how many asian cars dont fit Americans? Who needs a helmet
snowbaording or skiing?

On Jul 26, 12:53*pm, Jason Spaceman
wrote:
From the article:
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Toronto designer's team creates series of moulds to, at last, fit the heads
of Asian sports buffs

Jul 26, 2008 04:30 AM

Kenneth Kidd
Feature Writer

Ten years ago, Roger Ball was called to a pivotal meeting in Vermont, or
what has since turned out to be one.

The Toronto designer had created one of the first helmets made specifically
for snowboarders. It sold amazingly well in North America and Europe, but
in Japan, the world's third-largest snowboarding market, it was a dud.

Burton Snowboards, the Vermont-based manufacturer of the helmet, wanted to
know why, so they contacted a handful of Japanese snowboarders and flew
them to New England. Was it the helmet's style, the colours?

"They said, 'No, no, we love all that stuff,' " recalls Ball. " 'We just
can't wear it because it's so tight on the sides of our heads. Even if we
squeeze it on there, we get a splitting headache.' "

Then came the party trick. One of the Japanese leaned forward in his chair
and rested a coffee cup on the relatively flat surface at the back of his
head. "We have," he summed up, "a different shaped head than you."

Ball, who now teaches at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, admits that what
might seem obvious in hindsight came as a revelation. "It's just the sort
of chauvinism in the West. It had never occurred to me that (other) people
were a different shape."

He wasn't alone. For decades, manufacturers in the West have been producing
headgear based on the slightly oval heads of Caucasians, mostly using an
industry-standard set of size and shape templates originally taken from
U.S. air force pilots. That was fine for European customers, but it
blithely ignored four-fifths of the world's population, not least Asians,
whose heads are generally rounder in shape. The discrepancy is especially
problematic with protective headgear such as bicycle helmets, where a
proper fit is crucial.
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Read it athttp://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/467818

J. Spaceman