A while back, Alec got a minor heatstroke during our Sunday bike ride. His helmet was a HKD$250 regular kid sized “Star War” printed helmet more for the novelty than the sport. Although it does provide the same crash protection as any other proper bike helmets, it has none but just two elongated non-aerodynamic openings for ventilation. For several times that day before his minor heatstroke he mentioned he wanted to take his helmet off for it got too hot for him but I insisted he left it on. He ended up having to stop midway thru the ride and we pour cold water over his head to cool down and then he felt better after that enough to head back with my cousin-in-law first which my cousins and I continued on.
A few days later, I bought him a proper HKD$320 racing helmet with about 80% of the helmet full of aerodynamic vents. He never did get a chance to wear it yet but I am sure it could have prevented that heatstroke if he had it on instead since he did drank more water than I did but mine is a well vented helmet and I felt fine all morning.
He could also have not worn a helmet at all but then again, that accident, which we later have discovered it dented his helmet, could have brought him very serious head injuries.
I don’t like wearing bike helmet myself, especially when we only ride on bike trails at very slow speed. However, I have to set an example for Alec. If I didn’t wear mine, it would be very difficult to insist him wearing one. Which is necessary? That’s rather relative.
I biked a lot when I was young. Been biking for a 30 or 60 mins session EVERYDAY after school when I was from P5 to F2. I did a dangerous things, like “bicycle fight”, going down stairs, riding on cliff edge, running at hi speed… etc.
Once I rushed my bike at 50km/h + downhill at Prince Margaret Rd, and find my bike didn’t have a good brake. I shout to my friend 10 ft ahead and asked him not to brake, he get it wrong and thought I asked him to brake. We crashed. I was flying for a good 20 ft, landed with my hand, and broken it. If I was not able to react by landing with my hand, I may typing here. Even with a helmet, the crash would still broke my neck.
When I was in U, I went to a training course of racing bicycle, at the “wok”. That was my first and last time wearing a helmet on bicycle. But at the bike course, you can get serious injury even with the helmet. The key is how you ‘drop’ and how you react during an accident. I call it active safety.
I have over 28 years of road biking experiences with none but just two falls when I was under 15 years old. I was lucky I did not injure my head at all and only scratched my back big time during the major fall. However, during the minor fall where I cut my eye lid with lots of blood ran into my eye, a helmet would certainly have prevented it.
Once one learnt how to drive utterly properly, the safety belt is also of not much use… until someone rear ended you.
True. One may learn the kind of safety biking you mentioned while wearing a helmet before one learnt it. After one learnt it though, one should also still wear a bike helmet while biking at all times not unlike rock climbing in the wild where one would almost certainly turn into a pizza after a full fall, but one always where a helmet anyway for rock climbing even when climbing a training rock with plenty of safety harnesses.
Like I said, nothing is ever truly necessary until it is too late.
And oh, one more thing BTW…
I hope you have learnt to check your breaks before each and every ride since like Alec and I do.
When you race the bike, the brake is different. You may have a very good brake at low speed, but it just don’t have enough force for high-speed. Remember my accident was decades ago. Low tech brake at that time.
Indeed. That is precisely why one should only race any kind of vehicle on race tracks and not on streets.
Course racing bicycles, don’t have any brake. Nor gear shift. Very interesting to ride. And very dangerous for beginners.
Actually, anyone that has ridden a toddler tricycle have tried fixed wheels. Some people ride fixed wheel racing bikes without breaks on the streets; that is indeed very dangerous. Some put breaks on for street rides. Although riding a fixed wheel with a required nonstop cadence is a very good way of body training, I am not sure if I’d like to ride fixed wheel bikes with or without breaks on the streets though. I could however simulate that by riding nonstop cadence on regular bikes.
Believe me, fix wheel bicycle is fun. You need to learn to use your legs to push the wheel in a ‘circular’ action, rather than just press down with conventional bikes. It’s dangerous, however. One of the guys going to the same training session use too much force to brake (yes, you brake with your legs), and the bike immediately down.
I also have trouble getting used to clipper and clipperless pedals and shoes. I’d image it wouldn’t be very good riding a fixed wheel without some kind of shoe grip on the pedal.
I don’t even like those one sided pedals where it is always upside down. I only like the regular flat pedals where both sides are the same.