Helmets Hit SBC Kiteboard

[oceanplay]

oceanplay, we looked into stocking them a while back. but they were just far to expensive, we done a survey and no onewe asked was willing to pay such a high price for sweet helmets.

kinda silly isn't it. willing to spend their money on other stuff but when it comes to their life. its to expensive

which one did you get??

i got the base ball cap one (sweet strutter), if you get some they will buy them, they look good. yes it's tough dealing with us the public, sorry. tell them there's a bag of weed that comes inside and you wouldn't be able to keep them on the shelf .

[RickI]

oceanplay, we looked into stocking them a while back. but they were just far to expensive, we done a survey and no onewe asked was willing to pay such a high price for sweet helmets.

kinda silly isn't it. willing to spend their money on other stuff but when it comes to their life. its to expensive

which one did you get??

i got the base ball cap one (sweet strutter), if you get some they will buy them, they look good. yes it's tough dealing with us the public, sorry. tell them there's a bag of weed that comes inside and you wouldn't be able to keep them on the shelf .

The Sweet shell and construction sounded good when I spoke to the plant in Norway about it sometime back. I was and still am a bit concerned about the sexy looking "bill" or visor loading up on impact and potentially injuring someone's neck. Some kiteboarders wear them backwards to try to reduce the drag on impact with the water and I understand some have even retrofitted the Sweet helmet to better accommodate this.

More about this at:

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2298562

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2297464

*** Here is another consideration and an important one ...

Folks with pre-existing neck injuries or particularly fragile necks may be at higher risk of inflamation or new neck injury from kiteboarding in GENERAL. The "whiplash" tendencies of this sport are fairly obvious to most of us even without ANY helmet. An excessively heavy or drag-prone helmet will make this risk o only greater. This sport is NOT for everyone unforunately, so examine your characterisitics and choose wisely.

[oceanplay]

rick i also was thinking of that and than i realised the use it was made for that white water rafting has some big pull also. i will post on how it handles some big impact i will go hard on it and put it to the test when it comes in.

[tautologies]

Hey Guys

I am convinced, but I need some advice when selecting the right equipment.
What is a good helmet? What am I looking for in terms of type. Can one use a rollerblade helmet? Or are there any particular features that the kite helmets need?


Best regards
Alex

[Steve Martin]

Alex,

Read the information in the links posted by Rick:

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2298562
phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2297464

[sid5150]

oceanplay, we looked into stocking them a while back. but they were just far to expensive, we done a survey and no onewe asked was willing to pay such a high price for sweet helmets.

kinda silly isn't it. willing to spend their money on other stuff but when it comes to their life. its to expensive

It isn't silly at all. Our local shops don't stock them because no one would buy them as well. Very few people want to shell out $50 - $100 to look like a chump.

In the very few death posts I read, I often post "He'd be OK if he were wearing a helmet..."

And the reply is usually like: "Well, it may not have helped in this situation, but you should buy one anyway".


If you don't want to become a kiteboarding statistic, fly a foil. No foil flyers dead. None. Nada. Zip. Zilcho.

Sid sends

[abel]

Hey Sid,

I like your posts very much.

My kid had a yard sale and got the gliding board hard on the upper jaw.
He had a helmet so nothing happend to him. True story.
And mmmm..... yeah he looks a bit chum inside the silly helmet.

Would you suggest me to tell him not to ware it anymore?

Be honest, OK?

[RickI]

rick i also was thinking of that and than i realised the use it was made for that white water rafting has some big pull also. i will post on how it handles some big impact i will go hard on it and put it to the test when it comes in.

I think some of the better kevlar shell, one impact foam helmets around that should work for kiteboarding were designed for kayaking. Still the bill concerns me. Unless you are plunging over waterfalls, I don't think you are likely to T-bone into the water from 20 or 30 ft. high hitting at speed. Then again, there are all those rocks to think about in streams but that is a different matter from drag on impact with water.

I just came in from a nice powered up session tonight. The wind built up a bit unexpectedly into the upper range for the 13.5 m kite that I had up. Add to that I was having some trouble with some new footstraps on my backup board allowing my feet to slip out. As a result I managed to induce a single and then double kiteloop by accident resulting in my slamming into the water at HIGH speed among the waves on some jumps. One of those times I hit head first. Fortunately, the Protec Ace Wake didn't load up to where I noticed any pain, in my head anyway. I would NOT like to have gone through a couple of impacts like that with any more helmet drag than absolutely necessary.

Hey Guys

I am convinced, but I need some advice when selecting the right equipment. What is a good helmet? What am I looking for in terms of type. Can one use a rollerblade helmet? Or are there any particular features that the kite helmets need?


Best regards
Alex

You want to try to find the best helmet that you can. I would not use a rollerblading helmet. I went through an accident with a marginally padded skateboarding helmet and in hindsight really would have preferred to have had something better on to have potentially lessened the degree of injury.

A good helmet should be light, comfortable, well secured and close fitting, well padded and not with the soft squishy foam alone either, it would be great if the shell is of kevlar but there are a lot more ABS plastic models out there, the hardware should be corrosion resistant, it should have proper protection over your forehead, not retain excess water or be too bulky or have excessive drag. What we really need is a purpose designed and fabricated helmet for kiteboarding. For now though you might have to choose the most appropriate wakeboarding or kayaking helmet that you can find.

There are two main types of helmet foam, single impact and multiple impact. With single impact (normally polystyrene or styrofoam) you have some of the best impact absorption available. The downside is that you hit it once, you throw it away and some of these models have too much drag for kiteboarding. The multiple impact foams allow just that mulitiple hits but the downside is that they aren't quite as efficient as polystyrene in absorbing impacts.

The other posts listed above contain a variety of helmet ideas. I am using a Protec Darrian Ace Wake while I look around for something better and with a kevlar shell. Lots of Pros use this model as well. I am interested to hear more about what people have experienced with some of the new kayak helmets under a variety of conditions.

[ckramer]

About helmet use I would like to point out that till now I never saw any kitesurfing package which included a helmet... i'ts a shame, especially for beginner's packages. In the most spectacular pics and videos one finds on the internet no one is seen wearing a helmet not even in commercials involving kitesurfers....no wonder no one wears a helmet.

In other sports like rafting, cycling, mountain biking, roller blades, bmx, skateboard,snowboards etc. everyone is wearing a helmet, especially douring competitions and events.

As long as in competitions, riders are not wearig helmets, no one is going to start wearing them...and aniway poeple will never wear an ugly helmet, so designers should try to come up with nice shapes. Till now the only decent looking helmets i saw are the protec ace water and ace wake, which are suitable for kitesurfing since they have holes to minimise drag, and are quite cheap...I am getting one for myself as soon as I try it I will let you know about it.

One should also stress the point that statistically it's the expert/intermediate riders who have the major number of accidents, so I do not see why douring events and competitions no one wears helmets.

[oceanplay]

About helmet use I would like to point out that till now I never saw any kitesurfing package which included a helmet... i'ts a shame, especially for beginner's packages. In the most spectacular pics and videos one finds on the internet no one is seen wearing a helmet not even in commercials involving kitesurfers....no wonder no one wears a helmet.

In other sports like rafting, cycling, mountain biking, roller blades, bmx, skateboard,snowboards etc. everyone is wearing a helmet, especially douring competitions and events.

As long as in competitions, riders are not wearig helmets, no one is going to start wearing them...and aniway poeple will never wear an ugly helmet, so designers should try to come up with nice shapes. Till now the only decent looking helmets i saw are the protec ace water and ace wake, which are suitable for kitesurfing since they have holes to minimise drag, and are quite cheap...I am getting one for myself as soon as I try it I will let you know about it.

One should also stress the point that statistically it's the expert/intermediate riders who have the major number of accidents, so I do not see why douring events and competitions no one wears helmets.

so true on all but the beginner's pac man what a great piont on that