# Commute with full face helmet



## jseko (Jan 25, 2011)

Anyone commute with a full face helmet such the below or similar? I've been commuting on bike since the start of this year and have had two bad falls. The latest one landed me in a the emergency room and both required emergency dental treatment. The latest accident the helmet did not help me at all, and I'm not sure whether it did in the first crash. There is zero damage to my helmet this time, not, scratches, scuffs, or abrasion, and I left a big pool of blood on the trail after going OTB.

I think a chin bar would have helped in both situations.

Fox Rampage

Specialized Deviant


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## ranier (Sep 9, 2003)

Is your commute really that gnarly or are you prone to crashing?

If you check out apparel & protection forum there was a thread about light weight full face helmets.


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## highdelll (Oct 3, 2008)

wow - how are you crashing on a COMMUTE! 

I know this might raise all kinds of debate, but I don't even wear a helmet on my commute (hey, It's MY choice) I do wear one if I'm going to do a route that involves off-road.

Anyways, I could not imagine going FF - that's just me.
It couldn't hurt - nor could full body armor - I just think it is unnecessary and too cumbersome


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## jseko (Jan 25, 2011)

Not particularly dangerous I would think, I think I've just been unlucky. I've managed to crash trying to cross recessed rail tracks (perpendicular on a dry sunny day I might add) and this time I think it was a stick on the MUP. I remember braking so I can go around the stick then next thing I remember is going OTB. I'm not sure why I went OTB to be honest, I saw the stick from at least 5m and I wasn't going all that fast.


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## jsilva (Jul 20, 2011)

Sorry for your terrible accidents!

I'm sure most of us have done stupid things on our bikes and gotten hurt, and if not, then the clock is ticking. About 10 years ago I was riding my MTB up a series of easy steps, one every 5 feet or so, and when I went up one step I stupidly and accidentally pulled the brake lever, stopped and fell over sideways. I'm sure I looked like a complete dork and I sustained a bad injury to my arm (besides a massive bruise, I lost feeling on a square inch of skin for about a year). Not nearly as bad as your injuries, though.


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

I've thought about convertible helmets like the MET parachute:



I don't have much faith in helmets as a life-saving device (see here), but they're decent for preventing cosmetic damage, so I've never understood why they all leave your face and teeth wide open.

A couple months ago I took a stupid spill on a gravel MUP (bounced off a tree) and wasn't injured, but my face was covered in scabs for a few weeks. And my XC lid actually made that worse because the visor caught on the ground and basically forced my face right into the gravel. Now i'm all healed up, but I was lucky that it wasn't much worse.


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

After some more poking around, I found this old thread about the Pryme AL. It's a traditional fullface, but with some padding mods they go from this:










To this:










And they're available in NA, and fairly cheap. Hmmm.


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## DH.FR.0ne (Jul 17, 2010)

I think full face lids should be the way to go for any rider. Standard lids and pisspots dont help unless you hit the ground upside down, head first- c'mon who falls like that? Unless you're Jorge Lorenzo in the moto gp anyway.
More often than not your face is going to end up in the dirt, or at least close.
I've worn a full facer street riding before- felt like a tool, and probably looked it, but Id rather look ridiculous than rearrange my face.


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## rodar y rodar (Jul 21, 2006)

jseko said:


> Anyone commute with a full face helmet such the below or similar?


Not me, but I`ve seen mention of it for winter commuters in extreme weather. If we had colder colds or longer sprees of our normal anual cold snaps, I`d give that more thought. The vented helmets that Newf posted look interresting. I wonder if the minimal chin bars on those models actually do anything.


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

^ chainreaction has lots of positive reviews. And there are various threads online where people who own them seem to really like them. The idea is basically the same as a football helmet, and those guys haven't worn openface helmets in decades. Commuting/XC helmets are only designed for low speed impacts anyway (a 6' drop test), so a chinguard should just be as robust as the rest of the helmet. I'm still tempted.


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## pominoz (Aug 30, 2011)

Met Parachute has saved me from a few grazes to my face through trees and probably worse on couple of crashes where I've picked up scuffs on the chin bar. I wouldn't ride an open face helmet on a motorbike and doing 20-30kph+ through rocky single-track is probably more likely to see you crash.

Can't really see why you wouldn't. I live in Oz and haven't found the Parachute significantly hotter than an open face lid, not perceptibly heavier and I feel happier with the extra protection during my commute or off-road rides.


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## Shalom (Nov 7, 2008)

I have heard and seen horror stories with the Met Parachute. The chin bar is more or less useless. If it doesn't break off and cause more damage, it pushes the helmet up/off and causes more of a mess. I have yet to hear anyone say anything good about them.

But using a FF helmet for commuting? Surely if there is going to be a crash you should have enough time to get some body part in the way to stop your face grating on the ground? How fast are you commuting?

I am not trying to be mean etc, just trying to understand.


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## jseko (Jan 25, 2011)

I was probably going upwards of 15MPH when I crashed. Well, I endo'd and went OTB. My chin took pretty much all the damage. There is an abrasion on my shoulder about the same size as the end of a AAA battery. The fleshy part of my palm near the thumb is badly bruised on both hands, both about the size of a nickel.

My bike hit the ground hard enough that I think one brake lever is bent, not just shifted and one shifter is broken. My front reflector got torn off the handle bar mount. The case of my headlamp shattered from impact also. 

I wear full finger gloves, about the thinnest ones I could find and those probably saved my hands. The synthetic leather palms are badly abraded as well as some parts of the textile back side.

Depending on the part of my commute, there are portions where I know I've gone 37 MPH when they had those "Your speed is: ..." signs a few months ago. Other portions of my commute are as slow at 5 or 7 MPH. Faster than someone running up the hill at least, but not by much.


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## CommuterBoy (Oct 4, 2007)

I don't want to come across the wrong way, and it's easy to armchair quarterback stuff like this, but if you're going OTB and the major damage is to your chin and your gloves, it sounds like you need to take a course in 'how to fall' rather than get a full face helmet. 

It's all about the tuck and roll on a crash like that. You should be far more likely to break your collarbone than hit your chin. Your chin should be pinned to your chest by instinct on route to your high-school-tumbling-class rollout. The worst crash I've had on my commute was at well over 20mph on a slight downhill...I hit a brick in the dark and went OTB (I was outrunning my headlight, it was stupid...). I was wearing a typical MTB helmet, and I cracked the helmet and got road rash on the top/back of my shoulder, which would have been a whole lot worse if my backpack hadn't taken so much of the skid,

Every crash is different, but the tuck/roll instinct should kick in when you are about half way over the bars. My advice is to go crash a mountian bike a few dozen times, and skip the full face helmet.


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## ghettocruiser (Jun 21, 2008)

I wear a fullface for all types of riding in the winter since it's much more comfortable with goggles in cold weather. I supposed there are some vague safety benefits as well.

I always find the lines that people draw in the sand kind of odd. 

If you ride with *no helmet*, you are a darwin award candidate and/or organ-donor-in-waiting, but if you wear *a helmet that covers your chin* you are crashing too much/need to learn to ride.

Strange.


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## CommuterBoy (Oct 4, 2007)

^^ You forgot "if you are me, you are doing everything the right way and everyone else is wrong" :lol:


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## ghettocruiser (Jun 21, 2008)

I was trying to hold back a little.


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## ntox (Jul 12, 2009)

Ok. so I read this thread Thursday morning and was thinking that I've never seen anyone commuting with a full face helmet on. However, I was on my way to work that night and was stopped at a light and guess what I saw, someone with a full face on with front and back lights crossing my path, possibly a commuter.


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## BigE610 (Oct 24, 2007)

If your worried about your teeth why not just wear a mouth guard. Its a lot lighter than a full face helmet. In the end I say do what you want. I dont think commuting is about style at all. I get laughed at by my co workers all the time but i just tell em id rather dork it out than get pancaked by a car.


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## pominoz (Aug 30, 2011)

Shalom said:


> I have heard and seen horror stories with the Met Parachute. The chin bar is more or less useless. If it doesn't break off and cause more damage, it pushes the helmet up/off and causes more of a mess. I have yet to hear anyone say anything good about them.


If that's what you've heard, fair call. Conversely, I've mainly heard positive things about the Met Parachute. It takes a lot to break the chin guard. Without a guard it'd be your chin hitting the deck first. In a car crash a seatbelt can cause injuries...they are just less serious than the injuries you get if you're not wearing a seatbelt.

I've seen the pic of the guy with the piece of plastic in his face from the Parachute when he crashed. Care to speculate how he would have looked without the Parachute?

The big fail for me is gozzing into the chin-bar. :eekster:


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## newfangled (Sep 13, 2010)

Just digging this thread up to mention that Chainreaction has the Cratoni Ramp on sale right now for ~$70.



The chinguard is removable, and there's more info here: Die besten Fahrradhelme: Cratoni Downhill, Dirt, BMX, Freeride-Helm RAMP

It's not quite as vented as a typical XC lid, but it's pretty light at 510g. I think I might pick up one, because I could use a new helmet anyway, wouldn't mind the option of a chinguard for trail days, and it's pretty cheap. (still not sure that I'd use it for full-on downhill, but that stuff's too scary for me anyway)


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