WABA Helmet Committee
The WABA Helmet Update
Vol. 6, No. 1 - March, 1988
All issues index
New Consumer's Guide Pamphlet
We have revised
our pamphlet. A camera-ready copy is
attached on two separate sheets to facilitate reproduction. Bill Silverman was good enough to typeset this one, so it
reads a little easier.
If you need the pamphlet in electronic form for a newsletter, there are two ways we can provide it. If you have a PC and
a modem this pamphlet is available on John Williams' Bikenet Bulletin Board. (Parameters: 1200,E,7,1). John has other
interesting things for bicycle activists as well. Or you can send us a disk and we will put the pamphlet on it as a plain
ASCII file or Word Perfect file and return it to you. Sorry, I do not have Bill's Ventura Publisher file to put it in
that nice print. Obviously if you modify anything we do not want the pamphlet called WABA's!
The new pamphlet has been revised to emphasize the ANSI and Snell standards, since there are more new helmets on the
market than we can keep up with, and the standards are after all designed to help the consumer when no other information
on impact protection is immediately available.
Speaking of standards, we urge any reader who is a member of the ANSI Z90 committee to contact Dr. Chichester about
another meeting. We are overdue to talk about things like ventilation standards, plastic buckles that meet ANSI but break
in use, and shell-less helmets.
We Need Samples of New Helmets
We belatedly discovered that the New York show, which we had used as a vehicle for
maintaining contact with manufacturers, was discontinued this year. We will probably try to see everybody in Long Beach
or Atlantic City next year. In the meantime, we need samples of new helmets on the market to test. If you produce a
helmet we have not listed, please send us samples (two each of medium and large). We will be contacting manufacturers by
mail to-request samples of new models we see advertised. Thanks.
We Still Do Not Like the Bell "Aero" Buckle
This edition of the pamphlet notes that we do not like the current
Bell plastic buckle, even though it passes the Snell test for strap strength, for reasons we noted last time:
1) You can jiggle it loose without depressing the tongue;
2) The tongue does not spring back if you bend it severely inward, so the buckle hitches but does not lock unless the
tongue is bent fully back into position; and
3) If you adjust the strap snug against the chin as it should be, it is difficult to fasten and unfasten. As a result
we see riders leaving the strap much too loose.
Bell has responded by testing the buckle in every way they can and found that the buckle does not jiggle loose in
any set of circumstances they have generated in their lab. We are not hearing reports of failures in the field. We still
do not like the buckle for the other two reasons.
We Need Reports of Shell-Less Helmet Performance
Since the performance in the field of shell-less helmets is one
of the big question marks of our day, we would appreciate anything you can share with us in the way of war stories or
performance reports of actual field crashes. We are also interested in any stories of breaking apart during crashes, or
of any damage by solvents or normal handling. Please send them to our new address.
WABA has Moved!
WABA moved its office at the end of November to new quarters in a better part of town. Our new
address is:
Washington Area Bicyclist Association -- etc-- Washington, DC
We will be at GEAR '88 in June to present a workshop, and hope to see some of you Easterners then.
Randy Swart
Editor