Roving Thoughts archives

Bike helmets are a distraction

It started on Twitter, where a conversation caused me to have a realization that's obvious in retrospect:

@cwage: so, B-cycle is awesome, but it occurred to me recently that it basically promotes people riding bikes in the city without a helmet. discuss.
[...]
@cwage: let me rephrase my earlier tweet: Nashville is not (yet) a bike friendly city. not enough infrastructure. not nearly enough bicyclist density
@cwage: thus, automobiles lack awareness, and B-cycle users are largely inexperienced riders. the combination (without helmets) is terrifying

@cks: @cwage I think the combination would still be terrifying even if the B-cycle riders wore helmets.
@cks: .@cwage Wearing a bike helmet is not a substitute for avoiding getting hit or crashing. It's just a minor safety boost if you do.

There is a lot of fuss made about people being irresponsible when they don't wear bike helmets and about how you need to wear a bike helmet to be really safe and so on. Some places have mandatory helmet laws, some places just strongly encourage it through social mechanisms (Toronto is the latter). Helmets may or may not increase your safety in practice for various reasons; there are serious arguments that they don't help once you take a total view (instead of focusing just on what happens once a cyclist gets hit).

But all of that misses the issue that I summarized in my last tweet: helmets are only a marginal improvement and if they do any good you're already in trouble. They're a consolation prize if you have an accident; you may be hurt but sometimes you'll be hurt less than if you hadn't been wearing a helmet. It's much more important not to have the accident in the first place. Getting people to wear helmets is something you think about after you've tried to keep them out of accidents in the first place. Someone who is wearing a helmet but riding unsafely or in a dangerous situation is much worse off than someone without a helmet who is riding in safety.

(This is especially bad if wearing a helmet has convinced the cyclist that they can ride more aggressively and less safely because now they have protection. Wrong (but very human).)

That's what I mean by helmets being a distraction. In practice the 'wear your helmet' advocacy has wound up causing people to focus on helmet wearing to the sad exclusion of keeping cyclists out accidents. Given limited resources, limited attention spans, and human psychology, we'd be much better off if people ignored helmets and focused on accident prevention.

(I understand the various reasons why people can't, including that it's very hard to pass up an obvious harm mitigation measure.)

Bike parts I've replaced (as of 2013)

For no particular reason I feel like running down all of the bits of my bike that I've had to replace due to wear since 2006. Please note that I bike a lot. People who bike less will replace less stuff.

• brake pads: repeatedly. They wear out.

• the entire drivetrain (with the exception of the front derailer, it's still original): repeatedly. Chains (and gears) wear too.

• tires, both front and rear (repeatedly). See the sidebar.

• wheels, both front and rear. Although I don't do any extreme biking I seem to be very harsh on rear wheels; I've gone through at least five.

  (The death toll: two broken axles, two used enough that the rims started cracking around spokes, and at least one that just started breaking spokes too often.)

• pedals (repeatedly): either the physical pedals got damaged (when I was using plastic pedals) or the bearings inside the pedals got too worn. I've had two pedals actually break, with the pedal falling off; fortunately both times happened on commute rides with bike stores open and nearby.

• brake and shifter cables. The most memorable time was when my rear shifter's cable snapped, immediately dumping me into an inconvenient gear. Fortunately it was on my commute ride.

• pedal crank arms (I forget why).

• the actual brake arms (sometimes called calipers): these have springs inside (to force them open when you release the brake levers). Mine seize up sooner or later.

• the bottom bracket. This was replaced as part of chasing something else but really, it was time; it had apparently basically rusted into place.

• the headset. The bike came with an adjustable headset (that I never adjusted the angle on); eventually the adjustable joint basically broke. It was replaced by a perfectly good non-adjustable headset which I expect to last forever.

• the (add-on) rear rack. If I remember right, a welded joint eventually separated.

Surprisingly I haven't replaced the bike seat. It's still the original, although it's definitely getting a bit worn by now.

(I think that's everything. If I remember something else I'll update this entry.)

Sidebar: my experience with bike tires

For most of the time since 2006 I've replaced tires when they started to get too many flats. A few years ago I wound up with midrange Continental tires (I believe one step below Touring Plus's), which I've now replaced merely because they looked like they were getting too worn; my rear tire actually wore the tread pattern completely away without, I believe, basically any flats. I currently have Touring Plus's on both front and rear so I'll have some opinions on them in a few years.

In general, either I've had very good luck with my tires or I've got much more relaxed standards of when to replace them because my tires seem to last much longer than most people's. For the front and rear Continentals I replaced this year, the rear lasted over 10,000 kms (carrying a relatively heavy load, since I keep lots of stuff in my panniers) and the front likely ran over 15,000 km. This seems to be well over the usual distance ratings.