Aha, I thought you might have useful opinions about bike equipment, thank you for the suggestions. I'm assuming I can share jack's pump and repair kit, that's not something we'll both need to use simultaneously. I hadn't thought about buying mudguards separately so that's a really good point. And yeah, reflective stuff as well as lights, both for my person and the bike. We're past the equinox so I can't just assume I'm only going to be cycling in the daylight.
I don't want to rehash the helmet debate too much, but I don't think anyone's claiming that helmets never provide protection. Rather that there are counter-intuitive risk compensation effects going on, both for the cyclist themself and for how drivers treat them, and that cycling is not sufficiently more dangerous than being a pedestrian to justify insisting on helmets. Also that it's overall better for cyclists collectively if everybody doesn't wear helmets, because fewer safety measures mean more people cycle and more bikes on the roads is safer. I'm not hugely ideological about this, anyway, but you're not making an argument that actually counters anti-helmet claims by detailing examples of circumstances where wearing a helmet is better than not.
Miscellaneous. Eclectic. Random. Perhaps markedly literate, or at least suffering from the compulsion to read any text that presents itself, including cereal boxes.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-25 11:31 am (UTC)I don't want to rehash the helmet debate too much, but I don't think anyone's claiming that helmets never provide protection. Rather that there are counter-intuitive risk compensation effects going on, both for the cyclist themself and for how drivers treat them, and that cycling is not sufficiently more dangerous than being a pedestrian to justify insisting on helmets. Also that it's overall better for cyclists collectively if everybody doesn't wear helmets, because fewer safety measures mean more people cycle and more bikes on the roads is safer. I'm not hugely ideological about this, anyway, but you're not making an argument that actually counters anti-helmet claims by detailing examples of circumstances where wearing a helmet is better than not.