Red Mosquito

tree_ wrote:i've never worn a helmet when riding a bike in my life

tommy wrote:

tree_ wrote:i've never worn a helmet when riding a bike in my life

Why not?

Carl Sandburg wrote:There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

bodysnatcher wrote:I don’t currently own a bike, but when I get one I will wear a helmet. What shocks me is the amount of people I see not wearing helmets on motorcycles.

Chris_H_2 wrote:i got thrown from my bike about 5 years ago on a single track (my spoke caught a log) and i landed so hard with my head hitting a boulder that i cracked my helmet.

dad wrote:

Chris_H_2 wrote:i got thrown from my bike about 5 years ago on a single track (my spoke caught a log) and i landed so hard with my head hitting a boulder that i cracked my helmet.

i'm worried you might have cte from that hit though.

bodysnatcher wrote:I used to drive a vespa-style scooter. And wore a full-face motorcycle helmet with it. Always felt like a goober bc I didn’t have some hip retro open face scooter helmet while wearing aviators or something radical. But I got hit in the faceshield by enough rocks on the highway to put that concern to rest.

On my route to work, there was an immediate 90° right turn coming out of the highway tunnel. One day there was a layer of unswept construction gravel. Hit it going a normal 15-20mph on my basic turn and tires came out right from under me. Landed face first with my helmet’s face shield closed. Entire shield and side of helmet dragged about 5 feet, scraped and the shield’s hinge broke out of the side of the helmet. Never felt so happy to not have some hip cool helmet.