Fule face helmet - review

In my MUni accident a week or two back, I fell forwards and down a short
slope and landed chin first on a rock. I thought I'd broken my jaw, but
hadn't. I needed 7 stitches in my chin, and I needed a tooth to be
rebuilt. The rock was undamaged, which is just as well as it was
National Park property.

Time to consider a full face helmet? I ride hundreds of miles a year,
most of it cross country or light MUni. I'm more of a mud plugger than
a rock hopper. So far, I have never hit the ground with my helmet!
However, a broken jaw would have put me out of action for a very long
time, causing difficulties with a range of activities from eating to
drinking, and including wearing a motorcycle helmet or fencing mask, or
playing harmonica. I now know how easiliy it could happen to me.

So, someone in this forum suggested a Switchblade helmet. I did look on
the internet, but I prefer to see and touch before I buy, so I went to
my local shop, Super Cycles, in Nottingham.

They had about 4 models of full face helmet in, including the
Switchblade - and what a lovely helmet it is: light, elegant, stylish,
well ventilated... and, in my opinion, totally unsuited for
unicycling.

My injury was almost exactly on the jaw line, on the underside of the
chin. I fell forwards and did a swallow dive, with no opportunity to
roll. My chest hit the floor and my head whipped forward, and the
bottom of my jaw hit the rock. I imagine that such an accident would be
fairly rare on a mountainbike or BMX. I could be wrong, but my limited
experience of bicycle accidents suggests that you either fall sideways
and roll, or you go over the handlebars, in which case you land in a
tangled mess, but not usually with a full face-plant. A workmate who
rides serious downhill mountain bike broadly agrees.

The Switchblade, like most of the other helmets on display, has a
lightweight, high chin guard which would protect your chin very well
indeed if you fell and rolled. However, the line of the chinguard is so
high that the bottom of your chin is almost exposed to an upward blow.
(Think of being 'uppercut' by a rock. That's more or less what happened
to me.) Also, the chinguard projects quite a long way, which gives it a
fair amount of leverage. Try as I might, I could not adjust the
Switchblade (or most of the other helmets) to meet both of the following
criteria:
1) Comfortable enough to wear for an extended period.
2) Secure enough not to ride up and expose the bottom of the jaw in
the event of an 'uppercut'.

No good at all. Beautiful, elegant, useless - not unlike myself.

I bought an Odyssey Apache 2. The website is www.odysseybmx.com
although I can't find the exact helmet on there. The site shows the
Odyssey Apache 3 which is broadly the same.

The helmet is quite heavy, being made of 4 layers of hand laid
fibreglass. It has six vents, but is less well ventilated than a
typical road helmet. It has a quick release buckle, but any adjustment
of the tension is by laboriously pulling the webbing through the bcukle,
unlike my 'road' helmet which can be adjusted 2 ways whilst on the
move.

On the head, it feels almost like a motorbike helmet. It's a bit heavy,
but feels solid and reasuring. The chin guard feels like it will take a
good whack, and the whole helmet feels secure. There is a peak which
can be removed. In place, the peak may serve to give additional facial
protection in the event of a face plant, and it will deflect twigs,
leaves and so on if you're riding though the woods.

I've just done a ride of around 8-10 miles on the 28 on a cold windy
night. I was glad of the additional warmth of the full face helmet, so
that probably means it will be hot on a summer's day ride.

I hope never to test the helmet's impact-resisting properties. However,
I'm reasonably satisfied that it is a good buy and will be suitable for
downhill MUni or high speed Coker runs. I dare say there are plenty of
similar helmets available. Just two things I'd like to stress:

1) If your riding puts you at risk of this type of fall, consider the
implications of a broken jaw. A full face helmet doesn't look as silly
as a line of stitches on your chin - I know, because I've tried both.

2) If you decide to buy one, check how it will protect you against a
blow to the underside of the jaw. Don't just assume that light weight,
style and high price guarantee the best helmet. They are all made for
bicyclists, and we have subtly different accidents.

I will still wear a 'normal' helmet on more moderate rides.


--
Mikefule - Roland Hope School of Unicycling

Sometimes I ride like a demon, sometimes like a lemon. It's an L of a
difference.
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