I have a 'bucket of some manufacture....somewhere (but nowhere near my mtn bike). Of course, the only duty my bike sees is from the parking garage to class and back. If I eat ******** along that path, there are about 5 million people walking down the bike path (instead of the rest of the street which is designated as a walking path---no mechanized vehicles allowed), so they will cushion my fall.:shakin:
When I am on the street or trail, I wear the helmet. I had one bad experience without it.....
I was hauling butt down a hill (paved), aproaching a parked car from the back....I took one last glance over my shoulder before swinging out around the car, and of course someone was at that moment overtaking me and changing from the left lane, into the right lane.....so I had about a second to decide to risk getting hit by the car, plow into the parked car in front of me, or try to hop the bike up onto the sidewalk. Well, the sidewalk sounded good, but the curb turned out to be a wee bit taller than I could get my bike to hop....the back tire caught the curb, and it was all over. I don't remember hitting the ground, or the bike landing on top of me....but I do remember walking through the 4 wheel parts store heading to their bathroom (to survey the damage)....everyone staring at me....when I got to the mirror, I had blood running down the side of my head, my right elbow was oozing pretty good, I had imbedded my jeans into the skin covering my knee (as in, my skin and pants were stuck together, and bleeding). I ended up having to remove some hair to keep it from getting stuck in the cut in my scalp, I had a black eye for a week or two, still have a round spot on my knee from the "jeans imbedded in my knee" part of it, and had one hell of a time moving around.
sad (stupid?) part was that my helmet was in my truck, at 4wheel parts, where my bike "adventure" began that day. I simply did not put it on before I left for a short ride while they brought parts over from their warehouse for me. Now I'm not saying I would not have been injured if I had my helmet on....but I am saying that I smacked my head pretty damn hard on that sidewalk, and am lucky I didn't crack my skull open. If I had my helmet on, I probably would not have had such a headache for the next 2 weeks.
Moral of the story? Don't be a ************** like me. put your helmet on!
