apparently my city literally literally banned public rail funding, and people online love jerking off about how good biking is, so i figured might as well try. I have come up with:
pros:
- good for mental health / exercise / endorphins
- arguably quaint
- feel like an old timey guy taking his wares to market
- feel european
- can annoy others
- less of a police state around them vs cars
- more flexible parking, routes
- capacity to be peaceful
- nice in summer
cons:
- look like an annoying dork (esp w neon - which also hurts the quaint factor)
- have to wear a helmet (^)
- getting sweaty, potentially “unpresentable” for work
- still have to find safe parking
- still takes a while
- have to find new routes to places
- can’t listen to music or might die
- little meaningful protection against severe injury
- can only carry so many groceries/etc
- sucks in winter
Rebuttals to a few of the cons:
Nope, always wear the helmet. To not wear one is just stupid.
I don’t disagree. I’ve worked on an ambulance, I’ve seen what the results of improper protection does to a person. But also how it affects everyone else involved- from the people scraping you off the street to the family that has to take care of you. The unseen injuries of head trauma. At the end of the day, it’s a personal choice- just think about the possible consequences to yourself and those around you.
Think of it this way- don’t wear a helmet because you ride a bike, wear a helmet because everyone else is in a car… they don’t look for you, they don’t care about you. Only you can care about you. It’s car culture pushing the responsibility of safety onto the cyclists to avoid culpability.
Two fairly interesting videos arguing each point and may help yall convince others to wear a helmet better than calling them stupid.
https://youtu.be/rhzH6mEpIps?si=UGH6OVQVYDOH7oLf
https://youtu.be/1JfbTwrtOWU?si=WF7RlOLg4h_uv58e
Be safe, anything can happen. Wear a helmet, even for the ‘safe’ rides so it becomes second nature.
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100%. When one of the cons is no meaningful protection against injury, a helmet should be a huge pro. It absolutely saves lives.
A helmet is only needed if you intend to spend significant time in traffic. Most of the world doesn’t use one.
The math behind using one is a lot more on the margins than people realize. In order for it to save you, it first has to prevent a head injury, and then prevent one that is in the range of severity that makes it useful. The vast majority of bike injuries won’t fall in that range, they’ll either be related to another part of the body, or in the case of high speed crashes from a car, too severe for a helmet to matter. But helmets do give people a false sense of security. Statistically people ride faster and take more risks with a helmet on. Lastly, again statistically, the visibility gear you put on yourself while riding does more to keep you safe in traffic than a helmet. Lights, reflectors, reflective vest, etc.
All this to say, the religiosity with which people proselytize helmets is misplaced. I still wear one, but I don’t judge people who choose not to.
It feels very much religion like, but also an online phenomenon only. IRL the helmet discussion goes like this for me: “You don’t wear a helmet?” “No.”
The topic coming up is super rare too, while on every picture of a cyclist without a helmet on the internet you got all these comments from helmet fundamentalists going nuts over it.
Personally, I have cracked open a helmet once. On a quiet country lane, with no traffic. Pot holes can catch you any time.
I don’t remember the crash, just the slide.
That is what makes me tell people to wear helmets.
And your friends don’t get annoyed?
I hope you also posted one of those wonderful “today the helmet saved my life” topics on reddit so the community could get together for their daily service.
My cycling club mandates helmets, so not a problem. Only really come up with the hire bikes in cities etc.
Nope, I was to busy being miserable about having a broken collar bone.
Broken collar bone, the classic.
Sorry if i came off rude, i am just so over people claiming that every kind of cycling is dangerous and all that can save you is a helmet.
I mentioned in another comment that there is a dutch study that finds the helmeted rider to be more than 25 times more likely to end up in a hospital. 25 times more likely. Obviously roadies and MTBers. I am absolutely not saying people should stop road or mountain biking, even that is not all that dangerous and practitioners don’t all end up dead or crippled sooner or later.
But if a person is just casually cycling without a helmet, they are doing much more for their safety than those sporty riders with helmets. Somehow this then always gets countered with “i know someone who fell on his head while stationary and is now being spoonfed by his loved ones. No, he didn’t have clips / clipless pedals”. Made up bullshit in 99.9% of cases, i have seen this in almost every helmet topic i have read.
It’s all about risk tolerance. It was thought that improved brakes on cars would hugely improve safety. However it had a much smaller affect as people just braked later… There is a level of acceptable risk that everyone has, increasing safety measures just means they take more risks up to that level.
Helmets make people feel safer so they do more risky things and therefore hurt themselves more in other ways.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear one though!
The worst wreck I’ve ever had on a bike was without a single car in sight. Pinch flat while carrying speed through a steep downhill curve. I split an expensive MIPS helmet in two and still hit hard enough that I had a minor concussion, road rash up one side of my body, and cracked the face of a week old watch just to pour salt in the (metaphorical) wound. I mostly landed on my head and that helmet is the reason I didn’t have drastically more severe head injuries.
Helmets aren’t just for traffic.
I don’t doubt anything you are saying, but it’s worth mentioning that (iirc) 80%+ of severe injury and death on a bicycle is caused by motor vehicles, or complications of motor vehicle involvement. People very rarely have severe injury or death on dedicated bike infrastructure. The primary risk on bicycles is motor vehicles. If you remove motor vehicles, there is still risks, but someone might decide that risk is low enough to forgo a helmet. I don’t feel those people should be called stupid for their choice.
There is considerable evidence that everyone wearing a helmet in a car would save vastly more lives and prevent severe head injury, and yet pretty much no one even considers that as a normal thing to do. The bike helmet thing is therefore just as much a cultural attitude, as it is about safety.
I still use a helmet, and more importantly, visibility gear, on my bicycle in 100% of my rides. I’ve never worn a bike helmet walking or driving in a car, even though my cousin died from a head injury getting hit by a car while walking and my grandma-in-law died of a head injury in a car…
There is also this interesting dutch study, where somehow helmeted cyclists were 25 times more likely to end up in a hospital. Of course the reason for that never comes up as something problematic from the side of our solely safety concerned citizens, they will congratulate you for your new speed record down that hill.
Which would mean ~1 in 5 have absolutely nothing to do with a motor vehicle. That’s significant.
Then that should be an easy [citation needed] for you because my searches are coming up blank for actual studies. Lots of assertions of it, but I’m not finding anything in terms of actual data.
It’s very easy, on the other hand, to find comprehensive meta analyses on the efficacy of helmet use.
It’s also worth noting that the introduction makes a point of calling out another common online assertion that you repeated – that helmets make people engage in more risk-taking behavior – as false:
I don’t think they’re stupid. I think they’re bad at risk analysis. That’s a pretty inherent feature of humans. It’s the reason I want to see actual data.
No it’s not. Believing the helmet is the sole saviour is stupid.
The helmet is not the sole saviour. But If I can eliminate or even highly reduce any risk, especially high risk brain injuries just by wearing a helmet, why wouldn’t you?
Seems silly to tempt fate when a helmet is so easy and mitigates a lot of risk.
I also don’t wear a helmet when i walk down the stairs of my appartment. Is that stupid and silly too, or for some reason just fine? I don’t think riding a bicycle, which you learn at three years old, is necessarily a dangerous activity.
Not if you are taking a nice leisurely ride by yourself around rolling hills and the occasional butterfly.
No I’m talking about riding a bike into town with a dozen other riders, pedestrians who dont look, dogs that’ll just wander in front of you, cars passing 1 foot too close over the line… Ya, not exactly how I learned to ride a bike. I’ll wear the helmet in the risky situation.
Makes you wonder why skydivers bother to wear a helmet at all.
Wear a helmet for whatever activity that you’d like one for, just don’t call people stupid and silly if they have different experiences and conclusions.
I don’t believe I did
Paper and liquid products are not cooperative with two-wheeled transportation, so there’s still a tangible limit
Where there is no will, there is no way.
If it’s a Costco monthly trip, no. On your carbon road bike, no. Full suspension downhill bike, no. Holding a 2liter bottle of Shasta Cola and three rolls of TP? Rethink some things.
If you know it’s going to be a utility bike, yea. Easily done. If it’s a zippy get about thing, consider a little trailer for the hauling trips- buy used, even the old ones roll fine.
I’ve been going for about a year, with two panniers and a front rack, for weekly groceries for a family of 3. Milk, eggs, toilet paper, no problem. Back when Mission Workshop just split off from Timbuk2 I got their expand-o Marry Poppins backpack (the rambler)which is awesome- though I wouldn’t buy it at the current price (eye watering)…it does fit A LOT, like 12kg bags of dog food and still has room. It can carry the weirdest things.
The worst part is getting the panniers up the flight of stairs to our apartment…which would be the same struggle regardless of transportation.
I have a trailer that I attach to my bike whenever I have to haul a lot of stuff. It’s very convenient. You can add a little wheel at the front to use it by hand with its handle. It carries 40 to 60 kg and is foldable to take less space if needed.
I love my bike trailer. I added an aluminium box to make it water proof and I use it almost weekly for groceries.