This week's Friday Nighter is Climbing Magazine's 'Unscientific Helmet Test'. We've also thrown in a BMC Helmet video that we featured last summer too.
Climbing with a helmet is, is it a good idea? Well, most likely it will mean that a whack on the head might hurt less!
There is an interesting article on the BMC Website in which Dan Middleton says:
"One reason given by some climbers for not wearing a helmet is that they don't offer any real protection in a fall. This isn't strictly true: helmets offer some protection, which may, or may not be, enough to stave off injury. Many modern helmets do offer better all-round protection than their predecessors, making them more likely to protect against falls. They still won't save you from a headfirst plummet from a great height, but they might make the difference if you clip a ledge, swing into a rib or get flipped upside down by the rope.
Another argument used is that helmets will only protect against minor injuries and don't do any good against really big impacts. Again, this isn't the full story: a study of climbing fatalities concluded that 25% could have been avoided if a helmet had been worn. Although most fall injuries are to the lower limbs, the next most likely place to be injured is the head."
So here is the test - melons, custard pies, rocks, you name it - we liked it!
Also here is the BMC Helmet video, which the BMC introduce thus:
"In our campaign video, we interview climbers at England's most popular crag Stanage Edge, and ask them about their attitudes and thoughts about wearing helmets.
We discuss modern climbing helmets, and we ask climber Neil Bentley why he chose to wear a helmet for the first ascent of the UK's first E10, Equilibrium."
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