Thinking cap

"You spent what on a bicycle helmet?" my friend asked incredulously.

"$200," I replied. "And it was a good deal, on special at the Wheel & Sprocket Bike Expo. It was marked down $50 from the original price. Best helmet available; top of the Giro line."

We who bicycle many miles every year think a lot about our training regimes. We think about our diet and we think about whether we are in physical and mental shape for the events we do. We think about the goals we set for ourselves. We think about the mileage logs we keep to track our progress toward those goals.

When you think about it, the operative words are "we think."

Although cycling is not inherently dangerous, it does carry risks. The reality is that in a millisecond, due to circumstances within or beyond our control, that wonderful organ with which we think could be smashed into vegetable form or killed by sudden contact with concrete or blacktop. And we would no longer be capable of thinking about anything ever again. Or, for that matter, enjoying life.

That's why I make no apologies for spending big bucks on a bicycle helmet. It guards me against the dangers that exist on the roads. It is the protective shell for everything that I am. Without that brain wrapped protectively in the helmet's hard plastic shell I could in an instant become nothing, incapable of even making a final entry in my career log of human-powered miles, which now total nearly 175,000. And I am not done yet.

When I started seriously bicycling in the late 1970s, helmets hardly existed. A few racers wore "hairnets" - slightly padded leather strips. Recreational helmets were just coming on the scene and consisted of vent-less and uncomfortable blocks of Styrofoam.

I wasn't wearing a helmet one evening as a cycled from work at the Capitol after a late session of the Assembly. My commuting was part of my training for triathlons and I rode hard. I had a light but it did not pick up an unlighted bike coming toward me as I crossed a narrow bridge. Waking up in an ambulance looking at the lights reflecting on Madison's lakes and remembering nothing after the crash did knock some sense into me. I became a believer and an advocate for wearing a helmet. First it was a "skid lid." Good ventilation, better than an unbreathing hunk of Styrofoam. As helmet technology advanced over the years, so did what I had on my head. Now it's even got silver fibers in it to radiate heat, and the light weight and ventilation is superb. I can hardly tell I have a helmet on.

When I directed big bike tours (as many as 1,200 riders for a week), it bothered me that other event directors thought requiring helmets would discourage attendance, so they only informed would-be riders that helmets were "strongly recommended." My policy was always to make helmets mandatory and my staff was directed to relentlessly harass anyone who rode without head protection. It worked. We had virtually 100 percent compliance.

To this day it bothers me to see families bicycling with children wearing helmets and the parents not. It's great that families bicycle together and that those parents think of their kids, but why don't the parents think of the consequences for their children if their kids lose a parent to a brain injury or death?

All it takes is a cursory look at cyclist injury statistics to conclude that wearing a bicycle helmet makes sense. Two-thirds of cyclists who are admitted to hospitals have a head injury. Ninety percent of cyclist deaths are caused by collisions with motor vehicles, and when you hit or are hit by a car, your head is almost certainly going to strike the ground, usually very hard. One study by the National Institutes of Health reported an 85 percent reduction in the risk of head injury when a helmet is worn.

Each year, nearly 1,000 people die from injuries caused by bicycle crashes and 550,000 persons are treated in emergency departments for injuries related to bicycle riding, according to the Center for Disease Control: "Approximately 6 percent of the bicycle riders treated in emergency departments require hospitalization. Head injuries account for 62 percent of bicycle-related deaths, for 33 percent of bicycle-related emergency department visits, and for 67 percent of bicycle-related hospital admissions. The use of bicycle helmets is effective in preventing head injury."

My brain has thought it through and tells me it wants protection and the best protection available.

Did I need a new helmet? The one I had been wearing was perhaps five years old. Plastics do deteriorate in sunlight and heat. So does the webbing and interior padding. Three years is what is usually recommended as the maximum effective life of a helmet. In the case of a fall with helmet contact on the ground, a helmet should be immediately replaced, as there may be unseen damage.

I could have said I'll just wear the old helmet until it falls apart. My brain thought about it and told me being cheap wasn't worth the risk. When you think about it, replacing an aging helmet is just the smart thing to do. When you get right down to it, doing everything you can to continue to think is the name of the game of life.

Without that, game over.

Bill Hauda is a bicyclist, veteran of some 50 marathons, including 13 in Boston; a former competitive triathlete; founder and first president of the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin; currently a BFW board member; and former director of Wisconsin's two major cross-state bicycle tours, GRABAAWR and SAGBRAW.