Because every bike blog has to have one, right? Pretty sure there’s a law or something.
I started biking at eight years old. I followed the school bus down a rural Texas highway to get to school without having to deal with the bullying. It’s hard to convince a bully that you are too badass to put up with their shit; turns out that was one way, because it worked. After that, I went everywhere and did everything by bike. In almost all of that riding, I did not wear a helmet.
There were exceptions, naturally. One job I had involved a 12-mile commute on mostly highway, often early morning and late afternoon. High traffic times. So, helmet. And after I joined the Navy, every time I rode, because it was regulation. Not wearing a helmet meant that ANY accident I was in was going to result, in addition to the potential accident harms, in non-judicial punishment: restriction, loss of rank, loss of pay.
But I don’t now, and never have, fooled myself that a lump of vented plastic-coated foam was going to do fuck-all in the event of any serious crash. It might, might, save me from some of the injuries if I lost control, crashed, and hit my head. If a car hit me? Nah.
Not gonna do a thing.
And that’s on a upright bike. Ever seriously look around, in a slow moment, when you’re riding a recumbent trike? Do it, next time you’re in, say, a parking lot. Your head is bumper height, or thereabouts. A car hits you, an SUV hits you, you are almost certainly dead. Helmet ain’t gonna save you. Ain’t even gonna help a bit.
That’s not to say that a helmet has no use. I now wear one almost every ride. And it’s not habit that has me doing so, strong motivation that is.
Yes. There’s the possibility that I could roll the trike and maybe hit my head. I have rolled my trike before, more than once, just as I have wrecked my bike before, more than once. But, I know how to fall safely and have never, ever, hit my head. Which is not to say that I would not ever, but there you go.
The best, and really only, reason I’ve come up with to wear a helmet on the trike is, however, this: it serves as a platform for other safety gear. Namely: CatEars and DaBrim. Both serve to shield your senses from the distractions of the road (wind noise and sun glare), leaving your most important safety mechanisms, your senses, clear to do their job, detect threats before they become an immediate danger. (Before DaBrim, I had a cycling hat, one of those really thin cloth ones, and a helmet I’d had for close to ten years, replaced only because the plastic degraded to the point it was collapsing, to hold it on against the wind)
There is, literally, no better reason, and, arguably to my mind, no other reason, to wear a helmet while riding a recumbent trike.
You are, of course, allowed to disagree. Do so politely, or do so elsewhere, and know that you’re not gonna convince me that I’m wrong and that a helmet is all that stands between me and certain death by automobile. I’ve got tens of thousands of miles of cycling with and without helmet that argue convincingly to the contrary. The only thing that stands between me and certain death by automobile is what resides inside my skull and how I use it, and nothing more.
Tastes Like Tofu 