that's well done. I guess even big motorcycle helmets are not much better at keeping the brain from banging around inside the skull.

One of the technologies they are using to adress this is MIPS, currently only beginning to enter the bike helmet market. I think POC is leading the way with one MIPS version of their top end road and MTB helmets.

They are very expensive though.

Actually, in December stores will start getting the Giro Savant and Sonnet MIPS helmets for $110. I've got ones on order for the family already.

Bummer. I just bought a savant after crashing out on my older helmet.

For that price though, I will consider upgrading anyway.

Thanks for the heads up.

Since I could use a new helmet, let us know when you get yours.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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Will do.

After reading this thread I've been waiting to get a MIPS helmet.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...t_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;

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Train safe & smart
Bob

Not surprising - football helmets don't really prevent concussions either. I had a good spill towards the end of this season and got a solid concussion. They're really hard to prevent with a helmet.

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The point is, ladies and gentleman, that speed, for lack of a better word, is good. Speed is right, Speed works. Speed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

This 2013 Bicycling article was featured in their print magazine last fall. I tried to get my hands on a Scott Lin helmet but could not find one in my size for sale in (2013) this country. I guess most of us will have to wait until the Giro and Bell models hit the retail stores.

You do not wear a helmet to prevent concussions, you wear one to prevent your brains from spilling out onto the pavement. Sure it will be great if we improve them to help with concussions, but that was not their primary design.

As a neurologist, I don't find this weird at all. Much of the cause of concussion and other forms of closed (that is without a skull fracture) traumatic brain injury, is the acceleration/deceleration and rotational forces that affect the brain floating around inside the skull. I don't see how anything that you put around your head would change how fast your brain decelerates compared to your skull, when everything all of a sudden comes to a stop. Theoretically, you could have a serious TBI without anything actually touching your head, if your head quickly comes to a stop (provided most of the time this is caused by something causing an impact on the skull, thus the theoretical).

From what I remember, helmets reduce the risk of death by reducing skull fractures and intracranial hemorrhage.

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

I can't speak to whether or not a cycling helmet prevents concussions, but personally, wearing a helmet has saved a large portion of my scalp from being ripped off.

I do not think anyone wears a helmet thinking they product against concussions. As others have mentioned, I wear a helmet to prevent my brains from being splattered all of the road and being able to see my kids grow older. I know full well that a concussion can happen no matter what I am wearing for protection.

I guess the comments on this thread simply prove the point of the article: that selling a helmet that potentially reduces the possibility and/or severity of a concussion is a hard sell unless the regulatory bodies intervene...

As is mentioned in the article, the MIPS system is designed specifically to change how fast ones brain decelerates compared to the skull, so the possibility certainly exists. Just because the possibility always exists of a concussion, doesn't mean I don't want to reduce its likelihood or severity if possible.

Speaking as a neurosurgeon... EXACTLY!!!

Thread

Really??

Question your credentials, as you seem to discount that the brain (although it has it's own buffer against concussions), would not benefit from another layer with similar function.

Also, if you get a person with a split brain on your table, the helmet would have done nothing to prevent this.

Bike helmets protect best at low speed, sharp object impacts. Every Premed student knows that.

This!

My wife works in a major hospital and has seen her share of trauma cases. Their running joke, from a motorcycle helmet standpoint, is that they exist only so the next of kin can positively ID the body.

This is one of the reasons she'll never let me get a motorcycle. Well....this and our two girls.

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It's not about what you've done, it's about what you're doing!
@trecca17

My wife got a concussion while wearing a helmet. From what we can tell, she'd have had the same concussion without a helmet but the damage would otherwise have been much worse.
She was biking one way and ran into another cyclist who was biking the other (for Philly folks, on Kelly Drive path heading away from the Art Museum, past Fall Bridge and along where there's merging traffic). We think her chin hit the other guys shoulder. No bike helmet would have prevented that.
She went right down then, probably already knocked out. Helmet came in handy then.

The energy has to go somewhere. Basic physics, really.

Either you let the hard object dent/crack your skull -- so the deformation absorbs the impact, or the protective shell spreads the energy across the entire skull, which help (do a better job of) shaking your brains inside the skull.

If you don't believe me, put on a helmet and ask someone (who doesn't hate your guts) to hit your helmet reasonably hard. And then take off the helmet and ask him to repeat it. Your head will feel concussed much more the first time, and the second time, the contact point will feel more painful.

So it's all a matter of tradeoff. Which is worse? I guess cracking the skull is worse.

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Watch the Crash Reel

Helmets do not stop TBI's. Helmets can not stop the brain from continuing in a direction of travel once set in motion and suddenly stopped

This is why, for the most part, most of the advertising, especially around American Football helmets has been so farcical.

However, the failure to manage concussions appropriately has been endemic in all sports, best example this summer was the world cup match where a defender took a knee to the head, was completely sparko, but was allowed back in to the game at his insistence not that of a MD

Once you've had a concussion, a second is an increased risk

Its at least one of the reasons why I think that contact sports for kids is very difficult to manage effectively, especially given that the issues may not manifest themselves for years - league of denial is a good book on this.

On January 15th, 2014, I started on a 2-year around the world, solo and self-supported bicycle trip from Bangkok with a plan to return to the same spot in 2 years. On August 12, 2014, after bicycling 15,000 km through 7 countries I was hit by a truck near Bend, Oregon. I was admitted to the hospital with a concussion, 2 collapsed lungs, bruising on lungs, a broken shoulder, 2 broken transverse processes and 14 broken ribs. I was hit by the mirror of a truck going 100 km/h and the imprint of the mirror was clearly visible on my back.

I was in a bike lane and wearing a helmet and can say the helmet saved my life. I have a picture of my helmet after the accident and the back part with the thickest padding is completely gone (I have a picture of the helmet). I had a concussion despite having a helmet on but that was only because the helmet absorbed an incredible force.

I've never been a strong supporter of helmets as I would often ride without one. I biked through the entire Outback of Australia without a helmet and would usually just put one on when I entered a city. I have changed my mind though and can state I would not be here now if I didn't have one on.

I am now in Canada and it's been 2 months and I am still recovering. I need pain killers to make it through the day but I am alive and the doctors think I will make a full recovery. If there is evidence that helmets do not prevent concussions I would strongly argue against it despite having a concussion because the helmet clearly saved my life.

This is the truth. I had a spill this summer and was unharmed apart from the road rash and some rib bruising. When I hit the deck though, I felt my helmeted head bounce off the pavement and was extremely happy to have it there. I could've gotten a bad skull impact plus road rash on my face.

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

But it's still commonly though to do so, even by doctors. I had a bad fall earlier this year that resulted in a bad siezure, unconscious and about 2 months of recovery. Yesterday I asked my doc at my yearly physical if I still had anything to worry about 8 months later and he said that as long as I wear a helmet on the bike, I shouldn't be worried.

I let it go, but my understanding what as you described.

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-Andrew