Some weeks back there was this news all over the news channels, "Rahul Gandhi spotted cycling in New Delhi". Well to be very frank I was pretty impressed with the dude. If you try googling about it, then you would find a lot of criticism on the biker forums, everybody is free to give opinions , and so am I. The only thing that I didn't like about this entire "PR Stunt" was the future of Congress party (to be read as Rahul Gandhi) wasn't wearing a helmet. Apparently there was a Z grade security SUV right behind him all the while but there can be some scenarios when only a bike helmet can protect him.
Apparently he was riding a Cannondale. TI Cycles who are marketing the Cannondales and Bianchi in India gifted the AICC general secretary a couple of road bikes. So this can very well be a Congress - TI Cycles joint PR exercise. But seriously whats the harm in it, however I again agree that he SHOULD have been wearing a HELMET. But I believe that these are some of the ways we can promote biking in India, lets say that if 20 guys find thsi entire video cool, then they might want to bike like him, absolutely no harm in it.
BTW feast your eyes on these Tour De France photographs: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/07/2008_tour_de_france_conclusion.html
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Future of Congress on a cycle ?
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It's good to see anyone, even a politician, on a bike. Taking up moderate exercise is about as beneficial as giving up smoking. Helmet propaganda relies on overemphasizing the very small dangers of cycling and seldom seems to emphasize its large benefits. It's far too dangerous not to cycle - regular cycling, Danish style, not too far, not too fast, nearly halves the death rate, see http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/160/11/1621 All-Cause Mortality Associated With Physical Activity During Leisure Time, Work, Sports, and Cycling to Work. Andersen et al, Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:1621-1628.
Helmet laws have stopped a lot of people cycling and have done nothing for head injury rates, see Robinson DL. No clear evidence from countries that have enforced the wearing of helmets. BMJ. 2006 March 25; 332(7543): 722–725. doi: 10.1136/bmj.332.7543.722-a. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16565131 (Robinson's work uses the best scientific methods, all available control groups and so on.)
In real accidents bike helmets don't seem to crush as designed, they break instead. The senior engineer of Bell Sports, the market leader in cycle helmets, has written: “Another source of field experience is our experience with damaged helmets returned to customer service... I collected damaged infant/toddler helmets for several months in 1995. Not only did I not see bottomed out helmets, I didn’t see any helmet showing signs of crushing on the inside.” In 1987, the Australian Federal Office of Road Safety found that in real accidents "very little crushing of the liner foam was usually evident... What in fact happens in a real crash impact is that the human head deforms elastically on impact. The standard impact attenuation test making use of a solid headform does not consider the effect of human head deformation with the result that all acceleration attenuation occurs in compression of the liner. Since the solid headform is more capable of crushing helmet padding, manufacturers have had to provide relatively stiff foam in the helmet so that it would pass the impact attenuation test..."
It appears that helmets break easily, but don't absorb the impact, see the engineers quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet#Criticism_of_current_standards.3B_new_designs. A broken helmet has simply failed, and the widespread anecdotes on the theme of "a helmet saved my life" seem to owe more to wishful thinking than to science. As for the occasional anecdotes about "a car ran over my head" (http://www.kptv.com/news/21541052/detail.html), see the pro-helmet site http://www.helmets.org/smush.htm; if a car goes over your head, I'm sorry to say you won't be sitting up and praising your helmet. The only known connection between helmets and death is that helmets have strangled a few young children who were wearing helmets while playing off their bicycles, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet for an incomplete list. Bicycling is good for health, but bike helmets don't seem to be.
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