Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125982
plastic in the helmet will deteriorate with age , and manufacturers, like Bell for example, who offer a restoration servi ce fo r older helmets - replacing chain straps, liner, padding, etc . - won't to uch o ne more than a few years old. Thus the da te of the helmet is important. So it ca me to pass, in the late '5 0's that word of the Snell Memorial Foundation be gan to sp read, and fo r the first time, a rid er could be sure of the q uality of th e protection he was buying. This wri ter su ffered a serious crash 12 ye ars ago whilst wearing a Sne ll-approved helmet and lost only a Basic porridge-bowl construc tion. this on e too. The helmet was the early model of the Bell 500 , and th e m at eri al was a rigid foam liner th a t collapsed on itself under impact. This co llapse abso rbed the energy of th e shock and conven tion al pa dding kept th e skull fro m deforming under p ressure . Snively celebrate d th e dis covery of an effec tive helme t by awarding Bell the first Snell Mem ori al Fo un da tio n approval. If y ou have a decent-quality helmet , look ins ide it and you'll see what th e stic ker looks like : Ap pro ved By Snell Memorial Foun da tio n San Francis co Serial No . 0000 - with th e date, su ch as 1972, when th e helme t was manufactured. No te th at the e:= / Helm ets ha ve come 0 a lo ng way to D th e full co verage of t oday. ' ~" ..J 17 II l- ~ ~oQ O OO p0" O -, ;J -- [l- 7Jm:~~---.- IJ !J [i -195S - - -- - -1960 - ----1905 -, Cl 001910 = ~= 1975" \ \ ~~ \ w"'~ ~ fro nt tooth and 12 hours of co nsciousness rather than losin g it all .. . Naturally, there was talk of possible brain da mage - and I di d en list in an Armored unit a couple of days after the crash - but that's ne it her here nor there. The im portant thing is that here I sti ll am , delighting my readers and distres sing my fa mily, just like I'd neve r been a dedicated crasher. The various racing clubs got smart, too, an d " Snell-appr oved " mean t "required" to a lot of racers. Sinc e that time, im provements and refinements in liner and shell construction have occurred, and Snively has kept improving the Sne ll standards, with the result that a good helmet today is quite a bit better than a p retty good hel met of a few years ago . The Z90 helmet st andards grew from the Sne ll tests - Dr. Snively was the chairman of th e Z90 committee - and have - served to provide a generation of crashers with ade qua te head protection. And, of co urse, as our chart indic ates, co ve rage has ste adily advanced from the original porridge-bowl to the modern full -ful l-coverage type. Th e result of all this is that now, for the first time in history, while it ' 5 pro bably true th at you have to be crazy to get on one o f th em damn mur der-cy cles, it's no l onge r true that you have to be dingy a fter getting off. Th e future of th e helmet is any body 's guess, but it's probable th at th e trend toward ligh ter an d more com fortable but fuller co vera ge and more efficient m aterials will co n tin ue (see figue 7). • Happy lan dings. ..... M ~ 11