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Bicycle helmets and the meaning of life

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Mudcat

Mudcat

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Do you wear a bicycle helmet? I do not. I ride a bicycle a lot and I never wear a helmet.

An important supplemental detail: I own a helmet. I just never wear it.

This is stupid of me. There is really no way to debate that. Wearing a helmet can not possibly do any harm and it can potentially do a lot of good. It is nothing but +ev.

I am not just a casual bike rider either; I live quite close to a highway which I have to cross twice on most trips. I guarantee I have zigged across that highway 5000+ times in the 10 years I have lived here. I have done so bare-headed every time.

So the obvious question is: what is my reason? And the only answer I can come up with is: coolness issues. I think bicycle helmets look stupid. Uncool.

I am supposed to be 46. I am supposed to be an intellectual.




So here I have analyzed the whole thing down to the bare bones. Will I now say, as I should, Cut the shit. Change your ways from this moment forward.

I don't see it happening.
 
Personally I think you should ditch the bicycle. I don't think I've ridden a bicycle once since I got my motorcycle license at 19. Mudcat, I support your coolness issues, but riding a bike is seriously uncool, even without the helmet. Time to get yourself a mode of transportation that affords you the opportunity to wear cool kid helmets.
 
Always, and I never leave the garage without a spare helmet strapped to the back in case I pick someone up on the way to the village. I've seen too many auto vs. bike deaths on our twisty mountain roads to even consider eschewing a helmet, especially for something like vanity. My life is just finally starting to get pretty awesome, I want to stick around for as many of the good years as possible.
 
I only wear a helmet on the motorcycle. Unless you are Lance Armstrong racing the time trials you don't need a helmet for going for a park ride unless you are fukking stupid and can't ride the damn thing at 10 mph.
 
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RogueScholar
Personally I think you should ditch the bicycle. I don't think I've ridden a bicycle once since I got my motorcycle license at 19. Mudcat, I support your coolness issues, but riding a bike is seriously uncool, even without the helmet. Time to get yourself a mode of transportation that affords you the opportunity to wear cool kid helmets.
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Aha! Now this affords me the opportunity to highlight even more the irrationality of my thinking. I don't ride a motorcycle and never have. My reason? Too dangerous.

I'm not kidding. I don't trust other motorists and I am too afraid of someone doing something completely stupid and there I would be on my motorcycle with so little protection.

You would think this same thinking would transfer in the most direct possible terms to the wearing of bicycle helmets but apparently not.
 
Wow Muddy, I never thought to encounter such an illogical stance from you. In my experience bicyclists are at least five times more vulnerable to collision with an auto, especially in my county where bicycle lanes really don't exist, much the way paved road shoulders don't exist here either. If I'm going to be on something with two wheels, I'm going to insist that it at least has enough torque to move me out of harm's way from any foreseeable incidents.

Is it that the roads are so much safer where you live? In Mendocino County (roughly the size of Connecticut) we typically have 6-8 auto vs. bicycle fatalities a year, and once you drive past one of those, you never really look at a bicycle the same, I think.
 
RogueScholar
Wow Muddy, I never thought to encounter such an illogical stance from you. In my experience bicyclists are at least five times more vulnerable to collision with an auto, especially in my county where bicycle lanes really don't exist, much the way paved road shoulders don't exist here either. If I'm going to be on something with two wheels, I'm going to insist that it at least has enough torque to move me out of harm's way from any foreseeable incidents.

Is it that the roads are so much safer where you live? In Mendocino County (roughly the size of Connecticut) we typically have 6-8 auto vs. bicycle fatalities a year, and once you drive past one of those, you never really look at a bicycle the same, I think.
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In my defense, I don't ride my bike on the roads much. At least not big roads such as the highway right beside me. I stick with the sidewalk areas which are very wide, and when I need to cross I just swoop across to the sidewalk on the other side. I see guys riding on the edge of the road all the time, usually with fancy-shmancy biking pants and of course helmets. That's fine and I'm sure it is their right but I want nothing to do with it. Too many loonies in cars.

When I'm on the little suburban roads I don't worry so much about sticking to the sidewalks - but there is not much going on. It is actually a fairly lazy little area I live in.

All in all, I am not in much danger but it doesn't change the fact that a helmet would be indisputably +ev.
 
PuckOff
What is this village you speak about?
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I live in Albion, which just has a harbor and general store which also functions as a post office we pick up our mail at. When you need groceries or other household supplies you have to head to the next village north (which interestingly has fewer residents but more commerce and the local schools) which is Mendocino, where our county gets its name from.

mendocino-county-mendocino-village.jpg


http://mendocinovisitors.com/html/mendocino.php
 
I ride a bike for a couple of hundred miles every week, and I always wear a helmet. It hasn't done me any good, because I have wiped out several times, and have never even scratched the helmet, but I have killer road rash, and even a broken coller bone. Since I live in a mountainous area, I still wear the helmet, but I really don't know why. If I eat it coming down the hill at 60, it ain't gonna matter.
 
RageWizard
I ride a bike for a couple of hundred miles every week, and I always wear a helmet. It hasn't done me any good, because I have wiped out several times, and have never even scratched the helmet, but I have killer road rash, and even a broken coller bone. Since I live in a mountainous area, I still wear the helmet, but I really don't know why. If I eat it coming down the hill at 60, it ain't gonna matter.
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I would respectfully submit that if you get a bicycle going 60 MPH downhill, with no engine/transmission with which to control your speed, there may be very little upstairs for a helmet to protect. How is it that you guys still ride bicycles, anyway? It would be like me taking a horse and buggy to the village.
 
RogueScholar
I would respectfully submit that if you get a bicycle going 60 MPH downhill, with no engine/transmission with which to control your speed, there may be very little upstairs for a helmet to protect. How is it that you guys still ride bicycles, anyway? It would be like me taking a horse and buggy to the village.
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Cardio! I like riding bikes better than walking or running. Plus I like to drop people who think they can hang. I'm no Lance Armstrong,(he's a dick anyway), but I can crank em pretty good up the hill, and the payoff is you get to crash down the hill hanging on the bike at around 60.
 
RogueScholar
I live in Albion, which just has a harbor and general store which also functions as a post office we pick up our mail at. When you need groceries or other household supplies you have to head to the next village north (which interestingly has fewer residents but more commerce and the local schools) which is Mendocino, where our county gets its name from.

mendocino-county-mendocino-village.jpg


http://mendocinovisitors.com/html/mendocino.php
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Looks like a nice quaint little town RS. We have many of these in NS as we are on the Atlantic Ocean.
 
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