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When did bike helmets first appear on the streets in the UK? I swear I don’t recall them before about 1989… but my wife insists she ‘grew up with them’ in Australia, and they must have existed in the UK too.
I well believe they were in Australia before the UK, but how much before?
They’ve been mandatory in Australia since 1990, when is she talking about growing up?
Tuff Tops for kids were definitely around in the late 80s.
This page would agree with you.
https://helmets.org/history.htm
with what is recognisable as a common bike helmet appearing in 1990! Thats about the time I remember them appearing too, suddenly every kid younger than me had a mushroom head!
Huh. I assumed helmets had been around forever and can't remember a time before helmets at all. Today I learned.
I saw a few roadies with those leather ‘helmet’ things in the 70s.
Helmets only really started to be worn for BMX for kids though when they were first big.
As a kid of the 70s and 80s a helmet was never a thing though.
Don't think had a cycling helmet before maybe 1998 when I had a big crash where I scraped my head on a rock, but thankfully didnt bang it!
Rock climbing (trad UK rock and south of France bolted routes) in the late 80's early 90s no one I knew wore a helmet.
Only wore a helmet when jumping as a horse rider in the late 90s.
I've always worn a helmet cycling since that big crash and been glad if it a few times. I'd wear one for both horse riding and climbing if I still did them.
'settle' an argument? On bike helmets?
Hahahahahahahahaha, are you new here?
Hairnet helmets were used in criterium racing in 70s/80s.
My Dad bought me a cycle helmet in 1986 for Uni, but I didn't wear it.
Didn't really come across them until I moved to the US in 1993 and everyone wore them. Me and two others were the exception, together with the Amish kids.
My first bike helmet was at age 14 in 1988. I remember it as my mum said I wasn't allowed on the bike again if I wasn't wearing one. Probably wise after I'd been launched over a car bonnet.
I'm pretty sure it was 1989 when I bought my first MTB and a Specialized helmet to go with it.
Hairnet helmets were used in criterium racing in 70s/80s.
Yup as a kid I went with my school to Herne Hill cycle track once a week, we were given those leather hairnet head protection to wear. They had sand or something similar in them so that they moulded to the shape of your skull.
I was surprised to find a search reveals that the style is still available.
We have an old boy in my cycling club who has an original vintage leather hairnet helmet who has occasionally worn it for a retro look/ laugh.
First consumer helmet other than the leather racing helmets that I remember was the Skid Lid!
Despite getting my first MTB in 1988 the first helmet I bought was in 1994 to appease my mum when cyling from Cambridge to Spain . It was a purple helmet!! (made by Trek)
Left it on the ferry from Portsmouth to St Malo and rode around 4000km helmetless including fast descents of the Telegraph, Galibier, Ventoux etc.....didn't die
Have a look through the old Dawes catalogues and see when you can first spot one, 1993 I think.
https://dawescycles.wordpress.com/catalogues/
Lolz at jonv
We still dont have proper cycling helmets🤣
I wore a leather hairnet on the road bike in the 80's.
The first "proper" helmet I had was a Giro one in about 1988. It was polystyrene and didn't have a shell, but came with a lycra cover.
Anyone else remember Etto helmets? I thought I was the biz when I got one of them in the early 90's.
I bought one in 1986 when I got my Rockhopper
My first was a Bell in 91. Before that I used a leather "casque à boudin" and even Joe Brown climbing helmet according to some old photos.
Besides the leather jobbies and bmx, I think the first time I saw helmets was lusting through the freewheel catalogue when I first got into road biking. That must have been 86 I think. Those were the giro jobbies with the open fabric stretched over them. And you could swap that fabric for something a bit more waterproof in the rain. I have a feeling some of those giros might have made it into American Flyer (1985) too. Wasn't the Russian dude wearing a full on skid lid?
I seem to remember that there was a fair bit of resistance to wearing them until earl 90s.
Certainly amongst the folks I rode with from 86 onwards.
On a side note when did they first force riders to wear them in the TdF?
I can remember the rule that allowed them to remove helmets on the climbs but not the year?
certainly had them riding mountain bikes in 86 and no resistance to wearing them off road. Don't remember anyone who didn't really
Oh yes. Not googled but I would imagine having to wear one on the ups too would have been this millennium. I was timetrailing in fairings rather than helmets in 1998-2004 I think, maybe later. Didn't get my first actual helmet aero lid until 2006 I think.
I don't remember a time where people didn't wear helmets in mountain bike magazines (89-onwards). On the streets though, I dont remember them becoming commonplace until the noughties. I bought my first helmet around 2008, which sounds a bit crazy now, but nobody I knew wore a helmet up until around that period.
1980 was the first I saw, a lad used one when going to school. Of course, he was unmercifully mocked, but still wore it.
I had one of these when I was about 5, so that was 1987 for me
The leather strip-type helmet was mandatory in GB in the late-70s on the track and I'm sure for road racing, but that might only have been for Junior riders. They weren't needed for TTs though
Mine was a patent-effect plastic faux leather. I've no idea what they were filled with but it didn't seem to compress much
I had a Giro Hammerhead in the early 90s.
Having ridden bikes for 20 years before, without a helmet, I often left it at home, especially if it was hot outside. Took me a while to get into the habit of wearing it.
In the 80s we took our BMXs to Buckmore Park where they insisted helmets were required. As I didn’t have one at that point, I used my Dad’s open face motorbike helmet. 😆
My first was a Giro Ruby? then a Ventoux when they came out mid 90s.
I bought my first helmet in about 1989 when I got my first MTB and entered an XC race for which helmets were mandatory. I seem to remember that it was one of the first with a shell, rather than just being a polystyrene mushroom with a lycra cover.
1988 for my first helmet. Was working in Halfords and just starting to MTB. Had a massive ET like sail through the air head first into a tree. Decided that my bonce didn't like that and been wearing them ever since.
I've was 2007 when I first bought a helmet.
Skid Lids were around in the mid-80’s. The first hardshell helmets came out in the late 80’s - I did my first triathlon in 1986 wearing a Cinelli hairnet and upgraded to a Bell Stratos the next year. The first Giro and Specialized helmets were polystyrene with a Lycra cover.
Edit - also to add, there was the Cinelli Aero head fairing also known as the pi$$pot which had no protective properties
Didn’t wear one at uni as they weren’t a thing in 1986-92. Bought one with a tandem about 1993. Bell were around in the mid to late 80’s but not really worn.
Had a leather strap one for road racing in late 80's early 90s until polystyrene lids came in. Was TTing then so was using helmets generally by then. Still got a couple of mates who never wear one, even on the MTB and he is a nutcase. He's fractured his skull and had concussion in one road accident, and has suffered minor cuts on two MTB crashes.
Ive cracked at least 3 helmets, two big accidents due to car drivers, head fine, body not, and once on the MTB.
Gravel rash on the scalp is very unpleasant as you've no muscle to scrape through.
Used with a skull cap, its great for soaking up sweat, and the vents for evaporation. Always use well vented helmets.
I'd been riding motorcycles for years before getting a bicycle so wearing a helmet just seemed the natural thing to do.
I've only cracked one, with an OTB. That left me with a big bruise on my forehead. I'm pretty sure that landing without it would have ruined my natural good looks for a while.
I’d been riding motorcycles for years before getting a bicycle so wearing a helmet just seemed the natural thing to do.
In our group we'd all grown up racing MX so you'd think he'd have all worn helmets.
That wasn't the case at all though.
Think it was more a thing of it's only a pedal bike, I don't need a lid.
That and a fair dose of youthful feelings of indestructability. 🤦♂️
Mountain biking in the UK was always accompanied by helmet wearing so c. 1988. I was ‘made to’ (and happy to wear because it was the done thing) have a helmet when I got my first MTB in 1989. A plastic white shell jobby (Brancale??), rapidly upgraded to the Specialized with the red lycra cover.
This is s great question! They're so ubiquitous now you forget that there was a time when no-one used to wear them.
Definitely not a thing in the 80s or early 90s for me, then I didn't have a bike for a bit, started wearing one when I got in to mountain biking in the early 2000s
1987-1988 was when I first started wearing helmets, a polystyrene specialised one with mesh cover. I remember my mother buying it for me since she was worried about my mountain biking. About that time were Giro or Etto helmets. Roadies still occasionally wore “hair nets” but that was all.
Wow, a fair span of dates!
...Of course there's no way I can win an argument with my wife anyway. But i can still believe i'm right.
My first helmet was a white Scott complete with Mint Sauce stickers - 1991/2 i think. It was still at my Dad's house until a few years ago. Probably would have doubled as a swimming float!
Me any my mate were trying to get into MTB against the odds in Lincolnshire(!) and it seemed the thing to have, but I still remember us taking them off once we were out of sight of home because they were too uncool on the street - Tuff Tops were what the squares wore, but they were still quite uncommon. I do remember that mate going OTB into a tree though and thinking the helmet was worthwhile.
We definitely saw more helmet wearing on Neighbours than we did in our neighbourhoods (along with unimaginably small beers that a mate used to call "Jim Robinson pints")
In our group we’d all grown up racing MX so you’d think he’d have all worn helmets.
That wasn’t the case at all though.
In college in the early 90s we occasionally rode with a guy who was a semi pro motorbike racer. He didn't wear a helmet because to him the speeds we reached seemed trivial. He soon found out though that the brakes, tyres and handling of his early 90s MTB were not as good as his Honda Fireblade, after a few spectacular crashes caused by utterly optimistic readings of the situation he got a helmet.
Tuff Tops were sold at my primary school, possibly a discounted bulk deal. I got my own because my mum didn't think the outside liner was up to much so I ended up with a Netti (IIRC) with obligatory era specific fluro yellow/green/pink/white shell.
Never took it that seriously till I started getting into proper riding years later, since had a few times to be glad of one.
I'd never worn one until I got back into bikes in 2005, at 40.
You could definitely buy a Bell hard shell cycle helmet in 1981 as it's in the Freewheel catalogue. My first helmet for off road was a Bell Pro 4 in 1991.
mountainbiking since I was about 14, didn't get a helmet until I was nearly 15, they were seen as expensive, and I'd not had one whilst riding BMX, borrowed one for racing (the club had spares as a lot of the riders couldn't afford one). Then, one day myself and two of my mates were riding on the Malverns one sunny sunday, coming onto the landrover tracks from swinyard hill, my mates front wheel lodged in a landrover track, pitching him over the bars, breaking both his arms in the process, landing him on his head, fracturing his skull.
Some walkers took him down to eastnor and got him carted off in an ambulance, while I rode his bike and carried mine (I had a snazzy cosmic trail padded frame bag) all the way back to Malvern Link.
our parents decided that we needed helmets.
my first was a Specialized lycra and mesh covered one. I'm guessing that must've been 1990.
next was a Specialized Extra Air, after I realised I was really really sweaty.
I had a tuff top in the late 80s, didn’t wear it though was uncomfortable and looked daft.
Got a Specialized mtb helmet with a peak in the mid to late 90d because they were compulsory on club rides, only went on one of them though so didn’t get much use. Even after I knocked myself out in a crash.
I watched Chainspotting again recently and the amount of helmetless riding in that was jarring these days, looked really weird seeing people jumping and riding in the woods without helmets.
Road cycling wise I don’t think they were compulsory up and down until Andrew Killiev (sp?) in 2006 I think. CBA to google it, feels like cheating.