The most popular MTB fork you (probably) know nothing about

As recently as 10 years ago, I didn't always wear a helmet. I wouldn't wear a helmet unless it was required, like if I was at a bike park or there was a local ordinance that said you have to wear one. And people would try to convince me. They'd say, Seth, hey, wait, aren't you going to put on a helmet? And they just sounded like morons to me. Yet today I've made a complete 180 degree turn. I wear a helmet no matter what I am doing on a bicycle. I could just be going down the street. If I'm leaving the driveway, the helmet goes on. It's a ritual. And I used to think that helmet people, cyclists that just wear helmets all the time, even if they're doing something risk free, were illogical. And when they would tell me to wear a helmet, it just sounded condescending. Probably because in some cases it kind of was. Like I said, now I do wear a helmet all the time. And maybe you have a cousin or aunt or uncle or somebody you care about who just won't put on a helmet and you try to convince them and it just doesn't work. You fail every single time. Well, I know why you are failing at it, because I was one of those people and now I wear a helmet. And so today we're going to talk about that. But the first part of this conversation might make you a little bit uncomfortable. Well, first, let me pose a question to you. As cycling advocates, do we really want to make the argument that bicycles are always risky? I don't believe we do want to make that argument. And in fact, I think there are plenty of situations where riding a bicycle is less risky than walking. Let's assume you're jogging with headphones on on the street and you can't hear what's going on. I think that's more dangerous than riding a bicycle around a lake or down a greenway where you have very little chance of colliding with anything. But even so, when I see a jogger with headphones on, I don't have the inclination to lecture them on helmet use. But I have, in fact, been lectured for doing far less risky things on my bicycle. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that presenting weak arguments and talking down to people will actually have the opposite effect as intended. So if you want to convince somebody to start wearing a helmet, you better be sure you're making a good argument that's actually true, or you might cause them to double down. Hey, aren't you going to put on a helmet? Nope. Because I'm about to ride a five miles an hour through the park with a beach cruiser and I'm wearing a hat. There are absolutely no downsides to wearing a helmet. It takes two seconds. Is it really worth bodily injury over saving two seconds? Sure is. If you want someone to stop listening to anything you have to say to them, make that argument. There are no downsides to a helmet whatsoever. You lose all credibility and then you'll never get your point across. Because actually, it's not true. When I was a senior in high school, helmets were not required in professional cycling. Televised professional cycling. And you know what? Nobody wore them. You'd think they would wear helmets while racing through the Alps at high speed in a tight peloton where crashes are actually really common. But they didn't. Almost nobody did because a helmet would put you at a disadvantage against other people that don't have helmets. And it wasn't until 2003 when they leveled the playing field and made helmets required in professional road cycling that people actually started wearing them. Why did it take that to make them put on helmets? Weight, comfort, heat dissipation, aerodynamics, visibility, convenience, and maybe even the possibility of a bee getting stuck in one of the vents. So that's pretty bad for your no downsides argument because despite all the very good reasons to wear a helmet, professional cyclists won't wear them if they're not required to. But your Uncle Hector is not a professional cyclist racing through the Alps. He does not have prize money on the line. And in fact, he might be riding down to the hardware store or getting some exercise in the park. He's not omitting the helmet for performance gains. No, more likely it's because of comfort, convenience, and cost. This helmet costs a lot more than that bike. It's about $180 if you can find it on sale. You can get a good helmet for a lot cheaper, but this is the most comfortable helmet I've ever worn in my life and I wear helmets a lot. It doesn't rub on my forehead and give me pimples. It's got good ventilation. You barely even feel like it's on and actually kind of feels cozy. Almost feel more confident when I'm wearing it. It has precisely all of the characteristics that a $25 helmet does not have. And that's the only type of helmet that your Uncle Hector has experience with. This is actually a $40 or $50 helmet and the straps go everywhere. They lay across your ears all weird. It jiggles around in your head. It's kind of frustrating how much you have to spend to get a really nice helmet, but you actually get something for the money. And I'm a 90s kid. I experienced helmetless freedom all throughout my childhood. Wind in my hair. I don't even think I had a phone in my pocket. And that's kind of the feeling I'm chasing now. When your Uncle Hector was a kid, they probably didn't even have bicycle helmets. So when you tell them, hey, helmets are actually really comfortable and enjoyable to wear. And to be fair, he's not riding in a big group of road cyclists. He's not careening down a mountain bike trail. He's just doing what he has since he was 7 years old without incident, and now some yuppie is telling him he should really be wearing a helmet. But you know that he's not always riding in the park or around the lake. Sometimes he has to cross a busy intersection. Sometimes he's not paying attention. Sometimes he rides down the road and a driver is texting and veering all over the place. And we know it's in those seemingly mundane and unexpected moments that a helmet can mean the difference between life and death. And that's why for people like me, helmet use is a ritual. Once I'm on my bike, I don't know what I'm going to get into. I might be doing something really safe where the helmet wouldn't be necessary, but for a couple of seconds during that ride, I might not. After all, bicycles are about freedom. And so what was it that finally changed my mind? Well, I was on the Wednesday night bike ride in Fort Lauderdale. It was every Wednesday, 9pm, and it was a social ride. We rode through Riverwalk and down little side streets. Nothing really dangerous happened, and on this one night, for some strange reason, I decided to put a helmet on. And then I proceeded to do something really, really stupid. There was a clearance bar. It's like a horizontal pipe hanging from chains to keep trucks from driving into a parking garage. And I decided that I was going to ride up to it and jump off of my bike and then grab onto the bar like Diddy Kong. And so I did. But as it turns out, it was not a black metal pipe. It was a plastic pipe that was painted black and it had dry rotted. It crumbled in my hands and I fell backwards onto my back and smacked my head into the concrete. But I had my helmet on. The helmet was absolutely toast. I think even with the helmet on, I went home at that point because I was so rattled. And whether or not I had the helmet on, I definitely would have still done that. Now crashes are not new to me. I've always crashed and I don't get rattled very easily. But in this case, I realized that without the helmet, I might be spending the next few years of my life learning how to speak again. And actually, it haunts me to this day because like I said, it was just dumb luck that I had the helmet on. There was a nine out of 10 chance that I was going to be just like your Uncle Hector and ride around without a helmet that night. But this is kind of an edge case, isn't it? I mean, most people don't go jumping off their bikes and reaching for horizontal clearance bars. But it did teach me that even my seemingly sound risk assessment just failed miserably. I never considered that the bar could just crumble in my hands. And so even if you're doing something seemingly safe on a bicycle, there's no way you can assess every single variable. We tend to go a little bit faster on a bike than we do when we're walking, and things tend to pop up a little bit quicker. And for me, there are other reasons. Obviously, I have a big YouTube channel and a lot of people watch me and I can influence their decisions, but also my daughter. If she always sees me with a helmet on, she's going to think that's normal and that's what you do when you're on a bicycle. And so I have bought her a really comfortable helmet that fits her very well. It even looks cool, so she's actually the one telling me to put her helmet on because she likes it. And so because, unlike me, she's always been wearing a helmet since day one, she doesn't really know what she's missing, and I think I like it better that way. And so I have turned into one of those people that always wears a bicycle helmet, even when I'm doing something perfectly safe that I honestly don't really need a helmet for. So how are you going to convince your Uncle Hector to be one of those people? Well, that's going to vary based on your particular Uncle Hector. You might want to start by steelmanning his position. Maybe start by acknowledging that his risk assessment is probably sound, riding around a loop in the park is not necessarily risky, and in fact, people regularly engage in activities that are riskier without helmets on. You might even acknowledge that some helmets can be uncomfortable, but that actually they make helmets that aren't, and that it's the 1% of the time when you're going down a hill with unexpected loose gravel at the bottom, or crossing an intersection, or jumping up to grab a metal pipe that ends up being plastic, that the helmet really comes in handy. And maybe you and your family can chip in and get him a nice comfortable helmet for Hanukkah with a note that says, even a 1 in a million chance is too much for us to bear. I think arguing from that perspective is going to be a lot more effective than saying things that are at best false, and at worst condescending. And that is why I used to not wear a helmet, and in fact, at the time I doubled down and it took a near death experience for me to finally start wearing one. Had people seen things from my perspective and made thoughtful, nuanced arguments, I might have started wearing a helmet sooner. Because you know what? I don't think bicycles are risky all the time. If you're riding on the greenway or in the park, I really don't think it's more dangerous than other things that we do without helmets. But like I said, I still wear a helmet all the time for the reasons I mentioned. And with tourists increasingly hopping on class 3 commuter e-bikes that go 30 miles an hour, it might be a good time to have this conversation. Oh no, perfect. Thank you. So I hope this video was useful and informative. I hope you learned something, and if you didn't, I hope you at least found it entertaining. Thanks for riding with me today, and I'll see you next time.