It's only recently become cold enough to wear Sealskinz' Belgian Style Cycling Cap as it's just too toasty for temperatures above 10°C. It's already obvious that this is going to be a vital winter companion, though.
Like most SealSkinz items, the Belgian Cap has three layers. On the outside there's a knitted acrylic that looks a bit like old-school jersey fabric from the days between wool and modern wonder-weaves. On the inside, there's a thoroughly up to date polyester fleece. The filling in the sandwich is a waterproof, breathable membrane.
The end result is a hat that keeps your head warm—really, really warm—and dry.
There's also a peak to keep the rain out of your eyes or off your glasses and an extension at the sides and round the back for extra warmth and to protect your ears from the breeze.
In merely temperate conditions it's head-boilingly warm, but when the mercury heads south it comes into its own, fighting off both the chill and the wet with aplomb.
There are two sizes, S/M and L/XL. Our L/XL sample is pretty snug on my 58-ish head so those with heads much bigger may struggle. The Waterproof Beanie we tested a while back is also available in XXL; it'd be nice if this hat were too.
I found it was too thick to squeeze under most helmets. That doesn't bother me as I almost never wear one these days. (The failure of widespread helmet use to have any effect on the rate of cyclist deaths and serious injuries shows they actually do bugger all.) But if plastic hats are your thing, you're not going to be able to benefit from the cosiness on offer here. Tant pis.
It would be nice if the Belgian Cap had some reflective material built-in though. It's going to be used in crappy light and low visibility, so a bit of bouncing-back-headlights wouldn't go amiss.
Which brings us to the whole issue of looks. Sealskinz stuff works, but nobody would ever accuse it of being stylish. It doesn't normally matter - who really cares what socks and gloves look like if they keep you warm and dry? But headwear's different and the Belgian Cap is distinctly gimpy. It's better than the Waterproof Beanie, which Shaun Audane reckoned made him look like a radioactive smurf, but that's not saying much.
On the whole though, this is a cap to see you through to March, whatever the weather throws at you. Its combination of warmth and water-resistance is a boon, even if it wins no style contests.
Verdict
Warm, cosy and waterproof hat that doesn't look like you have a plastic bag on your head
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road.cc test report
Make and model: Sealskinz Belgian cap
Size tested: n/a
Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
SealSkinz sez:
The ultimate cold, wet weather training hat for when you absolutely have to go out and get the miles in.
Totally waterproof, windproof and breathable
Fleece lined with additional ear band for extra warmth
Short, stiff peak keeps rain and sun out of riders' eyes
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?
Material composition:
Outer Shell: 100% Acrylic
Micro-pourous Membrane
Inner: 100% Polyester
Tidy; no loose threads.
Warm - very warm - and waterproof.
SealSKinz stuff typically lasts well.
Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose
Very well. It does what it says on the proverbial tin.
Tell us what you particularly liked about the product
Having a warm dry head.
Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product
Looking a bit gimpy. I can deal, but SealSkinz really should rope in a style-conscious clothing designer to knock the industrial edges off their 'look'.
Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.
Would you consider buying the product? Yes.
Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes.
About the tester
Age: 48 Height: 5ft 11in Weight: 85kg
I usually ride: Scapin Style My best bike is:
I've been riding for: Over 20 years I ride: Most days I would class myself as: Expert
I regularly do the following types of riding: commuting, touring, club rides, general fitness riding, mtb,
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
35 comments
How does it fare with spectacles? One annoying thing about some hats is that they press down on the arms, pushing the frame into my nose.
It will never be cold enough to wear this thing in the UK,you be dragging it off after 20 minutes
Unless the bit of the UK you live in is Ibiza then it gets plenty cold.
" (The failure of widespread helmet use to have any effect on the rate of cyclist deaths and serious injuries shows they actually do bugger all.) " Dude wear a helmet they do help against crashes studies HAVE shown (i even have seen people crash on their heads with a helmet and didn't have an injury at all!), and if not it doesn't hurt u to wear one and it it's a good example! Why are u even accepted to post here if u can't set an example for cyclists, WEAR A HELMET! I only see old guys without a helmet in Belgium and i don't get it they should set the example!
when you say 'UK' do you mean 'south of england' by any chance?
let's not have a helmet argument here. This review is about a woolly hat which, much like helmets, some people like, some people don't, but there's no law about it so it's up to each of us in keeping with our democratic principles of individual choice to choose whether we think it'll keep our ears warm or not when it's snowing
Try Netherlands, and pretty much nobody is wearing a helmet. Yet, injury rates among cyclists including head injuries, is much lower than here.
You need to learn about the design envelope for bicycle helmet protection before throwing out uninformed stuff like the above, try this for example:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/campaign/cycle-helmets-evidence
I also have witnessed people fall wearing helmets (including my daughter) and I'm convinced that that fact helped in mitigating any injury. But there are plenty of people here who will simply not accept it. Most cyclists in Switzerland wear a helmet, but the anti-brigade choose to focus on NL because it supports their case. Perhaps NL is inherently safer, or perhaps there's more to this than is obvious. My advice is to not bother with the naysayers and just play a different risk game.
And always wear a helmet when in and around the home, come on guys it's common sense.
I have the fully synthetic version of this hat and it's very good, not too hot at all, I even wore it in the pub for a few hours the other night, but also great outside in really cold torrential conditions.
And if it were cold enough (like here in Ottawa) you'd be wearing a balaclava. I bought a similar cycling hat (Sugoi) and ended up just using it when I shovel the snow of my driveway.
Sorry but the Netherlands have superb bike roads, falling there would be difficult, trust me i've biked there alot! And head injuries, how many people that fall, fall on their head? But if u fall on it u can get serious enjuries that a helmet can help with! How hard is it to wear one? U don't have to be an idiot to know that it helps when u fall on your head! Please guys WEAR A HELMET if only for setting an example for the kids! And btw throwing websites with "evidence" and "studies" is bullshit, i can put as many evidence and studies that prove otherwise, but how difficult is it to know that wearing a helmet is safer than not wearing one, as u have NO protection without one, and have some with one! And btw when u have a license with the Cycling organisation i am in, u have to wear one for the insurance!
SO PLEASE USE A HELMET IT ISN'T HARD, DOESN'T HURT YOUR EGO AND SETS AN EXAMPLE!
If u don't i hope u fall on your head one day and see how much it hurts without one!
And a cycling website should set an example i don't care if the (very good) review is about a cycling cap, people read this and think they don't need a helmet because someone with much experience doesn't wear one.
Please "put as many evidence and studies that prove otherwise".
Your sincerity and caring nature do you credit, but shouting and asserting your beliefs do not work for me. If you want me to set a "good example", you will have to convince me.
If a country made helmets obligatory and the wearing rate went from about 30% to over 90%, what do you think would be the effect on head injury rate? When this happened in Australia the effect on cycling casualties was not detectable.
http://www.cyclehelmets.org/1242.html
I know you don't like evidence, especially if it contradicts your strongly held beliefs, but I like to use it, to show that what I write has some basis in fact.
You're young - you know no better. Some of us have been riding for decades. We didn't have helmets back then. We crashed there too and survived. The old guys you see without helmets have probably been riding for many many years and are better placed than you to judge.
Seat belts weren't compulsory then either.
And Coke used to contain cocaine.
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
Did you know that the seat belt law cost the lives of pedestrians and cyclists? This is admitted in an article in the statistical journal "Significance" by four menbers of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, all of them backers of the seat belt law.
http://www.john-adams.co.uk/2013/03/24/the-biggest-lie/
Have a look at the entries on seat belts on this site.
chill out truffy and belgian guy - this article is not telling you you or anyone else they mustn't wear a helmet, anymore than it is making anyone wear a woolly hat that keeps their ears warm and it is not for you to dictate this either - you and us readers can make our own minds up about what headgear we wear - we're all individuals!
It would help if your study wasn't 20 years old (the data ends in 1994 and only runs for 7 years).
The problem with the studies are the "unobserved events" where somebody falls, hits their head, but walks away from the incident (helmeted or not) so there is no record of the event. All you get are the cases that end up getting reported probably because they resulted in a trip to the ER. Since the point of wearing a helmet is mitigating the damage in the event of a fall, these observed events skew the data.
I've busted 4 helmets in the last 10 years (OK I am clumsy). Only 2 of these required going to the ER but not for a brain injury (shoulder, ribs/lung). For the first of these the standard EMT's report didn't have a box for "wearing helmet" (I asked). So only 1 in 4 events would have resulted in a pro-helmet observation.
You miss the point twice here.
The study is about the effects of helmet compulsion. It is particularly compelling because the law produced a big step change in the rate of helmet wearing. This DID not produce a step change in cycling casualties. If helmets work there should have been a large and sudden change in the rate. What happens years later is not relevant. Are you suggesting that years later helmets began to produce a reduction, that there was somehow a delay in their effectiveness? This is unlikely.
If helmets saved lives then there would be a reduction in recorded injuries. The number of casualties is fairly constant year to year, in the absence of factors which cause change. Are you suggesting that, without obligatory helmets there would have been a sudden upwards jump in casualties? Seems unlikely.
No only ones are, are doctors, and helmets do save lives, i don't care if u believe me or not, but studies and pro cyclist do say it's true! I don't care if "studies" say there are more or less injuries with or without helmets, because no study only goes about head injury, if it would it would say there would be less HEAD injuries! Stop talking about injuries in general, helmets only help against head injuries.
Oh and btw old people can be wrong, old people once taught the earth was flat, or the sun revolved around the earth. There where more dead among pro-cyclist before helmets where used.
And about: "If helmets saved lives then there would be a reduction in recorded injuries. The number of casualties is fairly constant year to year, in the absence of factors which cause change."
U forget there are more people that ride bikes so in fact there is a reduction in %, if u even believe all those studies, because i don't anymore every day studies about all sort of things come out and gets turned around the day, week, month after. Oh and btw in Belgium seat belts let to less traffic injuries.
I don't get u guys though, it's so easy wearing one, even if for the chance of 1% saving your life u should do it, everyone should! It doesn't hurt wearing one and u don't fall more if u wear one so why wouldn't u, i really, really don't get it! WEAR A HELMET! Ow and i'm going to stop reading the comments because no one ever said here that it hurts more if u wear one! Be a smart-ass, fall on your head and get seriously injured, paralyzed, or worse, it's your life but it's dumb not to use one even if for the chance to save u! U don't look better r look more manly if u don't wear one u just look more like an idiot!
Your comments are so off the wall I don't feel the need to comment on them in detail.
They amount to, " I don't want to believe that helmets don't work so I won't.
Any evidence that shows they don't must be nonsense, but I don't need to prove this."
Your ideas about why I and others dislike helmets are just that, your ideas, and have no relation to what I think.
I appreciate that changing your ideas is painful. People often die rather than change their mind. However, I have known people change their beliefs about helmets and seat belts. They are often scientists who are trained in assessing evidence and have an ethic of basing their beliefs on that evidence. This does require that you read the studies though.
You might want to read your dated study a little closer. It shows a decline in hospital admissions due to head injuries post 1991-2 (ref. Figs 2,3, 4). It argues that the decline isn't proportional. But it doesn't (can't) control for the usage patterns pre/post helmet law. I'd argue high mileage cyclists wore helmets before the law so you would expect to see the decline in injuries be due to new (low mileage) helmet wearers.
I still maintain it is a crap study since the data is far from complete -- the narrow time frame; helmet use data is spurious; it doesn't differentiate between head injuries with helmets and without; doesn't quantify the extent of the injury; doesn't control for the riders; helmets sucked in the 1990's, etc.
I am still waiting for a quality, replicatable, study based on modern helmets with a large enough dataset (# of events) to support the conclusions. Unfortunately it would likely have to be an ER admission study (based on observed events) and that would only count head trauma. Cases like mine where the helmet was destroyed but I wasn't treated for a head injury would require the ER doctor to make a judgement call.
You suggest, with no evidence, that high mileage cyclists were more likely to wear helmets. If the new wearers tended to be lower mileage cyclists then you might equally guess that they would have had more accidents pre law, so putting them in hats would produce a bigger drop in casualties.
In fact the figures show a large drop in cycling numbers. The jump in wearing rates, the rate almost triples, is huge, and it needs some large distortion to explain how this fails to reduce casualty rates.
I have explained why cases like yours do not need to be counted : they are accounted for because head injury cases are counted, any reduction would be noted.
Helmet standards have not improved. If anything they have got worse as manufacturers have moved to national oe EU standards instead of the more rigorous Snell. The hats are sold on style and ventilation.
You argue for replicable studies. There would be ethical as well as practical problems in repeating impacts with and without foam. In any case this would not be a test in real world conditions. The only other test which satifies what seem to be your conditions is a case controlled study. These have problems in ensuring that the groups being studied are alike in all other respects than the variable being studied.
In medicine case controlled studies are less trusted than whole population studies. Which is what a compulsion law in a country provides.
I would argue that if legislators want to make me wear a helmet it is up to them to prove they work. The null hypothesis is that they don't
felixcat: I posited the high vs low mileage scenario...there is no evidence in this study to prove it either way...which was my point.
The big problem with this type of "study" is that you could show up at the ER with a skull fracture or a contusion and both would count as head injuries. Or in my case you could show up with busted ribs and a busted helmet but not be counted as a head injury (because you don't have one). What is missing is the data on when and to what degree a helmet protected a cyclist or didn't...they are meaningless without it (IMHO).
I usually stay out of these discussions because there is a phenomenon in behavioral science where other peoples anecdotal evidence is denigrated but in my 2 ER events the only physical evidence I had struck my head was the damage to my helmet (no cuts, no bruising, no headaches, etc.). The helmets were closely studied by the EMTs and ER doctors because it told them where and how hard I had hit the ground (I should post pictures of my Giro Prolite which was broken in 7 places) and why I got immediate CAT scans (which is bit of a big deal in the Ontario health care system). In this years event I ended up in a hospital that happened to have an old CAT scan on file from before my cycling events. They compared the new to old and determined there was no change after 4 helmet busting events....in my books that was $500+ on helmets well spent.
Ben Goldacre sets out the problems with studies on bike helmet effectiveness and with helmet legislation quite well I think: http://www.badscience.net/2013/12/bicycle-helmets-and-the-law-a-perfect-...
Personally, I will always wear a helmet as to me it's counter-intuitive to me to believe that a protective helmet of polystyrene could have anything other than a beneficial effect. Also because a Cochrane review found wearing one was massively beneficial, which is enough evidence for me. Their conclusion is pretty unequivocal: Helmets reduce bicycle-related head and facial injuries for bicyclists of all ages involved in all types of crashes including those involving motor vehicles. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10796827?access_num=10796827&link_typ...
I have one of these exact caps that I bought from Wiggle. You are right. The cap itself has a nice long back area that covers your the back of your neck and your ears. But you have to have the peak right forward otherwise the back piece forms a lump at the back of your neck. So if you have any eyewear it pushes your specs down and onto your nose.
It was clearly designed for people that don't wear specs. I tried to get my money back from Wiggle but they refused as the hat had been worn (how else could I have known of the problem) So I am lumbered with it. I do use it now for commuting but only as a dry warm hat to wear once I'm off the bike.
Nice warm hat but not much use for cycling if you need glasses or use other eyewear.
Switzerland?
The reason why NL is cited is because the vast majority of people using bikes are doing so as a normal means of transport. Relatively low speed, in control, utility cycling. In NL the majority of cyclists that end up in A&E with head injuries are wearing a helmet. This doesn't give them a head injury or make a head injury any worse or any better. It's simply a function of the fact that in NL people involved in cycle sport, higher speed more challenging cycling with a far higher chance of crashing are the ones wearing the helmets.
What a lot of us want in the UK is the NL model of seeing cycling as a useful means of transport that can also be made into a sport if you like that sort of thing.
Unfortunately at the moment there is a downside to the upside of increasing cycling rates in the UK. The downside is that the increased rates of cycling have been fuelled by the success of Team GB and that cycling is seen as predominantly a sport but that some "weirdos" also use as transport and did you know that some people who rise their bikes don't even care about cycle sport and prefer football??
The sporting connection is obvious in the helmet debate. It is mainly, but not exclusively, the younger, sportier, less experienced cyclists that favour helmets for their exciting weekend adventures when they go down a few steep hills, that are most vocal about helmets. I started riding in a club in 1973 and no-one wore a helmet when just riding about. So that would be training, club runs, time trials etc etc. I remember having to wear one because of BCF rules in various crits and on the track but did 7 seasons of Cyclo Cross without one. Look at some old cycling photos even of races and play spot the helmet.
But then back in the day cyclists often used their bikes for transport as well. I distinctly remember that quite a few of the older club members didn't own a car at all they just cycled everywhere.
I loved racing I still follow the sport and encouraged my son into the sport amongst others. But cycling will have taken off in the UK when people just use a bike wearing everyday clothes to trave a few miles around or between towns. It about 4x faster than walking even without breaking sweat. Much cheaper than taking the car, it's much easier to park, you hardly have traffic jams so the timings are more reliable and if you don't waste time waiting for a bus or being on a bus that goes the long way round to provide a wider service it's probably quicker than that as well.
The upside of the upside of the increase in cycling as a sport is that more people get out on the road and that makes them more experienced and considerate drivers. And some of them will get that cycling is good for just getting around and not requiring of special equipment.
As a serious question to the pro helmet compulsion/mandation brigade: What do you guys think will happen when it's realised how useless and unprotective cycling helmets are (the standards of protection have been going down), and then the lobby starts to be for more substantial ski type crash helmets? Are you still gonna be so keen?
Studies have shown that typing 'you' instead of 'U' results in me being a lot less bugged.
Yes, it's a very outdoorsy culture. A lot of families cycle. So what?
I don't necessarily think that helmets should be any more compulsory than the use of any safety gear, such as seat belts or hard hats.
I'm not sure that the value of helmets is overstated or understated. I've not fallen off a bike that involved head contact. But I've seen others who have. You can speculate until the cows come home as to whether the outcome would have been affected with/without a helmet. And it'll still make no difference.
But perhaps more responsibility needs to be taken by (or given to) those who ultimately make the choice.
The reviewer should not put his own preference in the review of this hat.
The fact that it won't fit under a helmet should be a one star for most of us who do wear a helmet for commuting.
Statistics says one thing be we all know that helmet is a safety item for those who wish to have that extra protection.
It is one of those things that you will regret not wearing if you did get into an accident where your head is the area that gets damaged.
I really don't care to educate those who doesn't want to be educated.
Its a shame that the hat won't fit under your normal helmet as it looks like something I would buy to keep my lugs warm in a Scottish winter.
With regards to the helmet debate, mine saved me from a head injury when I came off and hit the back of my head on the road at speed. It didn't prevent broken ribs though.
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