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
1be padded leather he lmet . . . WWI surplus. ...... ..... M ~ Podunk Daredevils model their version of the porridge-bowl. By John Weigel Headgear has always been Important to bikers. Not only does the proper hat keep the rider's hair in place (and, when necessary, keep his ears wann), but the right cap forms a part of his identity. For example, a Harley visored cap, crushed over the ears and crusted with tour pins and AMA 40-year-member medals, was as different from the same basic cap worn by Marlon Brando and his followers as the full-dressed HO of the one was from the chopped hog of the other. And that's only two variations on one cap ! Back before the helmet laws, you see , you could judge a man as m uch by his hat as by his bike ... and, o f course, the tendency wa s to emphasize indivi d ualism . Over the years, however, ride rs began to n otice that all those flash y h ead covers had certain disadvantages. Like guys that crashed m o re than once or twice started talking like 40·year·OId prize-fighters. The ones that lived, that is. Naturally, there were alway s a few nonconformists who insisted on being safe . The padded leather helmet - WWI surplus - appealed to them first. It was cheap, and it actually did offer some protection on the predominantly dirt roads of the day. Then the aviators started wearing cork-lined helmets, and th e safety conscious biker co uld not o nly keep his skull in more or less its original configuration , he could look like Lindberg as well. Far out, as we modems say. Then after WWIl , funny little British cars became the rage, and t he first in terest in road raci ng motorcycles came across the pond with the m . The porridge bowl (figure 3) became a kind British Road·racing reached the states, and brought Vl(ith it the standard porridge·bowl helmet . 10 The basic "Brando" visored cap. of standard of excellence, despite its curious construction. But mai nstream touring riders took it to heart (or, rather, head ) pausing only long enough to give it the requisite pseudo-police appearance (the "PO" on th e illustrated helmets - figu re 4 stands for "Podu nk Daredevils," not "Police Dept."). Oddly enough, all this ti me , nobody gave m uch t hought to how these helmets were supposed to protect. The porri dge bowl construc tion (figure 5) wasn 't improved upon a whole bunch by the addition of padding. But, as I say , nobody gave it much thought. The hel mets were hard and resistant on the outside (where the p avement was) and soft and cushy on the inside (where the head was) . It couldn't be far wong, because now, Mabel, Bill didn't start to talk funny after his fo urth crash. Things were pretty easy in the helmet business . Any competent Corvette-patcher and upholstery man could design one, they didn't cost a lot to make, and the riders - who by wearing the he lmet could not o nly imp ress their friends and offend their enemies but could also feel "safe" snapped t hem up . Somebody noticed. Am ong the sporty car cr owd, which could boast o f a lot of profe ssion al m en like doctors, safety was take n seriously . Although they raced on so me p re tty fu nky t rac ks (so me were almost as ba d as motorcycle t racks) , nobody wante d to wip e out t ha t $20, 00 0 educatio n insi de th at handsom e skull. Very earl y in th e h istory of th e Sports Car Clu b of America (SCC A) who - t hen as n ow co n t rolled sp o rts car ro ad racing in th e U.S., the club began requi rin g th at drivers wear "ap proved" helmets wh ile racing. These being th e primitive days of helmet technolo gy , h owever, "approved" meant that th e salesman for that particular brand had had the initiative to take an ex amp le of th e SCCA 's rul in g the helm et to b oa rd .. . and that the hel me t hadn' t br o ken when they drop ped it on th e floor. In 1956, a doctor named Ge o rge Snively went up to Arcata on th e Northern California coast to watch a road race in which his good friend, Pe ter Snell, was driving . . . and wearing an "approved" helmet. But Snell's car flipped, and he died of head injuries. That tragedy was the spark that ignited Snively's interest in head safety. Returni ng to San Francisco, he started the Snell Memorial Foundation. Its purpose: to determine the "safety" of "safety h elm ets," to find ways to improve them, and final ly to offer, to truly safe helmets, certification of that fact. Snively took the scientific ap proach. He rigged up an im pact device in wh ich b o t h the force of t he im pact and the shape of t he impacting object co uld be varied. Then he acc umulated an exhaustive collection of th en-availabl e head-gear . These we re strapped to t he heads o f ca davers and test in g b egan. Th e was design ed to test evaluatio n everything fro m shell strength to chin strap efficiency. Shells cracked, straps b roke, and autopsies were performed on cadavers' skull with great regu larity for about a year. Along the way , a few beliefs were supported and a lot more were conclusively disproved. A well- made fibe rglass shell proved to be the strongest (a non-well made model broke in two when accidentally dropped on the floor by one of the SMF technicians !) - a significant fact in them days when many helmet shells were stamped from aluminum, which tears under impact. Sure enough, a hard shell on the outside was the answer. Hamess had to be carefully designed. A helmet that flew off when you crashed wouldn't help a hell of a lot in the "secondary impact" - wh en your head hit the ground - and might even take a piece o ut of your head with it. Strong wo ven ny lon straps with O-rings prove d quite superio r to the usu al cloth or leath er-an d-buckle design. Temple protection was the m ost im p ortant - but the style that was then known as "full-coverage" was better ' than th e po rridge-bowl (the edge s of whi ch were o bserved to cut in to the face an d n ec k under obliq ue im pacts) for neck p rotecti on to o. The big new s, however, was in th e p adding. Snivel y demonstrated tha t most p adding serve d m ainly to t ransmit shock from the shell to the he ad. What was needed was some way of iso lating th e shock. As it turned out, the only helmet to have all the other desirable features had