Groupsets

On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle club
my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a single one
_not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time almost no
cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a helmet, we didn't
have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood). But these clubs
could enforce it, and did. Why? Because their federal organization said
so. Because _their_ sponsors said so. So, ok, they needn't us, we
needn't them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down with
little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of course,
because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few who didn't.
My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely one reason: I
didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I didn't want to
make it an issue.

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a lot
of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet issue"
but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically, we had
no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public place
and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual paces.

I believe the MIL(men in lyrca) crowd, who met for Sunday training rides
had some social eforcement effort, but as "the helmet" of their sport was
the hairnet style, non-competitive riders saw any demand as a joke.

In the years I "lead" rides, there was only one bicycle to car accident
on the tourers events, but plenty of altercations on the "sport training
rides".

A bigger issue of the time was plod wanting us to apply for permits for
the "rides". Once I explained to a visiting plod how the touring rides
worked, aka absolutely no "peleton" and asked how was he going to justify
stopping a whole pile of people who just happened to randomly be
travelling the same roadways over an hour or so, the requirement
disappeared.

....snippples

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is this:
My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club rides. As I
said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an issue.
They chose to make it an issue.

Initially, when a worthwhile helmet became available, I'd wear one in the
city, but swapp to a big cotton hat in the country side. Heat stress was
more of a problem here, until schlock jocks cranked uptheir anti-
bicyclist retoric.

On Thursday, 11 June 2020 20:58:13 UTC-4, news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle club
my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a single one
_not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time almost no
cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a helmet, we didn't
have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood). But these clubs
could enforce it, and did. Why? Because their federal organization said
so. Because _their_ sponsors said so. So, ok, they needn't us, we
needn't them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down with
little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of course,
because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few who didn't.
My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely one reason: I
didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I didn't want to
make it an issue.

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a lot
of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet issue"
but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically, we had
no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public place
and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual paces.

I believe the MIL(men in lyrca) crowd, who met for Sunday training rides
had some social eforcement effort, but as "the helmet" of their sport was
the hairnet style, non-competitive riders saw any demand as a joke.

In the years I "lead" rides, there was only one bicycle to car accident
on the tourers events, but plenty of altercations on the "sport training
rides".

A bigger issue of the time was plod wanting us to apply for permits for
the "rides". Once I explained to a visiting plod how the touring rides
worked, aka absolutely no "peleton" and asked how was he going to justify
stopping a whole pile of people who just happened to randomly be
travelling the same roadways over an hour or so, the requirement
disappeared.

...snippples

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is this:
My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club rides. As I
said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an issue.
They chose to make it an issue.

Initially, when a worthwhile helmet became available, I'd wear one in the
city, but swapp to a big cotton hat in the country side. Heat stress was
more of a problem here, until schlock jocks cranked uptheir anti-
bicyclist retoric.

I don't know about various states in the USA or about rules in England or Australia, but here in Ontario Canada, if a bicycle club wants insurance the insurance companies insist that all riders in the club or riding with the club wear a helmet. You want to go for a familiarization ride with them to see if you want to join? Guess what? You have to wear a helmet AND sign a waiver.

Most other organized rides such as The Tour de Grand, The Tour de Norfolk, The Dunville Tour all have waivers you have to sign and wherein you agree to wear a helmet on the ride. You also have to agree not to wear baseball caps under your helmet or wear earbuds or headphones. These are RECREATIONAL rides not racing rides.

On some of those rides I've worn my helmet slung over my shoulder with a long strap. I'm in compliance with the waiver because I AM wearing my helmet and the waiver does not state that I have to wear it on my head. LOL

Cheers

On 6/11/2020 8:15 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 3:03:10 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 6/11/2020 4:13 PM, jbeattie wrote:

I don't think that a club/organization rule requiring a helmet -- which is what Wolfgang was taking about -- is that oppressive. It maybe crisis inducing for others, particularly if they have really nice hair.

Which is just another way of saying it wouldn't bother you if people
made rules to do what you're already doing.

Illustrating my superior intelligence and forward thinking.

Why do I suspect you'd find a mandatory handlebar bag rule objectionable?

If I wanted to be in the club, I'd clip my seat pack to my bars. I doubt it would result in a lower insurance premium for the club, though.

Our lack of a mandatory helmet rule does not increase our club's
insurance premium. And I'll note that last I looked (and the time before
that, and the time before that) LAB's event insurance did not demand
helmets.


You can ride whatever you want -- except maybe a recumbent or a tri-bike with aerobars (dangerous in groups). But if you showed up with a bag-strewn touring bike with dynos and mirrors and kickstands for a sport ride with me and my cohorts, I would find that odd.

Definition of odd: " Not matching current fashion."

Or "self-flagellation."

Please. If real self-flagellation became trendy, thousands of tattooed
Portlanders would be grimacing in fashionable pain. It's happened before
elsewhere.

From what I can tell, the sole criterion in determining whether any modern technology is "fashion" is whether you use it. STI? Fashion. Light bike. Fashion. Discs. Fashion. Dual pivots. Fashion. I could go on.

Sorry, you apparently can't tell.

Want to discuss this seriously? I'd say "fashion" is something that
surges in popularity, often with no significant technical justification
or no practical benefit. So no, STI is not fashion. I don't happen to
want it, but it's got real benefits in the eyes of most people, and it's
been around long enough to be permanent. Ditto click shifting in
general, which is on about half our bikes.

"Light" bikes by your probable definition (sub 20 pound?) are a fringe
thing, a fashion among a relatively small subset of cyclists. Only a
small percentage of riders I know have sub 20 pound bikes.

Road discs? Definitely fashion at this point. Nobody thought they needed
them until a few years ago. Very few need them now. Some trendy new rim
brake could sink them - to the pleasure of the bike manufacturers. We'll
see.

Dual pivots were a fashion that stuck. But centerpulls are a resurrected
fashion among certain cyclists.

Other fashion items abound. Fixies with stub handlebars. Aero
sunglasses. Tubeless road tires. Quasi "sponsor" jerseys, or garish
graphic jerseys in general. Water bottles crammed into jersey pockets.
Super-garish riding socks.

You're right, I don't use those things. I also have no tattoos, no spade
beard, no wireless earbuds, no shaved head. My jeans with rips are used
only for the dirtiest yard work. Heck, I accidentally bought a pair of
shoes last year that caused my kid to say "Dad, those are pretty
trendy." I didn't know what to do!

What is your fast bike?

My bikes all use the same engine, so to speak. Because of that, they're
all very close to the same speed.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 6/11/2020 8:58 PM, news18 wrote:

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a lot
of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet issue"
but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically, we had
no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public place
and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual paces.

That was one of the points I made. There's no real power of enforcement
- they can't tell someone not to ride on a public road.

I asked one officer (really, a nice guy) "What would you say if I showed
up to ride without a helmet?" He said "I'd say 'Hi, Frank.' "

I said "Then practically speaking, there would be no rule."

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:25:53 -0700, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Thursday, 11 June 2020 20:58:13 UTC-4, news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle
club my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a
single one _not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time
almost no cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a
helmet, we didn't have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood).
But these clubs could enforce it, and did. Why? Because their
federal organization said so. Because _their_ sponsors said so.
So, ok, they needn't us, we needn't them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down
with little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of
course, because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few
who didn't. My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely
one reason: I didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I
didn't want to make it an issue.

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a
lot of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet
issue" but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically,
we had no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public
place and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual
paces.

I believe the MIL(men in lyrca) crowd, who met for Sunday training
rides had some social eforcement effort, but as "the helmet" of their
sport was the hairnet style, non-competitive riders saw any demand as a
joke.

In the years I "lead" rides, there was only one bicycle to car accident
on the tourers events, but plenty of altercations on the "sport
training rides".

A bigger issue of the time was plod wanting us to apply for permits for
the "rides". Once I explained to a visiting plod how the touring rides
worked, aka absolutely no "peleton" and asked how was he going to
justify stopping a whole pile of people who just happened to randomly
be travelling the same roadways over an hour or so, the requirement
disappeared.

...snippples

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is
this: My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club
rides. As I said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an
issue.
They chose to make it an issue.

Initially, when a worthwhile helmet became available, I'd wear one in
the city, but swapp to a big cotton hat in the country side. Heat
stress was more of a problem here, until schlock jocks cranked uptheir
anti- bicyclist retoric.

I don't know about various states in the USA or about rules in England
or Australia,

MHL in Australia now.

but here in Ontario Canada, if a bicycle club wants
insurance the insurance companies insist that all riders in the club or
riding with the club wear a helmet. You want to go for a familiarization
ride with them to see if you want to join? Guess what? You have to wear
a helmet AND sign a waiver.

Most other organized rides such as The Tour de Grand, The Tour de
Norfolk, The Dunville Tour all have waivers you have to sign and wherein
you agree to wear a helmet on the ride. You also have to agree not to
wear baseball caps under your helmet or wear earbuds or headphones.
These are RECREATIONAL rides not racing rides.

All highly organised mass rides?
MHL became fairly standard with the mass organised rides here in the late
70s/early 80's. It was a bit neccessary because the numbers moved from
where you could meet or talk with everyone before and most peopple
accepted responsibility for their actions, to a ride with just names on
receipts and officials on the ride were identified by a partgicular t-
shirt, and you could expect unrealistic demands/expectations.

On some of those rides I've worn my helmet slung over my shoulder with a
long strap. I'm in compliance with the waiver because I AM wearing my
helmet and the waiver does not state that I have to wear it on my head.
LOL

Good work. It only matters if you want to claim against the organiser for
some injury and then it only affects the amount of contributory
negligence that can be used to reduce any win, if so lucky. Bah.

Am Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish
bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle club
my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a single one
_not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time almost no
cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a helmet, we didn't
have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood). But these clubs could
enforce it, and did. Why? Because their federal organization said so.
Because _their_ sponsors said so. So, ok, they needn't us, we needn't
them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down with
little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of course,
because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few who didn't.
My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely one reason: I
didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I didn't want to
make it an issue.

Well: Two or three years ago, the new slate of officers decided they
wanted to make helmets mandatory for all club rides. (Also, they chose
to make every member signing a brand new "hold harmless" release form
for every ride, despite having signed a release form at each membership
renewal!)

Of course I objected to this mandatory helmet rule. This led to the most
contentious meetings our club has ever had. People were shouting at
each other in meetings. And the strongest argument from the main helmet
proponent was "Every other club does this!"

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is this:
My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club rides. As I
said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an issue.

They chose to make it an issue.

So you died wear a helmet, while doing club rides. While I never wore a
bicycle helmet myself, I forced my children to do so and regret it, it
was a mistake, albeit an early and short lived one.

Anyway, I didn't give in at that time and researched the matter. In
Germany, almost all clubs are member of the national BDR (Bund Deutscher
Radfahrer) and include its rules as part of theirs. The BDR is, in my
subjective interpretation, mostly interested in mass sports
("Breitensport") as a reservoir for recruiting talent for racing, and so
just takes only just enough care to enforce sponsor driven racing rules
as early as possible and gives some organizational help.

IMHO, it is as corrupt as similar sports organizations at that level,
for example football. Just an opinion and somewhat besides the point,
with one important exception:

Talk by a local clubs official to get members is mostly irrelevant,
there are incentives enough to make you play by the rules, whether
enforcable by law or not. (btw, you _did_ wear a helmet, didn't you?)


Just out of curiosity, I just checked two such clubs, both members of
BDR, again. One in a small rural municipality about 20 km from here,
founded in 1974, the other the very one in my own town, somewhat older,
from darker times. Both don't mention helmets anywhere, because they
don't need to. It's implicit, it is enforcable in practice, everybody
complies.

And it isn't really hidden. See for example

https://www.radhelden.club/radtouren/list

A rough translation of relevant parts

*** Every cyclist can participate, even without membership in a cycling
club. Cycling Touring (Rad Touristik Fahrt RTF) is the most well-known
and widely used event form of cycling for everyone in the Bund Deutscher
Radfahrer e. V. (BDR). Every year, more than 1000 touring tours are
organized by the member associations of the BDR. The season starts in
early March and usually ends in mid-October.

*** Motivated cyclists can register for all events (RTF, CTF, MT, ETAP)
via the popular sports offer of the Federal German Cyclists (BDR).

*** (many organizational rules about STVO, length, omitted here)

*** All tours are subject to the general BDR Helmet Requirement.

Any more questions? The don't talk about it much, it might put off
possible members. It's just a an minor organizational detail. Or
something like that.

In case you haven't noticed, these people enforce helmets even on people
who aren't members at all.





--
Thank you for observing all safety precautions

news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:25:53 -0700, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Thursday, 11 June 2020 20:58:13 UTC-4, news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle
club my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a
single one _not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time
almost no cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a
helmet, we didn't have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood).
But these clubs could enforce it, and did. Why? Because their
federal organization said so. Because _their_ sponsors said so.
So, ok, they needn't us, we needn't them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down
with little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of
course, because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few
who didn't. My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely
one reason: I didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I
didn't want to make it an issue.

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a
lot of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet
issue" but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically,
we had no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public
place and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual
paces.

I believe the MIL(men in lyrca) crowd, who met for Sunday training
rides had some social eforcement effort, but as "the helmet" of their
sport was the hairnet style, non-competitive riders saw any demand as a
joke.

In the years I "lead" rides, there was only one bicycle to car accident
on the tourers events, but plenty of altercations on the "sport
training rides".

A bigger issue of the time was plod wanting us to apply for permits for
the "rides". Once I explained to a visiting plod how the touring rides
worked, aka absolutely no "peleton" and asked how was he going to
justify stopping a whole pile of people who just happened to randomly
be travelling the same roadways over an hour or so, the requirement
disappeared.

...snippples

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is
this: My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club
rides. As I said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an
issue.
They chose to make it an issue.

Initially, when a worthwhile helmet became available, I'd wear one in
the city, but swapp to a big cotton hat in the country side. Heat
stress was more of a problem here, until schlock jocks cranked uptheir
anti- bicyclist retoric.

I don't know about various states in the USA or about rules in England
or Australia,

MHL in Australia now.

but here in Ontario Canada, if a bicycle club wants
insurance the insurance companies insist that all riders in the club or
riding with the club wear a helmet. You want to go for a familiarization
ride with them to see if you want to join? Guess what? You have to wear
a helmet AND sign a waiver.

Most other organized rides such as The Tour de Grand, The Tour de
Norfolk, The Dunville Tour all have waivers you have to sign and wherein
you agree to wear a helmet on the ride. You also have to agree not to
wear baseball caps under your helmet or wear earbuds or headphones.
These are RECREATIONAL rides not racing rides.

All highly organised mass rides?
MHL became fairly standard with the mass organised rides here in the late
70s/early 80's. It was a bit neccessary because the numbers moved from
where you could meet or talk with everyone before and most peopple
accepted responsibility for their actions, to a ride with just names on
receipts and officials on the ride were identified by a partgicular t-
shirt, and you could expect unrealistic demands/expectations.

On some of those rides I've worn my helmet slung over my shoulder with a
long strap. I'm in compliance with the waiver because I AM wearing my
helmet and the waiver does not state that I have to wear it on my head.
LOL

Good work. It only matters if you want to claim against the organiser for
some injury and then it only affects the amount of contributory
negligence that can be used to reduce any win, if so lucky. Bah.







But like Sir said, if you have a bike club and want insurance you have to
require helmets. Same here in Montréal and I imagine the rest of Québec.
If the club is not listed as non profit it doesn’t have to have insurance
but then the club is responsible for accidents. There are waivers to sign
as well.

You aren’t forced to join a club.

Lots of people on bikes here. Lots of them are in clubs. Doesn’t seem to
be the issue that it appears to be elsewhere.

On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:28:48 +0000, Duane wrote:


But like Sir said, if you have a bike club and want insurance you have
to require helmets. Same here in Montréal and I imagine the rest of
Québec. If the club is not listed as non profit it doesn’t have to have
insurance but then the club is responsible for accidents. There are
waivers to sign as well.


Lots of people on bikes here. Lots of them are in clubs. Doesn’t seem
to be the issue that it appears to be elsewhere.

When money is invoved, it becomes an issue.
The second major club I ran rides for, there was a basic kitty
contribution to cover food & vehicle costs. If we made the minimum
numbers, the ride went, if not, it didn't. You just had to join the club
to go on a ride. There was no insurance involved unless you held or took
out personal insurance.

Latter, this state mandated that all non-profit clubs had to have public
liability inurance and that killed off a number of public good
associations. I when the courts were handing out $million dollars to
idiots doing stupid things.. I largely stopped being involved in a lot of
public groups.


You aren’t forced to join a club.

THe ISSUE is the people who do the work for a non-profit. Unfortunately
these days, there is a whole industry that wants to sue some one for
something so they can get a cut of any "damages" to be paid.

It got so bad here, this coutry had to pass laws to give immunity to any
member of the public that went to the assistance of some one injured.

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 3:28:51 AM UTC-7, Duane wrote:
news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:25:53 -0700, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

On Thursday, 11 June 2020 20:58:13 UTC-4, news18 wrote:
On Thu, 11 Jun 2020 12:52:09 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 6/11/2020 8:51 AM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:
Am Mon, 8 Jun 2020 18:32:21 -0700 (PDT) schrieb jbeattie:

Now, you don't have to wear a helmet or ride a racing-ish bike,

Is that so? Years ago, when looking around for a regional bicycle
club my children might have been interested in, there wasn't a
single one _not_ enforcing a helmets on their members. At that time
almost no cyclist ( 1%) in Germany and Europe was wearing a
helmet, we didn't have a helmet law, still haven't (knock on wood).
But these clubs could enforce it, and did. Why? Because their
federal organization said so. Because _their_ sponsors said so.
So, ok, they needn't us, we needn't them, good riddance!

Our bike club was founded in 1973 or so. In all those years, there's
never been a requirement to wear a helmet on club rides. Mandating
helmets was proposed a few times in the past, but easily voted down
with little discussion. Almost all members currently wear them, of
course, because fashion is weird and powerful, but there were a few
who didn't. My wife and I wore them ONLY on club rides for precisely
one reason: I didn't want to spend our rides arguing about helmets. I
didn't want to make it an issue.

Interesting, that was about the same year(74) that the club I lead a
lot of club rides kicked off. It too wavered a bit about "the helmet
issue" but essentially, for the tourers, it was a non-issue. Basically,
we had no power to enforce any helmet rule.

We met in a public place, wanna- be riders were briefed in a public
place and we road/dribble/draggled along public roads at individual
paces.

I believe the MIL(men in lyrca) crowd, who met for Sunday training
rides had some social eforcement effort, but as "the helmet" of their
sport was the hairnet style, non-competitive riders saw any demand as a
joke.

In the years I "lead" rides, there was only one bicycle to car accident
on the tourers events, but plenty of altercations on the "sport
training rides".

A bigger issue of the time was plod wanting us to apply for permits for
the "rides". Once I explained to a visiting plod how the touring rides
worked, aka absolutely no "peleton" and asked how was he going to
justify stopping a whole pile of people who just happened to randomly
be travelling the same roadways over an hour or so, the requirement
disappeared.

...snippples

In the end, the club did not impose that new helmet rule; people are
still free to wear what they choose. But one beneficial effect is
this: My wife and I no longer bother with the helmets even on club
rides. As I said, I wore it just because I didn't want to make it an
issue.
They chose to make it an issue.

Initially, when a worthwhile helmet became available, I'd wear one in
the city, but swapp to a big cotton hat in the country side. Heat
stress was more of a problem here, until schlock jocks cranked uptheir
anti- bicyclist retoric.

I don't know about various states in the USA or about rules in England
or Australia,

MHL in Australia now.

but here in Ontario Canada, if a bicycle club wants
insurance the insurance companies insist that all riders in the club or
riding with the club wear a helmet. You want to go for a familiarization
ride with them to see if you want to join? Guess what? You have to wear
a helmet AND sign a waiver.

Most other organized rides such as The Tour de Grand, The Tour de
Norfolk, The Dunville Tour all have waivers you have to sign and wherein
you agree to wear a helmet on the ride. You also have to agree not to
wear baseball caps under your helmet or wear earbuds or headphones.
These are RECREATIONAL rides not racing rides.

All highly organised mass rides?
MHL became fairly standard with the mass organised rides here in the late
70s/early 80's. It was a bit neccessary because the numbers moved from
where you could meet or talk with everyone before and most peopple
accepted responsibility for their actions, to a ride with just names on
receipts and officials on the ride were identified by a partgicular t-
shirt, and you could expect unrealistic demands/expectations.

On some of those rides I've worn my helmet slung over my shoulder with a
long strap. I'm in compliance with the waiver because I AM wearing my
helmet and the waiver does not state that I have to wear it on my head..
LOL

Good work. It only matters if you want to claim against the organiser for
some injury and then it only affects the amount of contributory
negligence that can be used to reduce any win, if so lucky. Bah.







But like Sir said, if you have a bike club and want insurance you have to
require helmets. Same here in Montréal and I imagine the rest of Québec.
If the club is not listed as non profit it doesn’t have to have insurance
but then the club is responsible for accidents. There are waivers to sign
as well.

You aren’t forced to join a club.

Lots of people on bikes here. Lots of them are in clubs. Doesn’t seem to
be the issue that it appears to be elsewhere.

Domestically, some insurance programs require helmets and some don't for road events. Even the LAB requires helmets for off-road events. All of them require giant waivers, and USAC's program requires a signed waiver that also contains an agreement to wear a helmet. It's also a USAC rule. I think a lot of clubs require helmets for the simple reason that they want to mitigate head injuries to the extent possible. This will filter out certain riders who can choose another club or no club.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:39:59 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/38...65c47c6e33.jpg


I always paused at a spot on Krumkill road where I could see both the
Catskills and the Hudson valley. And when looking down into the
valley, I always thought, awestruck, "I was way down there, and I got
way up here under my own power!"

I was ordered off the bike on May 11, and will be allowed back on not
before June 17. But the ride I'd been hoping to take in July has been
postponed, so I have a year to get my strength back. Right now, I'd
be thrilled to be able to ride 2.6 flat miles to the animal shelter.
(I can leave stuff on their front walk without breaking quarantine.)

I've been riding my BSO to the end of the driveway and back for a few
days, without waiting for permission. No new blood on the bandage.

I did get permission to resume my sciatica exercises, and those are
more strenous than pedalling a flatfoot.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/