Cycling UK Forum

From the front cover of 'Cycle' received today.

Very refreshing to see.

Are the handlebars wider than normal?

Steady rider wrote:Are the handlebars wider than normal?

It's the fashion these days.

Back in the day - and I still believe this - handlebars were the same width as your shoulder bones.
My Moulton came with wide ones, and I sold them and bought narrower. Much better!

Mick F wrote:

Steady rider wrote:Are the handlebars wider than normal?

It's the fashion these days.

Back in the day - and I still believe this - handlebars were the same width as your shoulder bones.
My Moulton came with wide ones, and I sold them and bought narrower. Much better!

This photo always makes me smile but I suppose it's the 'right' way to do it!


https://jimlangley.net/crank/bikefit.html

They seem a tad too wide for him.
Find the bones in front of your shoulders where your arms fit in.
Measure between the lumps, not the outside of your shoulders.

About time frankly, CUKs active promotion of helmets for everything from women's cycling to big bike revival has left me thinking they simply don't get how much a negative impact this has on cycling as a whole!

As for bars, I can ride anything from a 40-46 c-c (I have ridden a pair of ladies 36s briefly and it wasn't really a struggle for general riding but I prefer a 44. That said the bars on the carbon racer are 42s as to replace with the next size up would be circa £250 and as I got mine for £200 less and were absolute mint cond I think I can cope with them in that size.
I haven't bothered to do the measure since forever, I just think that you should ride whatever feels comfortable for you

I always ride with bars wider than my shoulder.
Even in my TT days.
Counter intuitive, but my comfort during 50 / 100 mile TT's seemed to work for me..

The utility cyclist wrote:About time frankly, CUKs active promotion of helmets ...

... is a figment of your over-sensitive imagination.

Active promotion is going out of your way to push something. CUK do not do that with helmets and you need to stop kidding yourself that they do. It isn't helping anybody.

pjclinch wrote:

The utility cyclist wrote:About time frankly, CUKs active promotion of helmets ...

... is a figment of your over-sensitive imagination.

Active promotion is going out of your way to push something. CUK do not do that with helmets and you need to stop kidding yourself that they do. It isn't helping anybody.

In your singular opinion.
The evidence is pretty clear that they are not balanced and that they fail to understand the negative effects that helmet promotion has, and if you had actually bothered to look they have been using helmeted AND hi-vis adorned people on bikes in all facets throughout their magazine and website, I gave prime examples where there was no need to do so but they thought fit that that was/should be the prime image to use. Not grasping how that comes across is a massive failure, clearly you're in the same camp of not being able to join up the dots

The utility cyclist wrote:

pjclinch wrote:

The utility cyclist wrote:About time frankly, CUKs active promotion of helmets ...

... is a figment of your over-sensitive imagination.

Active promotion is going out of your way to push something. CUK do not do that with helmets and you need to stop kidding yourself that they do. It isn't helping anybody.

In your singular opinion.
The evidence is pretty clear that they are not balanced and that they fail to understand the negative effects that helmet promotion has, and if you had actually bothered to look they have been using helmeted AND hi-vis adorned people on bikes in all facets throughout their magazine and website, I gave prime examples where there was no need to do so but they thought fit that that was/should be the prime image to use. Not grasping how that comes across is a massive failure, clearly you're in the same camp of not being able to join up the dots

Showing something as it is but not as you would like it is (at most) passive, rather than active, promotion.
CUK do not actively promote helmets.

If you bother to read the stuff that e.g. Roger Geffen puts out it is entirely clear that "they" understand the problems. Furthermore, "they" understand the problems of not accounting for a lot of their membership preferring to wear them. Such as any time CUK's FB account shows someone without one they immediately get lots of flak for being "irresponsible".

You choose to see it as entirely black and white, but the Real World is more complicated than that. Just as active promotion of helmets has unwanted side effects, so does active opposition to anyone wearing them. Notably, that it will be taken as "political correctness gone mad!™" and people doing it will be widely assumed to be Loons. I know for a fact that I'm widely held to be off the scale on seeing red with regard to helmets, so if you're getting at me for "not being able to join the dots" then maybe time to start thinking how you come across...

I wouldn't drive without a seatbelt, wouldn't ride without a helmet.

You don't see horse riders without nor motorbikers hate or like it

Personally I think ANY person suffering injury that could have been avoided using a helmet and needing the NHS should have to pay, and I have a right to my opinion just as the opposition does so please remember that when responding, thank you

True fact

20 years ago living in Tavistock, a woman was killed when she came off and suffered serious head injuries, she was local and had a helmet on her handlebars.

skyhawk wrote:I wouldn't drive without a seatbelt, wouldn't ride without a helmet.

You don't see horse riders without nor motorbikers hate or like it

Personally I think ANY person suffering injury that could have been avoided using a helmet and needing the NHS should have to pay, and I have a right to my opinion just as the opposition does so please remember that when responding, thank you

True fact

20 years ago living in Tavistock, a woman was killed when she came off and suffered serious head injuries, she was local and had a helmet on her handlebars.

You have a touching faith in helmets. Why don't you do some reading in this forum to find out why not every cyclist agrees with you?
Do you think people who need NHS treatment because of their poor diet should pay for it? How about those who don't take the recommended amount of exercise? What about rock climbers, smokers or careless drivers?
Your idea would certainly solve the NHS funding problem.
In some countries there is a high proportion of cyclists, a low injury rate, few helmet wearers and a healthy population.
In other countries, those known for obesity, there are few cyclists, a high injury rate and helmets are much worn or mandated.
I

skyhawk wrote:I wouldn't drive without a seatbelt, wouldn't ride without a helmet.

You don't see horse riders without nor motorbikers hate or like it

Personally I think ANY person suffering injury that could have been avoided using a helmet and needing the NHS should have to pay, and I have a right to my opinion just as the opposition does so please remember that when responding, thank you

True fact

20 years ago living in Tavistock, a woman was killed when she came off and suffered serious head injuries, she was local and had a helmet on her handlebars.

True story, in the UK more children die solely of head injuries in motorvehicle crashes than total number of child cyclists by all injury types, if only those parents had forced their children to wear helmets when in the car! You said ANY person suffering injury that could have been avoided using a helmet (which is not even proven anyways but let's go with your false logic approach) should have to pay, their parents should have had to pay the NHSAmbulance/Police to see to and deal with their bodies after the crash right?

Maybe the 1.3million people who report head injuries and get seen to in the UK by the NHS (medical treatment centres, doctors, A&E etc) should all pay extra, what about the 160,000 hospitalisations from such? How many of those do you think are people on cycles that have not been assaulted by a criminal using a motorvehicle?
Clearly you are of the thinking that people who are attacked with a weapon by a criminal should pay extra to the NHS if they sustain an injury if they elect not to wear some form of garment that is unproven? What about when a women is raped, maybe one of your female relatives, if they could have prevented the rape by wearing an anti rape device and maybe not wore clothing that was alluring then they should only be blamed/have to pay extra to the police/NHS and any other support network right?

Stab victims, people who accidentally stab themselves, all have to pay extra for not wearing stab resistant garments, same for gun wounds/deaths, the person and/or relatives should have to pay the NHS/police extra for failing to wear bullet resistant garments, what about smokers, and drinkers, shall we charge them extra for their treatment for not doing something that we know absolutely for a fact would have prevented their hospital/medical treatments?

Because that's precisely what you've proposed, are you utterly, utterly insane!

How can you determine whether v wearing a chicken helmet saved a life or not wearing one cost a life?

My son went to A&E with what's known as a green stick fracture of the bone near the elbow. Whilst telling us this diagnosis (after seeing the x-ray) the consultant asked of he was wearing a helmet. The answer to the negative got the consultant telling us this accident might not have happened if he'd been wearing a helmet. I was the model of restraint. I do regret not asking him if he should wear one on each elbow or would one on the head stop the broken elbow.

Doctors are idiots around cyclists wearing helmets at times. Just like some ordinary people. Cycle helmets are pathetic bits of polystyrene hats. Motorbike helmets offer real head protection. Horse riding helmets offer real protection. Cycle helmets are not designed for the real time use they get. Motorbike and horse riding helmets are designed for their real time use.

Dispite having those views I still choose to wear helmets on occasion. I have my reasons. That is basically that, if you want to wear a helmet wear one otherwise don't. I get the feeling CUK has the attitude too, unlike BC I think. Showing cyclists with it without helmets in their magazine isn't supporting our promoting helmet use, it's just showing cyclists. The use of the image is about the cycling not the helmet.