designed only to protect you from a 12mph impact with a hard, stationary object, is next to useless if you should be unlucky enough to have a collision with a moving vehicle. But if you ride off-road it’s another story.

Part of the joy of a mountain bike is that it can take you to places where there aren’t any vehicles to worry about, but on the countryside’s rough and varied bridleways it’s far easier to take a tumble of your own accord (at least, that’s my excuse). When you do, there are plenty of rocks, tree roots and other unyielding objects waiting to do you an injury.

In fact, even plain old soil can hurt quite a bit, as I discovered on the one occasion that I forgot to wear a crash hat in the last 10 years. I’ll spare you the build up, but I knocked myself out and ended up in hospital with a busted shoulder. Yes, it hurt very much indeed.

Fortunately, my only lasting damage from that crash is a lumpy looking shoulder, but it could have been worse. Years before, a sobering work experience stint in a brain injury rehab unit taught me that even an everyday knock to the head can leave you with a debilitating injury.

So, whatever a crash hat’s merits on the road, I’d much rather be wearing one on the infrequent but inevitable occasions that I take hitting the trails too literally.

IMAGES by Flickr users Pixel Addict and andy c