Helmets and the peleton

When the UCI (Union Cycliste International—the governing body of the sport of cycling) began to mandate helmet use in the pro races, cyclists were up in arms. Many of the pros argued that as professionals they should be able to choose if they wanted to risk their lives for the sport. The organizers argued that having a cyclist die during an event is bad for the sport, and it's bad in general.

The organizers also argued that having pros wear helmets would make it more likely that non-pros would wear them as well. The racers cried bullshit, saying that nothing they did could influence the populace to wear helmets.

Well, that's just wrong.

Today on a nice 20-mile long bike ride in Amsterdam, Abby and I passed several thousand cyclists, and the majority of them, as is the custom here, were not wearing helmets. In fact I think it's fair to say that nearly 100-percent of the casual cyclists were sans casque. If you're wearing denim or a skirt (or a denim skirt) and riding a bike, no helmet.

But, and this is what I think is interesting, of the few dozen of cyclists on high-end road bikes who went by wearing lycra and sporting team garb, a full 80-percent were wearing helmets. This is in sharp contrast to my visit here five years ago when there were no helmets in pro cycling—there were no helmets on the people riding high-end bikes.

Clearly, the peleton's wearing of helmets has translated to that category of rider who wants to look like a pro. They're buying the gear, down to the helmet. It's certainly not a speed issue-many of these riders were going no faster than the grandmother on her trike, but they were mostly helmed.

Not sure if that will ever trickle down to any other parts of the population here, but it's an interesting observation none-the-less.

As an aside, I think it's safe to say that the average Dutch teen has more cycling acumen and skills than the more advanced rider in the U.S., and is also riding in an environment of slower speeds, vastly superior and more alert drivers and lower risk than the states, and as a result helmet use among the general population is likely less necessary—from a statistical accident point of view—than in the U.S.

In other words, people who ride bikes here do so slower, with slower traffic that obeys the laws and gives cyclists the right of way. There's a lot less to go wrong.

Comments

[Wybnormal]

Interesting but I think the organizers make a valid point. Having an athelete die from a preventable death is bad press and bad for the athletes family. No sport is worth dying for. As someone who has come uncomfortably close to dying on a bicycle, I think I can safely say that you should prevent as much "preventable" damage as you can. If that means a helmet, then so be it. After many years of riding and some racing, the helmet never made the difference in winning or losing but it did make the difference between dying or not on a hard concrete sidewalk one fine spring morning.