Racing and helmets?

[delthebike]

Just had a look at the pictures from Mr. Larrington from the Mersey 24 and saw that some/most of the riders weren't wearing helmets. I thought that this type of racing specified helmets in the rules?  No helmet no ride or are there different rules for different styles of race?

[Mr Larrington]

CTT advise h+lm+ts, but they're not compulsory.  The unfortunates doing TT's in Jockland, though, do have to wear them.  IIRC anything under the auspices of ASO, the UCI and/or a national federation will have mandatory h+lm+ts too.

[David Martin]

CTT advise h+lm+ts, but they're not compulsory.  The unfortunates doing TT's in Jockland, though, do have to wear them.  IIRC anything under the auspices of ASO, the UCI and/or a national federation will have mandatory h+lm+ts too.

One of our riders headed south to the heathen badlands of the Tyne Valley for a 50. Suffering with the heat and a badly fitting helmet, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration, realised it was a CTT ride and promptly abandoned it by the side of the road for later collection.

'tis a pain though. When we had TLI TT's locally the helmets were optional.

..d

[Martin]

AIUI it's much like Audax; you are doing a private excursion on the public highway and those people handing out cake / fluids / etc are there just to assist you or validate your time/distance, it's not an event as such and thus presents no additional hazards to the participants compared to normal riding (for which hats are not required) else it might attract the attention of Msr Plodde

having said that; some local districts are quietly voting (not always pro) on introducing compulsory helmet rules

[gonzo]

Mass start road racing requires a helmet though.

[mattc]

Mass start road racing requires a helmet though.

... which sort of makes sense, in that mass start races (edited) are orders of magnitude more dangerous.
(Does anyone know how many TdeF stages DON'T feature a crash?)

TTs are only more dangerous than utility/leisure cycling if you ride hard enough to lose your road sense, but even then the courses usually use cycle-friendly junctions, so I don't think there's an issue.

[Ian H]

At least in the SW some clubs are insisting on helmets for their open events.

[Wascally Weasel]

Most cyclosportives (in the UK and elsewhere) now seem to require you to wear a helmet.  It's now the only time I usually wear one.

[clarion]

I have a helmet!














...somewhere...

[Martin]

Most cyclosportives (in the UK and elsewhere) now seem to require you to wear a helmet. 

In France Sportives are "casque de rigeur" whereas the touriste version of the same event using the same course at the same time are just "vivement conseillee", and following a fatality this year it will be compulsory for all next year in L'Ardechoise.

When I got into Le Tour in the early 90s it was pretty much the only pro race still not requiring them; at the time they said all amateur races did (not sure what prompted that)

[mattc]

Purely as another data point:
Paris-Roubaix (not the race) didn't require them. I think this may indicate its peculiar status as a "touriste" event which is ridden mostly as if it were a sportive. (It's the only one I've ridden, so I'm pretty ignorant).

Give me the "touriste" events any day (because of rider behaviour, not the casque rule).

(Shame about the  Ardechoise - I might have ridden it next year. )

[andygates]

Helmets are mandatory for triathlon across the UK.  Given that plenty of competitors are non highly skilled on the bike, and many errors are made in the heat of racing, I don't disagree with this stance.