I’ve often said that helmets serve no purpose when you’re riding a recumbent bike like my Tour Easy, because you’re highly unlikely to go flying head first, as commonly occurs when something bad happens to an upright bike. Well, it turns out that is wrong. Riding about as fast as I could on my steel Tour Easy (maybe 15 miles per hour at my age of 58), northbound on Sunol St., north of San Carlos St. in San José on Sunday 2015 April 19, I felt my front end lift up, and then a second later collapse under me. Next thing I knew, my helmet bounced off of the asphalt, on the right side just above the visor. Wow, this would have been a serious head injury. (It was the first time that I’d ever “used” a bicycle helmet.)
The accident was due to a quite high ridge in the pavement that runs parallel to the direction of travel. The only damage to me or my bike was a slightly sore shoulder that went away after a day, a loosened rear view mirror, which was kind of loose even before that, and another tear in the light cloth that I have clipped over my fairing to protect it from scuffs and degradation by sunlight.