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Skiers and snowboarders race into the debate on helmets
By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
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"Ayiiiiiiiiaahhh!!!!!"
Thunk. Lights out, white bullets flashing in your brain.
You've just experienced the snowboarder's nightmare.
"The heelside slam -- everyone has been there," says Scott Oliver, a product manager for Burton Snowboards, which this year is one of several companies marketing helmets designed specifically for snowboarding and/or skiing.
"We tried to design the helmet largely around the heelside slam," Oliver adds.
Whether you ride a board in the backcountry or carve up the groomed slopes on shaped skis, helmets are the hot topic of the coming winter season.
The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is studying and testing ski/snowboard helmets to determine whether they should be required or recommended and whether a national standard for their manufacture should be created.
Among skiers and snowboard riders themselves, the helmet debate is raging, with the only consensus being that helmet use should be a choice, not a government mandate.
In the marketplace, for the first time, a wide variety of styles and designs are available. In the wake of last winter's skiing accidents that took the lives of Sonny Bono and Michael Kennedy within a week of one another, the helmets are almost flying off the shelves.
"That same week last year we sold every single helmet we had in stock," says Dane Straub, snow sports product manager for REI, which sells the helmets at 29 of its stores. "In six years, the number we've sold has done this geometric progression, to the point where we'll probably be selling several thousand ski helmets this year."
According to the Snow Sports Industries Association of America, sales of snow-sports helmets tripled between the winter of 1996-97 and last winter, from 80,537 helmets to 242,632.
At the same time, skiers and snowboard riders sporting brain buckets are still vastly outnumbered on the slopes by those without. Many skiers and riders say their ability and good judgment are all the protection they need. Some say helmets are uncomfortable and limit peripheral vision.
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Another thing limiting helmet use is the "geek factor." Some still think it's uncool to wear a helmet on the slopes. But that is changing, just like the attitude toward bicycle helmets.
"It's absolutely got to be a personal choice, but no one should feel bad or embarrassed if they do wear one," says Rob Deloria, a professional free skier and filmmaker from Idaho.
DeLoria, who does not wear a helmet, says more and more free, or extreme, skiers are wearing helmets now for a couple reasons. First, they're pushing the limits of possibility in sliding down a mountain, doing things like flips off 90-foot cliffs and skiing near-vertical, avalanche-prone slopes.
"They have to wear them in competition, and some are seeing situations where they wear them because they might be pushing things a little further than usual," DeLoria says.
"But to be perfectly honest," he added, "the name skiers who wear them are paid to wear them."
Sponsorship, of course, is the name of the game in pro skiing.
Oliver, the Burton product manager, says that pioneering snowboard company started making helmets because of demand from riders.
"It's starting to happen at the core levels because, for example, we've had some team riders that were not into helmets for ego or whatever reason, who ended up getting hurt doing big airs on half-pipes and whacking their heads," he says.
Helmet boosters point out that technology in snow sports is allowing people to do things they couldn't before. "Fat" skis now allow intermediate-level riders to venture into ungroomed backcountry, a major factor in the increased popularity of "tree-skiing," which is what Bono was doing when he was killed.
In the past 10 years ski areas have increased grooming efforts, with more and better machines, such as "winch cats" for steep slopes. That means faster surfaces, and with shaped skis that allow tighter, deeper turns, some people anticipate more injuries.
Another debate is whether helmets improve performance by giving the wearer confidence -- or whether they make people overconfident to the extent they try foolish stunts.
"We promote them as a performance benefit," says Marc Hauser, president of MPH Associates, the U.S. distributor of Italian-made Boeri helmets. "When you get in your car and put on your seat belt, it doesn't mean you're going to floor it around every turn."
Politically, it does not appear likely that helmets will be required on the slopes anytime soon. A consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman says the agency should have recommendations for the public by the end of the year. But ski areas are mounting a vigorous campaign to upend any mandatory helmet rules.
Earlier this month the National Ski Area Association sent a letter to the commission voicing concerns over the agency's "media-driven inquiry." And it noted that last year the American Medical Association declined to endorse mandatory helmet use.
An AMA study found the number of serious head injuries among skiers and snowboarders was small compared with other types of injuries -- 2.6 percent -- but young skiers have a greater risk.
The AMA concluded that available data do not merit mandatory helmet use. But it supported voluntary use of helmets by children and adolescents. It also recommended further research and asked that the American Society for Testing and Materials finalize standards for helmet manufacture and study their effectiveness.
Ski helmet effectiveness is a hot issue. Lacking an accepted U.S. standard, many helmet makers test their products to standards known as the Central European norm. Boeri and Burton, for example, recommend consumers look for a "CE" mark on the helmet.
In the United States, the Snell Foundation, which issues bicycle helmet standards, also has a stringent set of standards for ski helmets. For maximum protection, look for the Snell sticker.
Before buying a helmet, you should understand its function, which, according to the AMA study, is to "dissipate the energy of impact and protect the head from absorbing the total force of the blow."
That means the most important part of the helmet is not the hard outer shell, which is designed to prevent penetration by foreign objects, nor the inner liner, which is designed for warmth, comfort and fit. Pay particular attention to the foam middle layer, which is designed to absorb impact. Some in the helmet business claim certain models don't have enough foam for proper impact absorption.
At least eight companies are marketing helmets, in so many styles and shapes it'll make your head spin. Today's helmets are light, aerodynamically designed and often cut wide at the face to allow full vision. Many are vented in one way or another, some with ports that open and close.
They're not cheap; figure to spend between $80 and $250.
Many think it's a small price to pay to protect your major senses or save your life.
"I'm putting a helmet on this year," says REI's Stroub. "When I go to Sun Valley with my pals, we're cruising some of those runs at 40, 50 mph, and I'm thinking, if I was on a bike, I'd have a helmet on."
Fit facts:A helmet that fits properly will provide maximum protection for your noggin. Follow these steps:
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