Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

fat and old
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Re: ABC report

Postby fat and old » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:44 pm

human909 wrote: Plus fit people choose to live in suburbs that appeal to their fit life outlook.
If you swap "Young" or "young at heart" for "fit" I'll agree with you, to a point. I'm not sure that the inner burbs have the lock on "fit" or "healthy" people. e.g. the elderley medditerraneans and asians out my way and in the Nth and Sth Eastern burbs are probably "healthier" than most, and "fitness" gyms like F45 are all over the place and attract the beautiful young things like moths to a flame. There's one in Reservoir that is jam packed every morning at 4.30am with sweaty young (and not so young) things. Winter or summer, no diff. The local trophy wives and young women start their 4.30-5.00am walking in Mill Park around august these days. Meh, details.....

And I have disputed the evidence gathering for that map before. Not the general idea, just the numbers. It's to easy for one person to be counted multipe times in the same survey. IIRC, someone riding into the CBD from Reservoir along the St Georges Rd path could be counted 4 or 5 times. That skews the numbers perceived at Fitzroy for instance. But agin, just details...

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Re: ABC report

Postby human909 » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:48 pm

fat and old wrote:And I have disputed the evidence gathering for that map before. Not the general idea, just the numbers. It's to easy for one person to be counted multipe times in the same survey. IIRC, someone riding into the CBD from Reservoir along the St Georges Rd path could be counted 4 or 5 times. That skews the numbers perceived at Fitzroy for instance. But agin, just details...
Huh? :!: :?: It is based off the Census. What does that have to do with counting people along paths?

You can also produce a similar map for the commuting destination.
Image

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Re: ABC report

Postby fat and old » Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:52 pm

human909 wrote:
fat and old wrote:And I have disputed the evidence gathering for that map before. Not the general idea, just the numbers. It's to easy for one person to be counted multipe times in the same survey. IIRC, someone riding into the CBD from Reservoir along the St Georges Rd path could be counted 4 or 5 times. That skews the numbers perceived at Fitzroy for instance. But agin, just details...
Huh? :!: :?:

It is based off the census. You can also produce a similar map for the commuting destination.
That's a census map? My apologies; I thought it was the one compiled via cycling counts on ride to work day or whenever it is they do this.

I just flicked through that article. It made me chuckle at the "access to healthy food" claim. No self respecting Lalor, Preston, Bulleen or Doncaster old wog would be seen dead buying fruit or veg :lol: I know heaps who will not have a plant that does not produce food in the garden, and have an outdoor oven. Not to cook fancy designer pizzas, but for bread! :lol: Mate, sauce, chorizo and pimientos days are the highlite of the year! I love it.

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Re: ABC report

Postby human909 » Fri Nov 23, 2018 3:01 pm

fat and old wrote:I just flicked through that article. It made me chuckle at the "access to healthy food" claim. No self respecting Lalor, Preston, Bulleen or Doncaster old wog would be seen dead buying fruit or veg :lol: I know heaps who will not have a plant that does not produce food in the garden, and have an outdoor oven. Not to cook fancy designer pizzas, but for bread! :lol: Mate, sauce, chorizo and pimientos days are the highlite of the year! I love it.
Yes. There is alot to scratch your head about. I was puzzled to see liquor stores as a negative in there, especially with Brunswick getting a top rating!

If you want to find an obesity map or similar of Melbourne please do. I found one for Sydney not Melbourne.

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby fat and old » Fri Nov 23, 2018 3:28 pm

Obesity? Wherever I'm sleeping that night! :lol:

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Re: ABC report

Postby Thoglette » Mon Nov 26, 2018 6:11 pm

fat and old wrote:It's harder to accept that every cycle ride taken is a transport situation. I know the theory of "more people safer overall" stands regardless of use, but have my doubts as far as relaxation of helmet laws being instantly translatable into the figures supplied by Jeroen et al?
Perhaps not instantly, but the two large-sample surveys (RAC 2016/2015 and Heartfoundation+Cycling promotion fund 2011) show that the intent to travel more is there.

The Heart Foundation survey's numbers indicate that a million trips a month are not taken due to helmet laws.

I did run through the statistical support for that number (it's pretty defensible and likely low) in these forums about two years ago but my google-fu is lacking today and I can't find it. The RAC report quotes a bigger number (34%) but they've not released enough info about it to make claims as to quite what it is (helmet laws are explicitly not mentioned in the currently available versions).
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby opik_bidin » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:21 pm

interesting,

I broke the law, a wrong law that has wronged many.people

the case of Norbert Schaber

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 3552252788

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Olivier selecting data very carefully

Postby Thoglette » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:46 pm

Carlton Reid writing for Forbes reports that Jake Olivier and Scott Walter got it wrong when they claimed that the paper by Dr. Ian Walker and Dorothy Robinson showing that motorists drive closer to helmet-wearing cyclists.
Carlton Reid wrote: Speaking to Forbes.com, Walker confided: “If somebody writes a paper saying your work is wrong, you look at it in some detail.”

Five years on and today’s paper is his response. He claims that Olivier and Walter were only able to disprove his study by redefining what was meant by the words “close” and “closer.”
Sly dig thrown in
Carlton Reid wrote: “It's notable that the university research group [which wrote the 2013 paper and others] seem very interested in rebutting any suggestions that cycle helmets are not a panacea for safety,” remarked Walker.
Well, the ball's back over the net. Full paper here but the Forbes article is worth reading too.
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby fat and old » Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:09 am

Olivier and Walter acknowledged that the differences were caused by the arbitrary measurement.
Results

The previously observed significant association between passing distance and helmet wearing was not found when dichotomised by the one metre rule.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0075424

Is this considered misleading in the science world, or just in the MHL world?

Not that I don't think the original study was valid. It certainly appears to be to this unedumacated layman.

edit....

Carlton Reid and Walker have hit the ball straight back into the net as far as Mike Hall's case is concerned
Participants grabbed only the merest of rests, and even if helmet use hadn’t been required Walker said he would have worn one anyway due to the risk of falling from his bike thanks to sleep deprivation.


People should think about the wider effects of what they're publishing rather than just their own narrow needs assessment.

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:11 pm

Oh wow.

How this rubbish is accepted as research is beyond me.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... =printable

(Actually it isn't beyond me. I'm not naive about the requirements for academic acceptance. AKA Have the right answer and crunch the numbers to get prove the answer.)

Here is the rebuttal of the rebuttal. Not finished and not as academically flashy. But still academically solid, even giving a nod to what the original rebuttal does get correct.

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby Thoglette » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:37 pm

human909 wrote:(Actually it isn't beyond me. I'm not naive about the requirements for academic acceptance. AKA Have the right answer and crunch the numbers to get prove the answer.)
Olivier is a well published author on bicycle helmets in Australia. Leading, even. I've read just about everything that he's written.

Unfortunately, his best work (with very clever maths, see below) is on helmet effectiveness and does nothing to inform the MHL debate. A point which he doesn't seem to grasp, based on his public comments (at the 2015 senate hearings) and other academic work (such as you reference)

Bicycle injuries and helmet use: a systematic review and meta-analysis Jake Olivier, Prudence Creighton
International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 46, Issue 1, 1 February 2017, Pages 278–292,

The Use of Propensity Score Stratification and Synthetic Data to Address Allocation Bias when Assessing Bicycle Helmet Effectiveness.
Jake Olivier, Frances Terlich
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:39 pm

fat and old wrote:Is this considered misleading in the science world, or just in the MHL world?
Misleading in any world if you arbitrarily choose a measure to get the result you want and then not consider other measures. Furthermore their headline of the research and their conclusions give not hint to their choice of classification.

How about the ethics? Do you really think they didn't crunch their numbers with alternative measures of close passing? A simple variable change and you get different output. An ethical researcher would not ignore this. One that wants a particular answer for their research will.

Ask me this. Do you feel completely safe with a pass at 1001mm but unsafe at 999mm? Why would you dichotomise the continuum?

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:55 pm

Thoglette wrote:
human909 wrote:(Actually it isn't beyond me. I'm not naive about the requirements for academic acceptance. AKA Have the right answer and crunch the numbers to get prove the answer.)
Olivier is a well published author on bicycle helmets in Australia. Leading, even. I've read just about everything that he's written.
Which is sad because the flaws in his research should be obvious to anybody with half an understanding of the factors at play. So the question remains whether he is unethical or blind to the flaws (incompetent). I wouldn't say he is an incompetent mathematician, but as we all should recognise, statistics can be readily stretched to prove almost anything.
AKA in the above paper. You cannot readily test this in an environment when the helmet wearing distribution is affected by mandatory helmet laws.

His own paper has indications of this: eg; (Helmet use was negatively associated with disobeying a traffic control, having blood alcohol content (BAC) greater than 0.05 and riding on a footpath.) No surprises that those choosing to break one law are choosing to break others and engage in more risky activities.


**To be fair risk propensity and helmet wearing is quite a hard variable to test and depends significantly on the population group, social norms and risk the population actually faces.
Eg;
-in high risk environments or where helmets are common (mandatory or not) then the non wearers have a good chance of being on the more risk taking side of the spectrum
-in low risk environments or where helmets are uncommon then the helmet wearers have a good chance of being on the more risk taking side of the spectrum

Given this stratification, to properly separate out 'risk compensation' statistically would be fraught with difficulty, you could readily get significant results either way and you can readily conflate effect as the cause. Which is why there have been other studies about helmet completely removing cyclists from the equation!

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby Thoglette » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:19 pm

human909 wrote:**To be fair risk propensity and helmet wearing is quite a hard variable to test and depends significantly on the population group, social norms and risk the population actually faces.
Agreed. And the statistical gymnastics Olivier and friend go through to achieve an outcome are quite extreme. Now, I'm not an expert in that form of maths so it could be all above board but part of me thinks they start to sound like zealots waiting for "the sign".

Meanwhile, I'm forming a view that non-sport helmet wearing is a symptom of a less safe traffic environment. At the bulk level the correlation is there, causation will be a bit harder to demonstrate.
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:34 pm

Thoglette wrote:And the statistical gymnastics Olivier and friend go through to achieve an outcome are quite extreme. Now, I'm not an expert in that form of maths so it could be all above board but part of me thinks they start to sound like zealots waiting for "the sign".
The gymnastics in that paper are quite spectacular. But in general I operate on the assumption that the mathematical method is usually accurate in these papers. For multiple reasons:
-mathematics is their primary game and flawed mathematics is easy to disprove
-the mathematics is often surrounded and reviewed by experts in mathematics
-a mathematician submitting a paper with plainly incorrect mathematics is far from a good career move
-I don't have the time, inclination and usually the data to really review the mathematics

Instead the flaws are usually about how the question is framed or tested as was quite evident in this case.

Statistics and correlations can show almost anything, if that is your only approach.
http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
:mrgreen:

(In undergrad I majored in mathematics and did economics with a whole pile of statistics. What I saw economics made me weep and still does. Much of modern economics has thrown away all thought and replaced it with statistics....)

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:44 pm

Thoglette wrote:Meanwhile, I'm forming a view that non-sport helmet wearing is a symptom of a less safe traffic environment. At the bulk level the correlation is there, causation will be a bit harder to demonstrate.
I presume you have seen this research, In many ways quite astonishing, I'd like to see more to back it up.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4767144/


Alternatively I'd like to round up all the mathematicians and sundry who can't find a correlation or causation** between risk taking and helmet wearing and then take them out on some downhill mountain biking and see how their participation changes when a helmet is handed to them or taken away from them. :twisted:

**Nothing wrong with not finding it. But if then go on to suggest or imply it doesn't exist or there is no evidence for it then all that shows is you haven't tried hard enough.

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby fat and old » Tue Nov 27, 2018 5:46 pm

human909 wrote:

Alternatively I'd like to round up all the mathematicians and sundry who can't find a correlation or causation** between risk taking and helmet wearing and then take them out on some downhill mountain biking and see how their participation changes when a helmet is handed to them or taken away from them.
Your report would be interesting, possibly amusing.......but would be an anecdote; sadly unacceptable in this debate. :lol:

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 6:16 pm

fat and old wrote:
human909 wrote:

Alternatively I'd like to round up all the mathematicians and sundry who can't find a correlation or causation** between risk taking and helmet wearing and then take them out on some downhill mountain biking and see how their participation changes when a helmet is handed to them or taken away from them.
Your report would be interesting, possibly amusing.......but would be an anecdote; sadly unacceptable in this debate. :lol:
Anecdote? We'll round up a bunch of them and crunch the numbers. (hopefully not bones) Getting some meaningful data would be the easy part. Getting it past the ethics committee would be the harder part. :lol: Hence we have to instead resort for baseball caps, helmets and games of risk at a desk. :(

Image


(There is a bit of a laugh to be had here. But it is completely real and also the issue of running controlled studies on the topic.)

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:09 am

https://www.outsideonline.com/2373236/a ... aUXZ5MovI4
The Case for Not Wearing a Bike Helmet

Helmets have been mandatory in the pro peloton for well over a decade. Where’s the data that it’s helping?
It’s become an article of faith among cyclists that you should always wear a helmet while riding and that not doing so is irresponsible.

I mean sure, this is mostly a load of crap, but whatever.

Nevertheless, when it comes to living the All Helmets, All the Time lifestyle, no group of cyclists has bought in more completely than the roadies. You can still show up at your local advocacy meeting with nothing on your head save for your vintage cycling cap and for the most part your fellow do-gooders will hardly look up from their couscous. But roll up at the Sunday group ride with your locks flowing in the wind like a Flandrian cresting the Mur de Huy in the ‘70s and you’ll find yourself greeted like your B sample just came back positive.

Of course, there’s a reason sporting cyclists are so particular about helmets: bike advocates just ride slowly to the food coop, whereas roadies soar majestically across the suburban sprawl, courting glory and tempting fate as they battle for the town line sprint. Certainly this sort of high-performance, high-risk cycling warrants the use of safety equipment in a way casual riding simply doesn’t—and it also warrants heaping derision on Lycra-clad riders who dare not wear them. Right?

Well maybe, maybe not. Helmet studies are problematic at best, so it’s difficult to say, and our feelings about them are based more on emotion than most of us are willing to acknowledge. Furthermore, despite our relatively high rate of bicycle-helmet use here in America we’ve also got a significantly higher cyclist fatality rate than in countries where helmet use is much lower. At the very least, we’ve got much bigger problems than what we’re wearing (or not wearing) on our heads.

Still, you’d think that at least in the context of go-fast stretchy-clothes cycling, the efficacy of helmets should be much easier to quantify and justify. After all, we’ve got a great big rolling sample group in the form of the professional peloton, for whom the UCI made helmets mandatory back in 2003. Prior to that, spectators had always delighted in the sport’s colorful coiffures, from Laurent Fignon’s flaxen tresses to Mario Cipollini’s considerably oiler ones. The UCI instituted the helmet rule in response to the death of Andrei Kivilev, of a head injury, during Paris-Nice. (Though sparing the world from the sight of Laurent Brochard’s mullet may have been a contributing factor.) It stands to reason then that comparing pre- and post-helmet rule head injury data in the pro peloton would provide some insight into the importance of wearing a helmet whilst speed-cycling.

Alas, it does not, mostly because there’s no data to analyze—the sport simply does not track such statistics. Anecdotally, however, the frequency and severity of crashes in the pro peloton is increasing, and pundits have cited a host of possible causes reasons ranging from changes in European road design to riders nodding off on !!! spammer !!!. Furthermore, the sport is still plagued by concussions, and of course riders continue to die from head injuries sustained in competition.

Given all of the above, there’s presently no basis for claiming mandatory helmets have made pro cycling any safer in the past 15 years—though it has resulted to near-100-percent helmet adoption among amateur cyclists, whose equipment choices are always informed by whatever the pros happen to be doing. And arguably any safety benefits helmets might impart on these cyclists is undermined by all the other ways they’ve been copying the pros over the years, including but not limited to: Riding around in untenable positions on bicycles with narrow, over-inflated tires while in a state of anaerobic distress due to a chronic lack of fitness, etc. The sheer number of weekend riders I see who hold onto lampposts at red lights or unclip at the first sign of danger because they’re not proficient with clipless pedals indicates to me that plenty of road riders are in over their helmeted heads due to this tendency to take all their equipment cues from the pro peloton.

None of this is to say I’m against mandatory helmets in competitive cycling. After all, rules are the very basis of sport, and whether it’s the Tour de France or your local criterium, submitting yourself to an arbitrary system of governance is the name of the game. Yesterday it was helmets; today it’s making sure your sock is no higher than the halfway mark between your lateral malleolis and your fibula head. Wear this, pee in that, whatevs.

So what’s really happening when the group ride spurns the bareheaded rider? Is it because they think he or she is being profoundly irresponsible? Or is it because helmetlessness undermines their (somewhat delusional) image of themselves as elite athletes pushing themselves to the very limits of human endurance, just like their professional counterparts? You’d think if it was really about safety we’d also be pushing the UCI to analyze crash data and the helmet companies to make better products. As it is, everyone seems perfectly comfortable to strap on whatever Peter Sagan happens to be wearing and call it good. Maybe we’d all be better off it we just called it what it is: Accessorizing.

Now go and measure all your socks.

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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby human909 » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:16 am

In reference to the above, even in some countries without MHLs you still have shaming of people who choose to go bare headed.

We could speak about this solely in terms of cycling helmets but in reality it plays out in many part of society. Take for instance the cotton-wooling of kids. Shaming has played some role, the dirty looks and judgment from other parents when you let your kids do something that society deems as risky. (Whether it entails more risk or not isn't the point.) Likewise you have schools banning cycling.

It affects adults too I've seen it subtly in the other sports I participate in. But mostly from the inexperienced, as the experienced people KNOW risk is a personal choice and there isn't a single 'right' way.


Get rid of the shaming and judgmental approach and let people choose what is best for them.

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Laugh, it's Friday

Postby Thoglette » Fri Dec 07, 2018 3:09 pm

As we don't have a helmet efficacy thread yet (or, rather, I couldn't find it in under a minute) here's BSNYC's typically irreverent article on (well, alluding to) statistical analysis of helmet efficacy in UCI races.

And sock lengths. Go measure your socks.
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Re: Laugh, it's Friday

Postby P!N20 » Fri Dec 07, 2018 4:12 pm

Thoglette wrote:As we don't have a helmet efficacy thread yet (or, rather, I couldn't find it in under a minute) here's BSNYC's typically irreverent article on (well, alluding to) statistical analysis of helmet efficacy in UCI races.

And sock lengths. Go measure your socks.
human909 beat you by six hours.

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Re: Laugh, it's Friday

Postby Thoglette » Fri Dec 07, 2018 5:03 pm

P!N20 wrote:human909 beat you by six hours.
:oops: Image :oops:
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby warthog1 » Fri Dec 07, 2018 9:17 pm

human909 wrote:https://www.outsideonline.com/2373236/a ... aUXZ5MovI4
The Case for Not Wearing a Bike Helmet
Well duh, they've bought in
If they are competitive cyclists it will be mandated they cannot compete without a helmet.

Rubbishing another for choosing not to wear a helmet? Sure don't agree with it.

However the article makes a point that helmet studies are difficult at best and then states there isn't data to support mandated helmet use has improved the safety of racing cyclists.
Piss and wind basically.
You yourself have previously argued bunch cycling increases collision risk H909.
If it is going to increase collision risk surely it is prudent to protect one's noggin.
I have broken a couple of helmets myself and a rider in our bunch broke his helmet and suffered a concussion after a collision last week.
Given the choice I'd wear a helmet rather than not when slaming my head into the bitumen, but yes it is not "conclusive data" of injury prevention.

Stupid article that uses divisive language and doesn't advance any cause imo.

Must've been a slow news day on the helmet front.
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Re: Mandatory Helmet Laws & stuff (MHL discussion)

Postby fat and old » Fri Dec 07, 2018 11:26 pm

Really, using the snob in this manner? You may as well give us Olivier’s latest paper on why helmets are good and tell us it’s a whole new game :lol: The bloke is severely biased against any and all road cyclists that buy into the pro scene, and gives us nothing in support of his rant other than ... well....his rant :lol:

Slow day? Nah, this is what is known as “maintain the rage”. Do not let your pet cause fall off the front page, or it becomes irrelevant :wink: :lol:

Oh, and edit: I was going to address this last night but was too tired and cbf
Get rid of the shaming and judgmental approach and let people choose what is best for them
An admirable statement; one that I will always agree with. Using a Bikesnob article to back it? :lol: :lol: Lets have a look at old mates words..
bike advocates just ride slowly to the food coop, whereas roadies soar majestically across the suburban sprawl, courting glory and tempting fate as they battle for the town line sprint.
Still, you’d think that at least in the context of go-fast stretchy-clothes cycling
Riding around in untenable positions on bicycles with narrow, over-inflated tires while in a state of anaerobic distress due to a chronic lack of fitness, etc. The sheer number of weekend riders I see who hold onto lampposts at red lights or unclip at the first sign of danger because they’re not proficient with clipless pedals indicates to me that plenty of road riders are in over their helmeted heads due to this tendency to take all their equipment cues from the pro peloton.
Yeah, I realise that much of what he says is toungue in cheek. Much....not all. Personally, I say

Get rid of the shaming and judgmental approach and let people choose what they want.

After all, there's no evidence available to show that riding helmetless is the best option, is there?

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