[pmcginn]

I commute to work by bike in Philadelphia, and not just in the good weather. In the last year I've missed three days--once the day after I cracked a rib going down in snow and twice when I woke up to a flat tire and didn't have time to swap it out and make it to work on time. (I've got better tires and am much better at replacing a tube, now.)

You know the old saying, cheap/good/fast, pick two? With bike helmets it's attractive, comfortable, or cheap: pick one. You can get a sweaty, dorky Bell for $30, or you can get a sweaty, cool Bern for $70, or you can get a comfortable, dorky Rudy Project for $200.

[pmahoney]

You comment and m0nty's about Specialized brand helmets meeting a stricter standard prompted me to do a little helmet research. I was a bit skeptical of the slim Bern helmets. I think simple physics demands that to stop a moving head on impact slowly enough to avoid concussion, one must use a (dorky?) a "spaceship on your head" helmet. There's no getting around that to go from velocity v to 0 without accelerating more than some threshold time requires a certain amount of space.

Now, I don't know if the thresholds chosen by ANSI or Snell or whomever will make a real difference in a crash, but Consumer Reports rated Bern helmets poorly in "impact absorption".

http://bikeportland.org/2012/05/31/nutcase-bern-helmets-rece...