J. Rose Style: Fashion Forward Bicycling Part 1: Helmets

Sporting apparel is not necessarily the most stylish, it's meant to be functional over fashionable. Of all the sports, cycling has gotten the worst rap, for it's ultra tight and ahem, very unflattering apparel. With the recent insurgence of people commuting by bike there has been a plethora of street style photos of women in their fashionable finery perched on the seat of a bike. While I love that people are being more active and earth friendly by cycling to work, the one major piece of equipment absent from these photos...a helmet! I know that women riding bikes want to look cute and not arrive with helmet hair to where ever they are going, but not wearing a helmet is dumb and it could be deadly. Yes you want to look good, but there are some rules to follow when cycling to keep you safe. In that vein I want to introduce my newest collaborator Thomas Griffin of The Bicycling Gryphon. Tom is here to lay the ground rules for cycling safety. Together in the next couple of posts we will discuss what to wear, what to watch out for and how to have a safe and stylish journey.

Thomas Griffin:

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when cycling.

1) Safety, making sure you have lights, bells, helmets

One major tragedy of cycling is that many of the women I have encountered simply hate wearing helmets. One friend, a woman who ran the NotSo Hostel in Charleston, SC had a beautiful scar on her forehead. The scar was from a bicycling accident, she was riding, hit a pothole and flew into a fire hydrant. She was rushed the the hospital and fortunately got away with her life and a concussion. She wasn't wearing a helmet at the time and was one of the lucky ones. I have had other encounters where a person had an accident only a few seconds after getting on their bicycle - so I cannot stress enough, a helmet will turn a major accident into one that barely phased you, and it can make a disaster into an incident you can walk away from.

It's these thoughts that had me team up with fellow blogger Jennifer Rose, who runs the JRoseStyle blog in hopes that she can give guidance and council to these situations and perhaps solutions to others.

Jennifer Rose:

As Tom stressed above there is no more important piece of equipment when riding than a helmet. Helmets, helmets, helmets! Get it into your head that on your head should be a helmet. Luckily there are a lot more options out there for finding a stylish helmet. Here are three that pass the cuteness test.

Yakkay: Cambridge Complete Helmet, $175, Adeline Adeline Bicycle Shop.