Eat crayons, don't become crayons
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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Found the marine.
Jesus, looks like a wolverine/Sandslash/moderately miffed cat took a serious dislike to you.
Glad you're still around.
This one is not mine, but I have been saved by a helmet before. Glad I'm still here too, thanks!
Same. The side of the helmet looked like this. I'll never forget the sound or images of sliding half a block down the road on my helmet.
I thought it was just wrapped in plastic at first and was confused until I realized those were scratches on the front glass.
I
No kidding, that’s my helmet after a slide at 100km/h
Mine wasn't nearly as bad looking but I was going maybe 40, just some minor scratches. However, when I took off the chin bar I realized the anchor was close to torn out and there were spots in the EVA foam that cracked. Wearing a helmet saved me from a pretty nasty head injury or worse.
Just curious, how are you after that? I trust my helmet and feel safe about my head, but I'm worried about fractures.
My head was absolutely fine, the only real injury was a dislocated shoulder.
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- Dress for the slide, not for the ride
- ATGATT
- Gray-haired riders don't get that way from luck
What others did I miss?
- If your helmet doesn't have a chin bar (full or modular), you don't care about your chin, teeth, or nose.
- wrt ATGATT, most of that gear will reduce or avoid injury. A helmet will prevent your death.
- If you don't wear earplugs - even with a helmet on - enjoy your tinnitus and/or hearing loss. This is from wind noise, not engine noise.
A friend of mine crashed her motorbike a few years ago and her face bounced off the road. Her chin bar flexed inwards so much that it broke her nose and chipped a front tooth.
She was furious that the helmet didn't protect her properly, until her husband who was riding behind her pointed out that she essentially landed face first at over 60mph, and that without the helmet, her face would have taken the full force of the landing.
Yeah, that was probably a "anything less than a chin bar and you'd be super dead" incident.
If your helmet doesn’t have a chin bar (full or modular)
Modular helmets will not protect your face adequately in a crash. Even with a chin bar, the face part tends to open up when you hit the ground. If you value your face, get a good full-face helmet. I have an AGV K1; it's good, fairly lightweight, acceptably ventilated, and usually under $200. You don't need to get a Shoei or an Arai; any full-face helmet sold on e.g. Revzilla is going to be fine, as long as it fits.
Even with a chin bar, the face part tends to open up when you hit the ground.
That's just not true.
Modular helmets are less safe than full-face helmets, period, full stop. That's absolutely undeniable. Take a look at the SHARP ratings for the very best modular helmet they rated, the Shoei Neotec 3; "93% Percentage of impacts where the face guard remained fully locked". That means that 7% of the time, in controlled tests, the face guard came unlocked. (BTW, A Shoei Neotec was my first helmet, before I got over my claustrophobia.) That is not something you want to worry about in a crash, especially since real world crashes are not carefully controlled.
There's a reason that you're not going to get away with wearing a modular helmet at a track day; they simply are not as safe as a proper full-face helmet.
Good to see that you agree that
Even with a chin bar, the face part tends to open up when you hit the ground.
isn't true.
7% of the time is a tendency
"Tends to" implies that it's more likely to happen than not.
Nope, it means something has a tendency to happen.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/tend
to be likely to behave in a particular way or have a particular characteristic
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That's your very best-case scenario, with a $600 helmet, in controlled impacts. Once you start looking at real-world crashes, those numbers start going up significantly, especially because you don't hit the ground once. If you hit the ground at speed, you bounce, and you roll.
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The AGV K1 looks like a motorcycle helmet. Would you wear something that heavy duty for commuting on a 20-30mph scooter/e-bike? Or is there something else a little more lightweight?
Honestly ... yes. On a small ebike or scooter, commuting with automobile traffic, an accident where a helmet will help you seems likely to come from a car not seeing you and hitting you at speed - more than 20 or 30 mph. The kind of thing that's going to put you up on a windshield, or at best send you tumbling in an uncontrollable way (I'm thinking a car making a right turn across your path where you don't have time to stop).
This applies even more if you're a cyclist who doesn't stop for stop signs or red lights. Not saying that you personally are one of those, but you know they exist, and such people would be well-served by a proper helmet helmet instead of a styrofoam skull cap.
To be fair, motorcycle helmets use the same technology as bicycle helmets do: EPS foam that crushes and breaks in a crash, rather than sending the kinetic energy straight into your skull and brain. Motorcycle helmets have a bit more EPS foam, cover more area, and have heavier shells, because you don't have to worry as much about ventilation on a motorcycle as you do on a bicycle, and weight is really important when you're on a bicycle. While there are a small handful of full-face bicycle helmets, they aren't very reasonable for most people that are commuting.
And yeah, if you're on a bicycle, please stop at red lights, and at least look before rolling through stop signs.
Parent commenter was asking about scooters or ebikes, not pedal-only bicycles. Helmet weight isn't nearly the same kind of concern there.
Even so, if you're on an actual pedal bicycle with automobile traffic, sacrificing some weight savings for increased face savings is worth considering. Perhaps a motocross helmet would be more appropriate?
I was assuming that it was bicycle helmets that you were referring to with the comment about a 'styrofoam [sic] skull cap'.
I used to commute about 28 miles/day in Chicago by bicycle (I lived in the Little Village, Humboldt Park, and then Austin neighborhoods while I was working in Skokie); a heavier, fuller-coverage helmet is miserable outside of late fall/winter. The weight and ventilation difference is far, far bigger than you can imagine, unless you've tried it. Overall, I would recommend using a bicycle helmet when you're on a bicycle, and a motorcycle helmet when you're on anything with a motor.
I would ask yourself what you think hitting the ground face-first at 30mph would feel like, and then use that when you consider whether you want a full-face helmet or not. :)
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Just remember that ATGATT means helmet, jacket, pants, gloves, and boots, and all of them have to be intended and rated for riding.
Most "riding" jeans are trash, not worth the money you pay; they'll have a little bit of Kevlar lining, and maybe a hint of padding at the knees, but that's not going to help you significantly. Do yourself a solid and get some real riding pants that zip to your jacket, like RevIt!, or Dianese.
Leather costs more up front, and less in the long run. Textile apparel is usually destroyed in a crash, but leather is usually good for multiple drops. I've had four crashes (none hugely significant; partial tear to a rotator cuff on the last one); my jacket and pants look rough, but they're still perfectly fine for protection.
Pants and jacket should fit fairly closely; you don't want them moving around when you crash. Loose is not your friend in a crash. They should have CE1 or CE2 inserts at the knees, hips, coccyx, back, shoulders, and elbows. You may need to buy the inserts separately.
You can get pants and jackets used safely, as long as they're in good condition.
Get gloves with palm sliders. Replace gloves about annually if you put more than 5000 miles on your bike each year; the palms will wear thin, and protect less as they get used. Gauntlets will protect your wrists; I suggest them over shorties. How much are your hands worth to you? Spend that much on gloves. I've burned through multiple pairs of Alpinestars Supertech and Knox Handroid gloves, and I'm currently using Five RFX1; these are daily ride gloves for me. (Supertech gloves are nice, except the palm slider is aramid fabric instead of TPU. Is $500 a lot for gloves? Sure. It's about $15,000 less than reconstructive hand surgery though.)
Boots should protect your ankles; they should have some kind of armored cup there if they're leather.
Do not accept anything less than a full-face helmet. Just, don't. Never, ever, ever buy a used helmet. Never, ever, ever buy a helmet that isn't from a recognized brand, and from a reputable source. (Amazon is not a reputable source.) If a helmet seems too cheap to be true, do not buy it. Helmets are one-crash only; if your head touches the ground, replace the helmet.
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I've never heard of a single person who has regretted wearing a helmet, yet people are still incredibly resistant to the idea.
I just don't get it.
I spoke with a guy, strong cycling supporter with influence in our local government. He made it clear that he views helmets are unnecessary "with safe cycling infrastructure."
While I get the logic, the reality is that a large number of crashes (reported as half) are single bike accidents with no involvement of another vehicle (i.e. car).
This is why, even when you look at the underreported stats from the Netherlands, cyclists have very high rates of head injuries. They don't wear helmets, have the gold-standard cycling infrastructure, yet crack their head open.
The point is, don't be stupid and just wear a damn helmet.
One of the most absurd things I've gotten heavily downvoted for on reddit is for saying people should wear helmets no matter how good the cycling infrastructure is. Not that it should be demanded by law, but that it's simply the wise thing to do. Then people are like 'wELL I gUeSs YoU ShOUld THeN wEaR a HElmEt whiLE walKinG tOo'
Fine, then don't wear a helmet. It's not my head.
I didn't use to wear one when I was a kid either but nowdays it feels like driving without a seatbelt. Hell, I might even just take my bike for a test drive around the block after having done some adjustments on it and I still go grab my helmet first.
At that point, just let them self-select out of the gene pool. In a few generations, maybe our descendants won't be so adverse to basic self-preservation and common sense.
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oh no never ask the dutch why they are not wearing helmets, the cyclists will send every excuse your way
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I don't get their logic either. You can clip a rock and fall of your bicycle pretty easily at speed. TBI is no joke.
It's the "don't tell me what to do" mindset
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Don't forget leathers or some other full body protection, too. Dress for the slide, not the ride.
Gosh, I wish that were me
You get in a crash without a helmet?
I know this. I used to ride. Got hit by a car swiping three lanes across traffic. They didn't care to look. My head whacked the pavement hard. Got road rash and a concussion. The helmet saved my life though.
Weirdly had PTSD after trying to ride again and dropped it like a bad habit. Helmets save lives, on bicycles too y'all.
Yeah, that's a common experience after bad motorcycle crashes. Glad you're still with us!
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You kidding me? Not weird to have PTSD at all. Your conscious brain might have shrugged it off but your body remembers the whole "I could have died" feeling.
Please don't forgot to wear a helmet when riding on 4 wheelers or ATVs. I've seen far too many life changing injuries on those damn things. I forced my own brother to get a good helmet when he had one and it saved his life. He flipped the damn thing on top of him and only came out with a shattered wrist. His helmet cracked like an egg but his head was fine.
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