James Schwartz's Open Letter to a Bicycle Helmet

I love my bike and can't stand my helmet. I've made new year's resolutions to start wearing a helmet that always fail by February. Luckily, it's a personal choice, not the law where I live so I can "forget" and not pay for it. TO blogger James Schwartz (the Urban Country) has compiled info about bike safety & the desire to make biking second-nature in his clever article "Dear Bicycle Helmet"

Dear Bicycle Helmet:

I know it has been a very long time since we went on a  ride together. It may sound cruel, but I honestly don’t miss you at all.

I never liked how you messed up my hair on my way to work.

It’s bad enough that the media labeled me a “helmet head”. The last thing I need is for my work colleagues to make fun of my “helmet hair” too.

Going in to work without a sweaty head in the summer is most liberating. And not needing to take a shower at work has made bicycling the most convenient, efficient and reliable mode of transportation for me.

I no longer need to carry a spare change of clothes with me and I no longer need to look like the “crazy office cyclist”. People look at me now as simply another person; one who happens to use a bicycle to get to work in the same clothes as I would use if I took transit or drove a car to work.

I know you always had good intentions, but sometimes when I wore you I felt invincible and rode on roads I probably shouldn’t have been riding on and took chances that I probably shouldn’t have taken.

Not wearing you makes me a more cautious and relaxed cyclist.

It’s not your fault that companies make you sound more important than you really are. They just want to make a quick buck, and fear is the easiest way for them to sell you.

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