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#1
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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? |
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#2
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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