@Michael And then half of the comments under those questions say to just weld it back together

Sometimes that subreddit is an exciting change of pace from the very thoughtful and methodical atmosphere we have here

btw: since we just had a helmet safety question: How valid is the focus on ever safer helmets anyway? How often do people suffer severe head injuries despite wearing a helmet?

it’s a question I’ve also had when it comes to older helmets or using climbing or skiing helmets for cycling. Sure, they are worse than a good, brand new, purpose built helmet, but how much does it really matter?

I guess using a climbing or skiing helmet for cycling is fine, just uncomfortable. The other way round might not be sufficient, as perhaps climbing helmets might also protect from small rock strikes?

@Erlkoenig I think climbing helmets tend to absorb less energy. Some of them have a hard outer shell and only a tiny piece of foam right at the top to absorb rockfall energy

the climbing helmets made out of foam feel more elastic and less crumply

I’ve used cycling helmets for rock climbing when the cycling was long and the rockfall risk low. With the aero helmet it looks pretty safe to me. The other cycling helmet with big ventilation holes is probably not good against small rocks or pieces of equipment.

I would have thought that there is more energy to absorb when falling down a cliff compared to crashing on a bicycle

I think they are mainly for rockfall protection

and a bit of protection when you fall badly in the rope and hit your head against the wall

Looking at the (lack of) head injuries in the Netherlands I wonder how much cycling helmets help at all. Yes, higher speeds (racing and training for that) and sports with a high fall or hit your head risk (mountain biking) do give more risks and old people, but commuting in city traffic at lower speeds? No

They do push helmet use here as well but only the old people seem to benefit.

@Willeke yeah I mean at speeds below 25km/h and without cars and trucks you probably won’t see many life changing head injuries

nobody wears a helmet when they go for a quick run even though running speeds can easily go up to 20km/h too

There is one bicycle activist who claims going up stairs is more dangerous than riding a bicycle, he even has stats to proof it. And nobody puts a helmet on their kids to climb stairs.

stairs actually are super scary when you think about it

one false move and you can tumble down several meters

compared to that many alpine hikes on exposed ridges are pretty harmless

@Willeke In the Netherlands, the infrastructure is very well designed, with very limited contacts between bikes and cars, it makes a huge difference.

plus your average cycling speed is super slow

and top speed as well

in the Netherlands nobody regularly does 60km/h descents on a bike

But you usually don't spend that much time on stairs, compared to outdoor activities. In certain factories where you climb around walk-ways with stairs all day the local OSHA-equivalent insists that you use the handrail...

"commuting in city traffic" has a very different risk profile when cars are involved: in a frontal collision against a car, you fly over the bar, and go head first in the windshield of the car. Same if you are in the "door zone", and you have a collision with a door that has just being opened.

And even in cities that have a 30km/h speed limit (and assuming that they are applied), a frontal collision will have a relative speed of 55km/h.

a head-on collision between equal vehicles is no worse than hitting a solid wall

@Michael That's indeed another thing, speed is one factor, but the riding position another one, on a road bike, it's literally the head first.

@Michael why do you need a rope when you have a bouncy climbing helmet!

@Michael pre-building-code stairs caused many deaths of servants. Each step was too narrow to place a whole foot on. Unsafe but marginal going up, since you balance on the ball of your foot. But deadly going down.

You don't have enough control with your heel (let alone a raised heel) to "recover" well enough to fall in the "safe" direction toward the "up" side.

@Michaelcomelately yeah, the spiral stairs in old buildings are no joke

especially when the marble or wood is already quite worn and uneven

and the light is dim

@Michaelcomelately pre 1950 solution: have more servants.

"Are you the new Lila? What's your name? Never mind, I'll just call you Lila."

@Michaelcomelately the trick going down is to go sideways, so most of you foot is on the stairs. Deadly was long skirts, having to carry items with both hands so no hand to properly lift the skirt out of the way.

But you lose most of the torque available to push your body backwards when your foot is sideways.

I learned cycling in the 1970's before all the cycle infrastructure in the Netherlands. So between cars and trucks. In that time there were many cyclists but very few head injuries.

In the house my grandparents lived the stairs were like those service stairs so I learned to walk those safely when my feet were getting too big to go the normal way.

compare to cycling in full motorbike kit which would be very difficult and uncomfortable. Probably little improvement in safety as well.

What helmets can cause is neck damage,

I’d assume that usually they prevent/reduce neck damage

When you fall sideways the edge of the helmet hits the ground before your head would.

yeah but at least it absorbs quite a lot of energy

Those people convinced that helmets are good will never believe negative facts.

it’s just kind of a no-brainer that a piece of nice shock absorbing foam is a good thing to have in a crash

of course there are going to be edge cases where somebody got strangulated by the straps or something

there are people who even argue that clothing in bright colors is bad because it distracts from people who are wearing dull colors :D (I’ve also read similar strange arguments against daytime running lights)

I am against too much light, especially on cars.

during the day dazzling is really not an issue (as long they don’t turn on the high beams for whatever crazy reason)

And someone walking in town is now already required to wear lights... getting worse. In a few years you will be guilty if you do not have a radar reflector or something like that.

lol no

The problem with all the lights is that drivers and riders only look for lights. And there are many things which have no or weak lights but should not get hit

But I want reflection on the sides of cars, and red on the back, white on the front. Now the only reflection cars have to have is the license plates.

I’m in Italy right now and I actually like that day driving light is mandatory for cars here

it makes it so much easier to distinguish between parked cars and cars which are moving or about to move

@Willeke I know several people who have had accidents when riding bikes (but road racing), they had direct impact at some point when they felt. When riding off road I also had direct impact from branches that I didn’t see. When riding sportively, I don’t think there’s a doubt that it’s beneficial. But I don’t wear one when riding in town except during winte (light and heat insulation).

and it does make them a bit easier to spot, especially under trees

Are daytime running lights not mandatory in Europe? At least for new cars

here in Austria they were mandatory until 10 years ago or so

I do not drive, never even had a single lesson, so do not know all the rules.

But by making cars more visible for drivers they make other road users, including kids and dogs, less visible.

@Willeke One can also argue that the driving environment was very different in the 70’s than now: number of cars, speed that they could reach, weight… i was commuting by bike as student (14km one way in the countryside) it’s very different now.

Here it is so much safer that most people cannot imagine what it used to be like

I must say that while I do not believe in helmets, I do appreciate the protection of the velomobile.

@Willeke no

@Michael, yes, drivers and other road users only look for lights, strong lights as that.

Many cars now have so much light out in their front that the drivers can see nothing outside of the light beam, unless it has a very strong light or reflection.

at night you have to shine light in order to see anything which is not putting out light on its own

Stupid question of the day: Now that it is (much) more common to see XS, S, M, ML, L, XL as bike sizes, I'd like to confirm. To know whether a Size 56 frame is M, ML, or L, I need to look at the geometry table under the top tube length, and not under the seat tube length; is that right?

the old sizes with number are usually (virtual), vertical seattube length I think?

in any case, stack and reach are the way to go when you want to compares frames

Always go for the full geometry chart and compare it with a bike you ride.

I'm using bikeinsights.com at the moment because they have lots of bikes in their DB already.

@Michael Ok, you asked for it! :-) I wrote a formal question rather than a chat follow-up.

@gschenk I was told by the site that [t]he question [I'm] asking appears subjective and is likely to be closed. Thoughts?

@gschenk That may well be an answer: "You need to super-impose the frames pairwise to come up with conclusions. It is insufficient to match stack, reach, or stack-and-reach."

@gschenk Is there any hope of doing either (comparing stack+reach with a known bike, or comparison the overlaying of both frames) when the two bikes are of different types? (gravel and road; MTB and road; etc)