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I want to take this opportunity to speak to those who only race with helmets. You can be a great bike handler with loads of experience, but something can always come along to make all of your expertise irrelevant. I was on a road where the shoulder was not even with the road (riding on the shoulder), and I caught a gust of wind and smacked right into the protruding road. I felt my head hit the pavement. My Spinergys were buggered, my ITM Duals were scraped, my speedplays were scraped, and I had sufered road rash out the wazoo (including a three inch patch on my knee, a one inch bit on my shoulder, and a deep gash in my thumb), but only suffered a superficial scratch on my forehead. If that helmet was not there, I would have had some major reconstructive surgery on my face.
Lesson- wear your helmet, no matter how short or insignificant the ride. You never know.
I'll second that. About 9 or 10 years ago I was out for an early morning ride. When I was almost finished the ride and cruising through some residential streets I was riding around a corner and the road was covered in shadows. It turns out some kids had torn up a chunk of the roadway from the edge and had been using it to crush pop cans. They left a piece (that was road coloured obviously) that was about 3 inches thick and 10 inches across right on the corner. My front wheel hit it and turned sharply sideways and I was over the bars and headfirst onto the road. Cracked my new specialized helmet in two pieces (they were great with their replacement warranty) and I was sprawled out on the road wondering where I was. Without a helmet I don't think I'd be writing this. I wear one even for 500m from the car to the transition! I'm sure that there are a lot of similar stories and I just shake my head when I see people riding hard without a helmet.
Between 1999 and 2000 three of our customers died riding their bikes. I don't like that. Wear your helmet. Be smart. Be careful. No more dead customers.
Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com
Dead customers are bad for the economy and bad for the families that they leave behind. Unless you are that despicable writer who called Lance Armstrong "not an athlete", wear your helmet on the bike.
If you can't wear one for yourself at least do it for the ones that love you.
In every triathlon I've ever participated, helmets where mandatory, even the 'around the corner - middle of the week - club tri'. And almost every triathlete you see out there training is wearing a helmet. Road races are different, there are big races like the tour, that don't require the stars to wear helmets and the result is quit clear. A lot of rider out there training with those rainbow colored nothings on their heads. The arguments are as superficial as the once for shaving our legs.I'm from Europe and live in the US since 4 years now and it's the same picture here and there.
It seams obvious that the race organization and the sports governing body don't take their responsabilities. Ultimately the UCI has a big part of the responsability in Kiwilew's death.
Ditto!
I now keep a helmet that may have saved my life as a reminder. I could have had it replaced but decided not to, I forget quickly.
My accident caused over $3000 damage to the car I hit and all I got from my end was a cracked Giro helmet. Although I was not at fault I did see it coming and had no choice but to slam into the passenger door...no I wasn't in the slam position.
Once heard a stat that most accidents occur close to home, a time when we let our guard down and unfocus, so that 2 minute ride to the corner store without a helmet may cost, is it worth the risk?
Wear your helmets!
I ride mtb enough, and used to ride to work all year that I managed to break a helmet a year. I got tired of hitting icy patches under snow and arriveing at work tore up and sore, so I stopped that. But all of those broken helmets could have been my head.
Yesterday I was driving home from work, and a local roadie/hammer-head was out on the roads. No helmet, just a neoprene beanie/do-rag. It got cold enough in the afternoon that the thawed snow from earlier in the day was starting to ice up. He was zipping in and around cars, and ran a couple of yellow-turning-to-red lights. He finally ended up stopped at a red beside me, where I asked if he had heard about Kivelev. He knew, so I asked him if he had signed his organ donor card. He gave me a nasty look, but said yes. The light turned green and that was the last I saw of him.
The kicker is, the guy was wearing Cofidis kit.
In the case of Kivelev, we'll never know what difference a helmet might have made. About 2 years ago my had a stroke, (before her 40th birthday). We were extremely lucky, and she has had a full recovery. In the past two years we've learned a lot of things about stroke, and one lesson we've learned is this: Sometimes dying isn't the worst thing that can happen to you.
I had a similair experience in a race...
Totally flat road in a race near the ocean... cruising along when a gust of wind smacked my sideways, my fron wheel hit a crack in the road, got wedged in. I flew off the handle bars and hit the pavement. I got up and tried to grab my bike to go but stopped when I realized that my front wheel was bent in half. Upon inspection an entire piece of my helmet had cracked off. If it wasn't for the helmet I wouldn't have been getting up at all. The kicker was this was a situation where there risk of crashing was minimal, no bikes around me, on a totally flat road...
and Bell has a great crash replacement policy... 15 or 20 dolllars and I had a new ghisallo for my 4 year old psycho pro... good deal for sure.
I have been in two near fatal accidents in the past 18-24 mionths, and if i didn't have my helmet on, would've been dead. wear your helmet.
tommy