Headbutting--The Best Argument for Wearing a Helmet Yet

I am not exactly amazed when people still deny they're risking their lives by riding without helmets. More like mildly interested in yet another example of the human capacity to believe whatever we want in the face of obvious facts, evidence, and (un)common sense to the contrary. Now, I'm quite willing, even anxious, for those who wish to risk their lives in such a manner to go ahead (pun intended) and do so. The way I see it, they stand to improve the human gene pool by possibly removing themselves from it earlier than necessary. They should win a Darwin Award, if they have not already.

However, watching the now-infamous headbutting incident at the TDF yesterday--and yes, Canvendish's legs won that sprint, not Renshaw's head--my first thought was, Yet another reason to wear a helmet. Then I thought about the possibilities. Would Renshaw have butted Dean if he, Renshaw, had been helmetless? What would have been the outcome if the headbutt were committed sans helmet? The answers might be Yes, he would, and Much, Much Worse--especially for all the non-butters behind them.

On the whole, however, my main reaction to the scene is disappointment. Not that a TDFer would stoop to unethical tactics, nor that he was evicted from the race for them--both are to be expected. However, I am sorry I revealed the history of my busted helmet (below) before now. Think how much I could have gotten for it on Ebay if I had advertised it as a genuine replica of the result of a Renshaw-encounter.

Riding Over the Cave, 4th of July

Mammoth Cave National Park is normally a pretty bike-friendly place, but one goes there on engineless two-wheeled conveyances at one's peril on the Fourth of July weekend: a veritable cacophonous caravan of motorcycles (many of them piloted by helmetless specimens who seem to feel superior to their pedaling cousins) and smoke-belching diesels descends on the park, for reasons known only to themselves and the Rangers who must occasionally intervene. Nevertheless, I entered and escaped the park unscathed after a ten-mile ride, bearing with me the electrons ordered in such a fashion as to produce this image. On the trailer behind the truck are not one but two smaller conveyances: a tractor and, behind it, what appears to be a decapitated station wagon. No sign of the owner. Probably off on his Harley.

Safely home, I watched the Tour de Crash (aka France), only to be dismayed that some idiot brought an apparently leashless dog, or at least a dog whose leash was incompetently operated. Seriously, who cares enough about cycling to spend hours in the sun for the chance to be hit by a water bottle flung by a passing rider, yet fails to know no dog can resist the sight of one bicycle, much less 200 of them? I guess it's all in a day's ride. . . .