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Helmets - any available with soft padding?



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 22nd 04, 09:37 PM
Henry
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Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

I hit the back of my head a lot, as often as once a day, and want to get
some protection for my brain. So I am shopping for a helmet. It seems
to me that the helmets with styrofoam inside probably won't do much to
decrease the deceleration my skull sees when it hits the snow - right
now it is the pointed back of my head impacting the snow, and I think it
digs a deeper hole than a much less-pointed helmet would. The deeper
hole, to me, equates with a slower deceleration, less brain rattling.
And I don't think the stiff styrofoam gives enough to make up the
difference, much less add an additional margin of safety. So I am
wondering if anyone makes a helmet with a deep layer of foam rubber
that will compress more readily than the styrofoam. I am going out in a
few minutes to a general purpose sports shop to look at the helmets
used for hockey, whitewater, rock climbing, etc., to see what
construction they use. Any opinions here?

Ads
  #2  
Old February 22nd 04, 11:22 PM
Yro
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Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?


going out in a
few minutes to a general purpose sports shop to look at the helmets
used for hockey, whitewater, rock climbing, etc., to see what
construction they use. Any opinions here


I reckon a helmet which such a soft center would probably fall apart sooner
than later.... but I suppose you may be able to find one. Maybe your
better off looking for a skull cap that you can wear underneath.

Bottom line, helmets not going to prevent your brain from rattling around in
your skull.. that's just not possible to prevent... a helmet _will_
absorb some of the energy that would otherwise go into your grey matter, but
its not going to ever take it all... but it's mostly there to protect
against the big CRACK of your noggin off a rock/ice/tree etc..

At least how I see it..

Pointed helmets.. .hmm maybe.. I can see your logic.. but I'd hate to see a
wipeout where the helmet sticks into the snow, the head stays at nice and
snug in the impact crater.. while your body continues down the piste... =D




  #3  
Old February 23rd 04, 06:08 AM
Henry
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

Well, I just bought a Pro-tec helmet with hi density foam rubber inside,
instead of styrofoam. Also, I just finished gluing three yellow foam
indoor tennis balls to the back, for additional padding. Next time you
are on the slopes, look for the guy whose head looks like the Mars Lander!

Henry

Yro wrote:

going out in a


few minutes to a general purpose sports shop to look at the helmets
used for hockey, whitewater, rock climbing, etc., to see what
construction they use. Any opinions here



I reckon a helmet which such a soft center would probably fall apart sooner
than later.... but I suppose you may be able to find one. Maybe your
better off looking for a skull cap that you can wear underneath.

Bottom line, helmets not going to prevent your brain from rattling around in
your skull.. that's just not possible to prevent... a helmet _will_
absorb some of the energy that would otherwise go into your grey matter, but
its not going to ever take it all... but it's mostly there to protect
against the big CRACK of your noggin off a rock/ice/tree etc..

At least how I see it..

Pointed helmets.. .hmm maybe.. I can see your logic.. but I'd hate to see a
wipeout where the helmet sticks into the snow, the head stays at nice and
snug in the impact crater.. while your body continues down the piste... =D







  #4  
Old February 23rd 04, 11:25 AM
Yro
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?


"Henry" wrote in message
ink.net...
Well, I just bought a Pro-tec helmet with hi density foam rubber inside,
instead of styrofoam. Also, I just finished gluing three yellow foam
indoor tennis balls to the back, for additional padding. Next time you
are on the slopes, look for the guy whose head looks like the Mars Lander!

Henry



Haha..

You're hard core, man..

I wouldn't expect for anything "glued" to the outside of a helmet to stay
for too many falls, though, especially if it's cold.

Takes a lot of guts... good to hear you have the sense to put your brain
above your fasion sense.

Who knows, maybe you'll start a trend.. I'm going to be sportin' a gigantic
block of fome rubber on my head next time out.. I just have to think on how
I'm going to fit on the lift.





  #5  
Old February 24th 04, 07:21 PM
Some Dude
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

I just bought the "04 Boeri" and I hit my head several times yesterday
on the terrains and although I got some nice crunching in my neck
(not really dangerous, btw, its just Nitrogen releasing like
Chripractors do) my head didn't hurt at all..And some of these falls
were a good 6'

so- I'm all for Boeri





On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:37:47 GMT, Henry
wrote:

I hit the back of my head a lot, as often as once a day, and want to get
some protection for my brain. So I am shopping for a helmet. It seems
to me that the helmets with styrofoam inside probably won't do much to
decrease the deceleration my skull sees when it hits the snow - right
now it is the pointed back of my head impacting the snow, and I think it
digs a deeper hole than a much less-pointed helmet would. The deeper
hole, to me, equates with a slower deceleration, less brain rattling.
And I don't think the stiff styrofoam gives enough to make up the
difference, much less add an additional margin of safety. So I am
wondering if anyone makes a helmet with a deep layer of foam rubber
that will compress more readily than the styrofoam. I am going out in a
few minutes to a general purpose sports shop to look at the helmets
used for hockey, whitewater, rock climbing, etc., to see what
construction they use. Any opinions here?


Cheers,
-sd
http://www.zoom.sh
  #6  
Old February 25th 04, 10:08 AM
Henry
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

From Henry:

I took the three-yellow-ball helmet for its first snowboarding adventure
yesterday (otherwise known as Monday).

Both the helmet and I really enjoyed the day. Only three people asked me
what the balls were for. I told them it was the Mars Lander.

The snow was much harder than it was Friday night. My un-scientific
measure of hardness was that if I hit Monday's snow as hard as I could
with my gloved fist, it made only a 1/2" (half inch or 1.3 cm) dent.

I took a lot of falls, including several where I was flipping over and
over down the slopes (I wish I had video). Every bit of my body is sore
today, except for my head. No headache at all.

I used silicone to glue the balls on. Silicone doesn't care if it's
cold. After all the crashing, one ball came partly loose, with the
silicone losing adhesion to the ball, probably because I didn't scrub
the wet silicone into the surface of the ball when I first put it
together. If it comes loose again, I will sandpaper the ball.

As far as the risk of things catching on the balls (I assume that the
concern is because when this happens to bike riders it twists their
necks), I am usually on hard, flat, slippery snow. So far, I haven't
noticed any feeling of catching, or twisting or torque-ing of my neck.
In any case, I think my next step will be to carve a more streamlined
back bumper, out of one piece of foam, and retire the balls.

Baka's message said that thicker bike helmets increased the risk of
certain types of brain injury. That would make perfect sense to me if
they were talking about a thicker SHELL, but if it's saying that thicker
padding is bad, that I would not understand. So if someone has a url
for a study on that, please post it.

Henry

Baka Dasai wrote:

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 06:25:08 -0500, Yro said (and I quote):


"Henry" wrote in message
hlink.net...


Well, I just bought a Pro-tec helmet with hi density foam rubber inside,
instead of styrofoam. Also, I just finished gluing three yellow foam
indoor tennis balls to the back, for additional padding. Next time you
are on the slopes, look for the guy whose head looks like the Mars Lander!


Haha..

You're hard core, man..

I wouldn't expect for anything "glued" to the outside of a helmet to stay
for too many falls, though, especially if it's cold.

Takes a lot of guts... good to hear you have the sense to put your brain
above your fasion sense.

Who knows, maybe you'll start a trend.. I'm going to be sportin' a gigantic
block of fome rubber on my head next time out.. I just have to think on how
I'm going to fit on the lift.



The actual mechanics of how your brain gets injured in a fall aren't
as simple as you believe. Putting something on the the outside of a
helmet that would reduce it's slipperiness may well increase your
risk of brain injury. Also, any odd shaped parts of your helmet that
could get caught in the snow and twist your neck may also increase
your risk. Finally, the thicker the helmet is, the greater the risk
of certain types of brain injury, notwithstanding the thicker
helmet's extra shock absorption.

I'm basing these statements on research into bike helmets, which does
not appear to indicate that they do much, if anything, to prevent
serious head injury:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...net%26rnum%3D1

Apologies for the long URL.



  #7  
Old February 25th 04, 02:02 PM
Barney
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?


"Henry" wrote in message
ink.net...
From Henry:

I took the three-yellow-ball helmet for its first snowboarding adventure
yesterday (otherwise known as Monday).

Both the helmet and I really enjoyed the day. Only three people asked me
what the balls were for. I told them it was the Mars Lander.

The snow was much harder than it was Friday night. My un-scientific
measure of hardness was that if I hit Monday's snow as hard as I could
with my gloved fist, it made only a 1/2" (half inch or 1.3 cm) dent.

I took a lot of falls, including several where I was flipping over and
over down the slopes (I wish I had video). Every bit of my body is sore
today, except for my head. No headache at all.

I used silicone to glue the balls on. Silicone doesn't care if it's
cold. After all the crashing, one ball came partly loose, with the
silicone losing adhesion to the ball, probably because I didn't scrub
the wet silicone into the surface of the ball when I first put it
together. If it comes loose again, I will sandpaper the ball.

As far as the risk of things catching on the balls (I assume that the
concern is because when this happens to bike riders it twists their
necks), I am usually on hard, flat, slippery snow. So far, I haven't
noticed any feeling of catching, or twisting or torque-ing of my neck.
In any case, I think my next step will be to carve a more streamlined
back bumper, out of one piece of foam, and retire the balls.

Baka's message said that thicker bike helmets increased the risk of
certain types of brain injury. That would make perfect sense to me if
they were talking about a thicker SHELL, but if it's saying that thicker
padding is bad, that I would not understand. So if someone has a url
for a study on that, please post it.


It might just be because the helmet protects against lesser injuries, it
means that there's more riders surviving to suffer the really bad injuries.

They're strange things, statistics.


  #8  
Old February 26th 04, 08:06 AM
Henry
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

Henry wrote:
My next step in the helmet development project is that I am replacing
the foam rubber inside the helment at the back (no, it's not styrofoam,
it is a high density foam rubber) with a silicone foam rubber. The
advantage is that the silicone doesn't get harder as the temperature
drops.

Henry

Henry wrote:

I hit the back of my head a lot, as often as once a day, and want to
get some protection for my brain. So I am shopping for a helmet. It
seems to me that the helmets with styrofoam inside probably won't do
much to decrease the deceleration my skull sees when it hits the snow
- right now it is the pointed back of my head impacting the snow, and
I think it digs a deeper hole than a much less-pointed helmet would.
The deeper hole, to me, equates with a slower deceleration, less brain
rattling. And I don't think the stiff styrofoam gives enough to make
up the difference, much less add an additional margin of safety. So I
am wondering if anyone makes a helmet with a deep layer of foam
rubber that will compress more readily than the styrofoam. I am going
out in a few minutes to a general purpose sports shop to look at the
helmets used for hockey, whitewater, rock climbing, etc., to see what
construction they use. Any opinions here?


  #9  
Old February 26th 04, 01:54 PM
Dean
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Posts: n/a
Default Helmets - any available with soft padding?

Baka Dasai wrote:

People are comfortable with a certain level of risk, and if a helmet
makes something safer, they will increase the level of risk in
another way (riding faster, jumping higher, etc.)


That's probably true.

A helmet is good for more than protection from running into a tree at high speed,
and a helmet might not help much in the event of a high speed crash into a tree.
A helmet prevents bruises, bumps and cuts from low speed collisions with skies,
boards, ice, ski poles and other things. The rest of your body is pretty well
protected from cuts and scrapes by your pants, coat and gloves. If you fall on a
crowded hill, and the hills in the midwest are very crowded on weekends, someone
might run into you. I've seen many pileups getting off a lift. There have been
minor injuries. Or you might get a head cut from falling and sliding down a half
pipe. Or maybe someone carrying skies turns and whacks you in the head. A head
cut can easily ruin your day, and blood won't improve your clothes.

If you don't have the risks I've mentioned, then perhaps a helmet isn't going to
help reduce any risks for you. I have found that my helmet is warmer than a
stocking cap on cold days, particularly while riding a lift. But it is too warm
on warm days, even when the adjustable vents are wide open.

Dean

 




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