Michelin Junior bike event

David Martin said:

"Michelin Junior Bike is a European corporate event, originally created
in Italy
in 1998. It is a road event for children between the ages of 4 and 11
years
with an aim of promoting road safety and the wearing of helmets, which
are
provided free.

It seems to be a particularly unpleasant and pernicious attempt to
promote helmets via the back door. Mass road racing with children is
probably one of the very few areas where helmets may do more good than
harm, but I strongly suspect that the promotion will go far beyond that
limited scenario. (And, on a pedantic note; helmets will be provided?
If it takes, say, two minutes to *properly* fit a helmet to a child, and
there are 1000 children participating, then it'll take ~33 man-hours to
fit them all. I would seriously question the training of the fitters,
too, assuming that fitters are even provided).

On a rather grim note, it would be interesting to see accident
statistics, particularly head injuries, from these events.

R.

Richard said:

David Martin said:

"Michelin Junior Bike is a European corporate event, originally created
in Italy
in 1998. It is a road event for children between the ages of 4 and 11
years
with an aim of promoting road safety and the wearing of helmets, which
are
provided free.

It seems to be a particularly unpleasant and pernicious attempt to
promote helmets via the back door. Mass road racing with children is
probably one of the very few areas where helmets may do more good than
harm, but I strongly suspect that the promotion will go far beyond that
limited scenario.

I do not think it is racing, merely completing a short circuit with no
junctions. Be interesting to see what actually goes on, whether helmets
are actually fitted properly (or capable of fitting properly) and so
on.

Quoted message said:

(And, on a pedantic note; helmets will be provided?
If it takes, say, two minutes to *properly* fit a helmet to a child, and
there are 1000 children participating, then it'll take ~33 man-hours to
fit them all. I would seriously question the training of the fitters,
too, assuming that fitters are even provided).

I presume that fitters are provided. I have asked whether any staff are
qualified as cycle instructors to UK national standards, and why there
appears to be no interaction with UK cycling bodies.

Quoted message said:

On a rather grim note, it would be interesting to see accident
statistics, particularly head injuries, from these events.

Unreliable, as any mass event will increase the rate of collision by
some non-linear function of the density.

It is a good thing to be promoting cycling. Whether or not it does
anything for cycle safety remains to be seen.

It occurs to me that we need something akin to the green cross code for
cyclists. After all we train kids how to cross the road, rather than
just putting a helmet on them and letting them get on with it.

Anyone know of something suitable?

...d