“Good thing you were wearing your helmet,” one cyclist said. The one wearing a beret and had traveled from San Jose.

Ironically, earlier I had suggested not wearing a helmet. Which would be a rare moment for me. It’s even rarer than not having bike lights at night.

The following are the times that I didn’t wear a helmet:

That is it. I am the most paranoid person I know. I am the most cautious regular cyclist. Considering how accident prone I can be. I pause at stop signs while other cyclists ride around me. I avoid going down 17th street because I want to avoid all the snaking muni rails. I drive at night because I don’t want to ride at night. I go slow around cars, especially when they double park. I always take the lane and try to avoid lane splitting if ever possible.

I would like to say that my helmet saved me when I fell and landed hard on my right side of my head. But some people think differently. Would I have ridden safer (like football players without helmets) if I wasn’t wearing one? Would I have avoided in between the muni tracks if I wasn’t wearing one? I don’t know.

That night, I didn’t notice any damage to my helmet until the following morning. The lower right side was cracked in multiple places like a jagged knife running upward through the styrofoam. What is certain is that I didn’t get any surface scrapes on my head unlike my forearm (which is now fully purple and hating handshakes). Did it compress? I don’t know. At the very least, I am sad for my fancy Giro black bike racing helmet.