[CR]Leather helmets

(Example: Framebuilding:Tubing:Falck)

From: "Ray Green" <greenjersey@talktalk.net>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:45:22 -0000
Subject: [CR]Leather helmets

Second attempt! Tom wrote> Note that is was European professional riders who rode helmetless. The amateurs were required to wear helmets (hairnets). Also, the sudden donning of helmets for Paris-Roubaix may have had less to do with the cobbles and more to do with the requirement for pros to wear helmets when racing in Benlux countries. At least that's what I recall.< Helmets were first made obligatory for pros in Belgium in the late sixties I believe. Certainly when Hennie Kuiper won the World title at Yvoir, Belgium in 1975 he was wearing a hair net. However they were seldom worn in Paris-Roubaix over the border in France, despite the percieved dangers of the pave.