The Origin & Development of Biking Helmets

As an avid bike rider and a curious person by nature I had wondered when and how the bike helmet came to be. We all know that wearing a helmet is often mandatory in some cites and even states so as a bike rider I went on a quest, a quest of the "history of the bike helmet"

The bicycle helmet was invented because of the invention of the automobile. The auto forced construction of new roads to accommodate the new fangled invention. The new roads were also used by bicyclists and they were getting bad head injuries if they fell on the new roads. The first invented bike helmet was made of leather strips supported by wood. It was about as affective at preventining your head as if you just have wore a normal ball cap. They were often referred to as "hairnets" because they mostly kept you hair from blowing in the wind. One big problem with the "hairnets" is that they also rotted from sweat. This type of helmet was used until the 1970's! Many bike riders that valued their heads were using other types of helmets from other sports such as hockey instead of waiting for the bicycle industry to come up with something.

Helmet standards
In the 1974 a helmet committee was made to test different bike helmets this committee was called Washington Area Bicyclist Association or WABA. At that time they found that bike helmets on the market mostly had some kind of shell with a squishy foam liner but they found that the best helmets were made by a company called Bell Biker the same brand that we use today. In 1984 the ANSI head gear committee adopted the ANSI Z80.4 standard for bike helmets, the first bike helmet standard in the USA.

Kids bike helmets
In the early 1980's Bell introduced the first little kids helmets called the "L'il Bell Shell". It was at that time foam became a standard use in the bike helmet along with a cloth shell. By the 1990's the foam had now the hard shell covering we now know today.

The football shaped helmet design that is prominent today has very little to do with protection. It has been proven that a round all covering helmet offers the most protection but style sells. As of 2006 we are starting to see a change in current helmet design again, this time with the input coming from Europe. The newer designs are more covering and rounder looking. For more detailed information and photos of the bike helmets I have mentioned go to Helmets.org at their helmet history page.