Today was a sad day. I lost a dear friend. This friend has been with me over 7 years.

“Who was it?”, you ask.

Not who, but what.

Yesterday I went down on my mountain bike, hard. I scraped up my whole right side, and cracked my helmet. The scrapes will heal, the cuts will stop bleeding, and the swollen finger will stop looking like a polish sausage on my hand, but the helmet won’t heal.

That’s right. The circa 2000 Bell Nemesis Pro is officially retired. It isn’t cracked in half, but the back right corner has a section that looks like somebody took a ball peen hammer to it, and there’s a crack that you can see from the inside all the way to the hard plastic shell.

That helmet was bought for me around the time that I got the Trek 8900, when it had gears. I got that bike as a graduation present from high school, and the helmet was around the same time. My mom took me to the bike shop and bought me the most expensive helmet there because she didn’t want me to have any excuse not to wear it. And wear it I did.

That helmet has been through every single competitive bicycling event I’ve ever been in, including five 24-hour races, two whiskey off-roads, the soul ride, pines to the mines, and numerous other mountain bike races. It has gone through 3 hilly hundred bike tours, and has been through 120 degree heat and -10 degree cold. And it has survived countless wrecks, including more than I can count where I landed on my head. And the whole time, it’s taken the beating without being all that worse for the wear.

The colors are faded, and the pads are so hardened with sweat that the last time I sent them through the wash, they came out rock hard just like they went in. The straps are permanently white from salt, no matter how much I clean them, and the elastic on the back has been useless for somewhere around 5 years.

I think one of the first things that Dan said when he moved in with me was that my helmet made him ill just looking at it, and he has threatened countless times to smash it with a hammer while I slept so that I would buy a new one.

Dan: It’s now unnecessary. The deed is done.

I’ll wear it until my new one comes in, because other than the back right corner, it should still work (and it’s all I got). Today at lunch I put in the order for a brand new Bell Sweep XC in silver and black. No more red helmet for me. I thought about getting a cheaper one, and then I remembered my mom telling me that it didn’t matter how much it cost, because it was worth every penny to protect my head.

I tried on some other brands today before I ordered as well, and in the end it came down to the last 7 years of performance from my Bell. I’m sure they all would have done just as well, but nothing buys brand loyalty like being the one piece of bike-related equipment I’ve owned for the longest time. That’s saying a lot coming from the guy who now gets greeted at the bike shop with “what did you break today?”.

I haven’t decided what to do with the broken helmet yet, but even if it ends up in the dumpster, here’s a picture to remember it by:

I’ll miss you, and I hope the new one lives up to the legacy.