Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

:~ .c o ..... u After a hard crash the inner lining may be crushed and it cannot work properly again t o cushion a b low. This h el m et sh o uld be replaced• o (Continued from page 8) 20 lot doing about thirty miles an hour. He came whistling in between a couple of park cars, so he probably didn't see me, and then he turned right into my path. I hit that car h ea d-o n and destroyed a brand new 12 5 that I had waited months to get from the factory. I went over the handlebarsv slid across the hood of the ca r , up the windshield and onto the roof before everybody got everything stopped. When I remembered ' the sounds inside my helmet when it was rattling on the metal of that ca r and on the front window, I don't think I will ever be tempted to get on without a helmet again. After you decide you are always going to wear a helmet, the next thing is to get yourself the best protection you can which means you will probably avoid buying the cheapest helmet y ou can find. Unless you happen to find a good helmet that some dealer has legitimately marked down to a bargain price. Even the helmet manufacturers are very frank about saying that the best helmet gives you only partial protection. No helmet can protect you from everything, or from the worst crash . If you rec ogn ize that they are all less than perfect, less than total and absolute protection against injury, then you sho uld certainly try to get the best available for yo urself. A good b rand is im p o r tan t and a h elm e t with no b rand or some brand you never heard o f is a ris ky purchase. The best guide to helmet q uality is the app roval stickers in the helmet . It's a good idea to look for three certification labels : SHCA (Safety Helmet Council of America), Z·90.I, and Snell Memorial Foundation. There is a big battle going on in the ads between makers who offer polycarbonate helmets - sort of strong plastic - and the conventional fiberglass helmets which have been around for quite a while now. I have seen some demonstrations which have co n vin c ed me, personally, to prefer a fiberglass helmet with Snell certification, so that's what I wear. You should decide for yourself. You can ch o o se from the type called full-coverage, which goes over your ears and the sides of your face but does not cover your chin and mouth, or the type called full-face which does cover yo ur chin and mouth and has a hole in it j ust in front of you~ eyes, so you can see o ut. The full -fac e type p robab ly gives better protection to your jaw and teeth at the price o f b ein g a little hotter to we ar , a littl e heavier, a nd more confi ning with a feeling of poorer visio n o ut o f it. There have been some stories about guys falli ng in such a way th a t t he helmet gets t ucked under so the bottom e dge presses agai nst the rider's collarbone and breaks it . So that's a risk you have to balance against the tooth protection of the full-face models. Ride rs sometimes add protection to a ful l-coverage model by attac hing a p lastic bar a cross the fron t to give some tooth protection. These bars are si milar to those u se d on football helmets but n01 exactly the same because a crash helmet is shaped differently th an a football helmet. If you decide to put one on your helmet, be sure it is design ed to fit a crash helmet. Lately these have given way to th e Jofa·type mouth guard - a plastic cup that fits over your chin and mouth an d attaches to the helmet with straps. There have been reports of the mouth protector sliding upwards in a crash so it comes up hard under the rider's nose and breaks his nose. Sometimes I get lucky and meet somebody who has all the an swers. We were discussing this possible problem in a school one time where there was a bright lad that you will hear more about later. His answer to this one was, "Well, why don't you just turn your head when you are c rashing? " You know, that's a bright idea and maybe even possible sometimes, b ut not always because very often a rider d oesn 't - have any control of how he la nd s when the motorcycle flings him off. There are also some stories a b o u t riders getting necks broken or injured from the bottom edge of the back of the helmet. It is possible to fall in such a way th at the helmet is tipped back and driven into the base of your neck. A helmet wbich is cut straight across the back has more c ha n ce of d oing th at than a helmet which is cut up a Iittle on the back side. When I buy a new helmet. I check the contour along the back, for this reason. If you already own a helmet cut straight across the back, you may be able to remove the beading along the edge, cut it up a little, and then put the bead back in place. Some m anufa cturers advise replacement of a helmet every two years whether you crash in it or not. The materials change with age and an old helmet may not give you the protection I , 1 of a new one. Ano t her good reason to d o this is th at helmet certification standards are ch a nged periodically as the helmet industry learns to make helmets 10 give better protection. l lerc comes that smart kid again. lie asked me what do do with an 'o ld helmet or one that had been through a crash so it was no longer trustworthy. I knew he had a hot one to lay on me so I asked him his opinion. "liar, har ," says he. "give it to somebody you don't like." liar, har, indeed. Another gu y said his w ife would plant a flower in it. Eye protection Nobody needs to be convinced of the need for eye protection when you are riding where rocks and stuff ca n be thrown right in your face. the problem is getting some protection that will still let you see properly and not handicap you more than ne cessary. That problem doesn't have any neat and handy solution. unfortunately. Visors do more ' than keep the sun out of your eyes. The long duckbill-type is good in the mud and sometimes in the ro cks. When the bike in front is' throwing things at you. you ca n tip your head downward a little bit. You ca n still see the track in front of you, but the visor will ca tc h a lot of th e junk and keep it out of your face or off your goggles. It's important to keep up with new developments because sometimes a thing which was impossible becomes practical due to some new idea. For example fogging on the inside of goggle lenses has always been a problem and the way to avoid it is to get goggles with good ventilation so the air flows through the inside of the goggle and blows the moisture ou t before it can co n d en se on the lens. Now there is a goggle lens which is c oate d on the inside with some special material which makes them a lot less prone to fog up when you are working hard. Face shields are used by some riders and they usually fog up even worse because they trap your warm breath inside. They are also available now with the anti-fog coating. I used to use a shield and found that a few holes dri lled in it with a quar ter-inch drill helped a lot. Drill t he m in fro nt of yo ur mo ut h and yo u can b rea the easier. The shield will also no t fog up as much. Eit her way , if you are riding in the mud a nd it ge ts splattered a ll over your goggles o r fa ce shield, it is almost impossible to see well e nough. If you try to wi pe t he m ud off it usu all y just smears it more and your vision is wo rse. There are so me thin p lastic sheets that ca n be p ut over lenses and face shields and then ripped off when they get muddy to expose the next layer. If you have enough layers and don't ride too many laps it is possible to have clean goggles this way. If you wear prescription eyeglasses, check the place where you get your glasses and you may find some new things there too. They have plastic lenses which are shatterproof but scratch more easily. They also have tempered glass which is harder t o break and they have special flexib le plastic frames for athletes which will give and bend on impact so the lens is less likely to get broken. There are goggles which fit over prescription eyeglasses and I think you shou ld wear a pair ove r yo ur glasses. What you really want to wo rry about is a le ns shattering in to small sharp pieces w hic h ca n get in to your eye. I go t hit by a ro c k one t ime w he n I was riding w it h su ng lasses on and th e lens d id just that. So mos t p e ople p re fe r p las tic instead o f glass . The p la st ic wi ll usuall y not sha tter but if it gets rip p ed or torn it can wind up wit h some pretty sharp edges. Again, there is no perfect solutio n to the p rob lem and you have to make an individual choice. I think yo u should start ea c h rac e weari ng yo ur eye protect ion. Then if it gets co vered with mud or it starts ra in in g so you ca n ' t see through it. take it off when you have to . By the n you should be in front of the pack so ' the risk of getting so mething flung into your eye is less. Chest protectors On a ro cky co urs e a big knobby tire can really throw them back at you and sometimes they hurt. Even a thin piece of foam rubber or some kind of pad will help a lot. Another reason to wear one is protection against puncture wounds in your ches t which ca n be fatal in a hurry. They don't happen often b ut there is always some remote chance of getting thrown off in su ch a way that you la nd on somebody's foot peg o r maybe a broken lever. 1 judge a chest protector in two ways: Does it have some padding to keep the rocks from hu rting so much, and does the m a teri al resist penetration by some sharp object? A plain piece of fo am, fo r examp le, does the first job but not the second. Where does protection stop? If you buy something because it lo o ks good and you wan t to wear it, that's OK . Moto cross is a colorfu l sport anyway and it helps draw t he crowds. On the oth er hand, if you feel the need for some kind of p rotection that the other riders ar e not wearing. don't be influenced so much by fashion that you won't we ar something you need. The accessory catalogs and a lot of dealers offer shoulder pads , arm and elbow pads, knee pads. padded jock straps, elastic bandages a nd things like that. If you want that kind of protection, you will probably ride better if you have it just because you will have more confidence. After a sch ool down in Florida we were having a bull session late in the day and the subject of protection happened to corne up again. One rider said he had figured out the perfect riding equipment - a suit of armor that covered him up everywhere. The smart kid said, "The way things go, if you got all tricked up in a suit of armor, probably the first thing you would do is ride in to somebody's electric fence!" That got a laugh but also ma d e a point. If you want to protect against anythi ng bad th a t can ever happen to yo u, then yo u shouldn' t be raci ng and m aybe you should stay home in bed and pray the ro o f doesn't fall do w n on you . If you do choose to ra c e or d o anything with a li ttle adven ture and hazard mixed u p in it, then make so me sensible decisions about the a mount of safety equipment you are going to use. And then always use it! Next week - setting up your motorcycle for racing . How to Win Mot ocross, co pyr ight 1974 by Gary Bailey , is be ing serialized in Cycle News . The best-seller , now in its second printi ng , is condensed for t his seria lizatio n . T he co mp lete bo o k is avai lable for $6 from Cycle News Prod uct s. See ad in this issue

• Cover