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Topic Date User

helmets - noddy or stormtrooper? 9-Dec-2010 At 4:17:13 PM TeeRex

Message

On 9/12/2010 One Day Hero wrote:
>So, originally, when people climbed places with lots of loose rock they
>needed shrapnel cover. Early climbing helmets were lightweight versions
>of army helmets.
>
>As climbing evolved to steep clean faces with no loose rock, lots of people
>stopped wearing helmets since they were no longer required.
>
>Then climbing evolved to the point where people fell off ALL the time,
>this brought into play the likelihood of banging ones nogg on the rock
>as it wizzes past.
>
>Helmets came back in but rapidly evolved into a design suited to banging
>ones head on a hard surface which is wizzing past..........like in a bike
>crash!
>
>However, since the climbing industry wouldn't make any money from people
>wearing bike lids, they invented "climbing specific bike helmets" which
>are claimed to be able to differentiate between horizontal road and vertical
>road and offer specific protection for vertically oriented..........blah
>blah blah.
>
>If its made of polystyrene with a thin polycarbonate shell, its a bike
>lid in drag! You are being lied to by marketing people.......but I bet
>you knew that already

I know bugger all about climbing helmets, but I know a little about bike helmets, having broken a few in my time, and seen many more broken. The EPS (hard foam inner) in a bike helmet is designed to break from an impact (ie a single impact) to absorb energy, after which the helmet is useless. This may not be desirable in a climbing fall where you could hit your head several times on the way down/across the cliff face. Or if you take a hit to the head part way up a multi pitch climb, and are left to finish with a helmet which no longer functions as required.

The other drama is that some bike helmets (the higher quality road and XC types) have substantial vents in them and if you were really unlucky the pointy end of a falling rock or a piece of equipment dropped by a climber above you could nail your skull through a vent.

I personally would not climb in a bike helmet, unless I had no other choice.