How Not to Wear Your New Riding Helmet

My Robin’s egg blue riding helmet that I’ve had so long I don’t even know when I got it (2000s/late 90s??) was retired this week.

Last weekend I went to a new tack store (new to me as I don’t know ones in my area) walked in and said, “I need a new riding helmet and I don’t want to spend a million dollars.” I really said that. From whence come these phrases that burst out of my mouth?

The sales girl led me back to the helmet section and found a “modern” black vented model and took it out of the box for me to try on. I turned my ponytail upside down and thrust it under the back of the helmet as I lowered the hat onto my head.

“It feels pretty good,” I said to the girl. She said it looked like it fit me well and that that particular one was their best selling model because it is priced well and looks decent.

When she told me the price I fell in love with it even more. It was $50. I think that’s the same price I paid for the “notice-my-Easter-egg-blue helmet” version that I’ve just retired.

I stepped over to the mirror and made sure it was less dorky that my previous model.

Check.

“I like this but let me try on one of the other ones too, just to compare.”

So I tried on a very popular, might I even use the word “hip,” brand of riding helmet and although it looked cute (if that’s possible for protective headwear), it was not as comfortable and cost more than three times the one I had just fallen in love with.

Yesterday was my inaugural ride in my more subtle helmet. I put it on a minute before I bridled Rio, my trainer’s mellow Morgan eventer. As I shoved a loose strand of hair under the right side and adjusted the headset (which is the coolest invention ever and makes hearing the trainer soooo much easier), I leaned over and shook my head to see if the helmet was on securely. It was. That was without the chin strap snapped and adjusted.

If snug is good, then snugger must be better, I thought. So I turned the dial on the back of the helmet to make it just a teeny bit tighter–for extra safety. Looking back now I realize it’s like what I did with eyeshadow when I was in ninth grade. If some color is good, then even more color must be better (unless you are a redhead and you bought totally awesome purple eyeshadow).

My lesson was amazing and it warrants a special blog post on the subtleties of outside rein connection and how to jump a five in seven, but I’ll save that for another day.

In spite of being a bit winded and sweaty, at the end of the lesson I felt pretty good. By the time I got home to start getting ready for the play we had tickets for (and forgot about until that afternoon), my vision was doing something funny. My right eye had an area that was showing me a bit of a wavy “picture” and my peripheral vision was kind of like dead space. As I stood in front of my bathroom mirror getting ready, I had to adjust my eyes (move my head) to see my right wrist.

I’ve had a handful of migraines before. They’ve never been excruciatingly painful, but I first notice them when my peripheral vision starts to go away. I have felt like a horse in blinders. That’s how I’ve described my version of a migraine. Thankfully I don’t get nauseous or have to be away from light. I wasn’t too alarmed but did ask Mark to look up my symptoms. As he was Googling away, I noticed a kaleidoscope in my right eye. The waves were replaced by color. Psychedelic.

I reported my latest symptom and looked at my forehead; it seemed normal. However, driving home I had noticed a pink horizontal line where the helmet had been.

Mark found a website that talked about migraines in your eye and the symptoms were precisely what I was experiencing. He said a quick prayer that my eye would be restored and I would be calm. We are not from church backgrounds where faith healing occurs, so I was kind of surprised when he did that, but it never hurts to ask.

I kept getting ready and as time went on, my vision slowly became normal again. Slowly. I didn’t really notice it was happening until at one point I thought, “I see normally again.”

We made it in the nick of time to Tartuffe. My head began to feel tight. Like I was wearing a riding helmet. I was still able to enjoy the production (even though I might have dozed off for a few seconds here and there–hey–it was a rigorous riding lesson!). And why do plays have to start so late to begin with? 8 p.m. Zzzz

My vision has been normal all day today, and my head feels fine. So I think I might have learned a valuable lesson yesterday. Tighter is not necessarily better, nor does it mean safer.

What about you? Do you have helmet tips? How to gauge if the fit is right? Have you experienced ill effects related to wearing protective headwear (hat hair doesn’t count)?

7 Comments

gallopsandgarlands May 12, 2014 at 4:01 am - Reply

I know many ladies who wear Charles Owen in the showring and are between sizes opt for the larger size and use 1 or 2 tissues. I always used to fit helmets on beginner riders tight enough that when you wobbled the helmet, your forehead skin and eyebrows moved with it 🙂

Hope the vision is back to normal and headaches are gone!
- Susan Friedland-Smith May 12, 2014 at 8:01 am - Reply
  
  Thank you! I also think the fact that I was PMS-ing and I did a rigorous weight workout that morning might have been triggers to my body’s overall “tight” feeling. That and the tight hat.
  
  How do the ladies with the CO helmets keep the tissues from sliding out? Is it tucked up underneath the lining?
  
  🙂
  - gallopsandgarlands May 13, 2014 at 4:41 am
    
    Yes, they just tuck in under the lining, the same with getting a good fit with a Top Hat. Hopefully hat wearing drama’s are no more :)!
    
    I love how you all in the US flip the pony tail up underneath, so much more practical!
  - Susan Friedland-Smith May 13, 2014 at 9:49 am
    
    So now my curiosity is piqued! How do Australians wear their hair under a helmet?
  - gallopsandgarlands May 17, 2014 at 4:25 am
    
    We are so blasé…just a pony tail with some ribbon adornment for training. Otherwise much like a neat dressage bun. I’ve found the US style is great as you don’t require a spare elastic on your wrist!
Becky May 12, 2014 at 4:50 am - Reply

Lots of helmet fitting advice here: http://www.riders4helmets.com/?s=how+to+fit+a+helmet

I’m thinking I should buy my new helmet in the US if you can get a nice one for $50! Mine is due for a replacement and to get the exact same one again is £98 (about $165) and to get the even-nicer one by the same brand is even more! Mine doesn’t have a crank thingy like yours, it has a laced corset-style bit on the harness, so it’s actually not possible to squeeze it too tight. Particularly when I was in my teens and probably growing a lot, I had to change my helmet a lot (I always felt guilty, because my parents paid unquestioningly, but I felt bad about the money they spent) as I had at least two which started giving me headaches as I grew.

I was a little startled (and may have misinterpreted, so forgive me if I have) about you tucking your ponytail under your helmet (in my brain, this looks like you’ve placed it over the top of your head?), as I wouldn’t have called that a good idea (I may be wrong about this, so please check it out with a helmet fitter before you panic): it seemed a bit to me like the advice you head about babies, kids and car seats (not that I know a lot about it, I just know the golden rule) – that the harness must be as close to the baby/child as possible, if they need a blanket, it goes OVER the harness, not between child and harness, because in the event of an accident, the harness then isn’t tight enough to their body. Does that analogy make sense? And as I said, I may be wrong. I just always feel that there should be as little as possible (hair being the exception!) between your head and your helmet (e.g. wearing a hood or a scarf between your hair and your helmet seems like a bad idea, as it would seem that the helmet is therefore a poor fit).

I think I’ve rattled on enough!
- Susan Friedland-Smith May 12, 2014 at 8:09 am - Reply
  
  I’m very touched that you care enough about my noggin’ that you did rattle on. 🙂 Thank you.
  
  My ponytail holder is low and not underneath the helmet. The tail part is flipped upside down and inside the helmet. My hair is long enough that I could still kind of twist and flip it up sans the ponytail holder.
  
  This is how I’ve worn my hair in a helmet forever (and how I see the other long-haired gals wear their hair/helmets too). I’m pretty sure that I’m good.
  
  I will definitely check out the link you shared. Yay!