I would agree except for putting on the record that CO expects to introduce solutions “sometime this year.” They could have just left a timeframe out, or not committed to one so imminent.
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I think if you flip the order of those two sentences, that would explain a lot about the responses of those two companies.
Suomy and GPA also do motorcycle helmets. A friend is sponsored by Suomy for racing motorcycles and has to be very careful with her social media lest USEF comes after her.
How come?! Oh! In case they believe her to be a ‘professional’?
Yes. She had to create a second social media for the dirt biking stuff and had to get magnetic logos for her truck. She can’t promote them or mention them at all on horse show property or her horsey social media.
That’s nuts!
It seems like Lewis Hamilton is still wearing longer braids that he pulls back into a ponytail. My guess, though, is that there has been enough money sloshing around at Mercedes F1 that if he needs a custom designed helmet because of his hair, he has one.
(I personally think he’s very cool, and very hot, if you know what I mean. Big heart, fierce competitor, and very different from most of the other F1 drivers.)
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I wonder if it’s even possible to custom design a helmet with variations that would be just as safe.
And if not, which is more important? His hair or his head?
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I also think that a big part of this is the difference in what we need the helmet to do. An equestrian helmet needs to stop concussions and trauma. To stop concussions you need a very close fit. A F1 helmet probably doesn’t protect much from concussion, since when you crash at 150MPH there’s not much you can do to stop that. But what it will do is prevent your head from becoming mashed potatoes. So the fit doesn’t necessarily need to be as tight at the top of the helmet (you can see their faces get all squished in there, but when the helmets are removed their hair isn’t plastered to their head which is why I think the helmets function this way)
I really don’t think that helmet manufacturers have ever put much thought into hair at all, Or different head shapes for that matter.
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That is actually not true. Charles Owen for example has done a lot of research on head shape and has gone out of their way to include more diversity than just white people’s heads. They’re on the record as having incorporated many more shapes of heads in an effort to better fit the heads of the world.
Here’s a related comment from one of the CO reps from my MIPS FB group. This was posted in a comment about round fits, almost a year ago.
“We adapted our round fit in 2012/13 from a sampling of young, ethnically & racially diverse riders that we struggled to fit with our “oval-ish” range at that time. We do rounds in the Ayr8, Pro II, My PS, MS1 pro, jR8 & others I can’t remember offhand (I’m not at my work desk). We have long endeavored to address fit issues as they came to us from events like Kentucky, Badminton, Burghley, since we get to see so many horse riders in one place & for them.”
Emily
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So there is one. But that is just shape of crown of the head what about depth and nape? That is where my fitting issues lie.
I know I am not the only one who cannot wear stocking caps or headbands or ear warmers without them flying right off the back of my head due to the shape of the back of my head and my nape.
Would it be useful to know what type of helmet the show jumper Danielle Goldstein used? Perhaps not genetic, but surely all those feathers and things created a lot of “hair mass” to shove in a helmet. Even if most of her hair mass hung down outside the helmet.
I have the thinnest white girl hair ever but my skull has a weird bump at the back so oval helmets have been a savior.
Interesting conversation…
I mean the thing I would suggest is reach out and talking to helmet companies.
The ones who reply and WANT to listen are ones worth talking to.
Em
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Meanwhile, the race and age of the Back on Track chief executive didn’t occur to me as I read his comment in the OP’s post. I understood what he meant, understood the issue, and I believe most people do too, without having to filter it with race and age.The US has a dressage rider headed to the World Cup in Omaha next month who happens to be African American. She wears a helmet of course. Would any equestrian media reporter ask her if she’s had problems with fitting a helmet ? I doubt it; it’s a bizarre thing to ask of an athlete.
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She appears to have worn (in photos from 2021 and 2022, at least) some kind of shiny carbon fiber GPA with a wide brim. I’m not familiar enough with GPA’s current line to know which model it is.
I don’t know how old this picture is, and I don’t pay any attention to the different brands and models of helmets. But this one kind of looks like it might mostly sit above the point of origin for the feathers.
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This is such an outrageously tone deaf comment that is wholly ignorant to the issue at hand. You are looking through this at a lens of whiteness–which is why it doesn’t occur to you to think about the context of BOT’s statement, and why it doesn’t occur to you that a reporter would consider asking a Black athlete about their helmet fit.
In order to be inclusive, we must look at the world through the eyes of those whose experiences are different from our own. BOT’s statement was ignorant at best and racist at worst, taking aside how PR savvy he is or is not, he clearly has never had to consider an experience outside of his own race. And it shows in how he views Black hair.
These conversations are happening, right now, among Black athletes, regardless of if the media wants to cover it.
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I’d be interested in custom fit liners. Would the fitters for other sport helmets be willing to work with equestrians? Would that require “blanks” from a manufacturer? Now I’m curious.
