Stay safe and wear helmets, Sir Bradley Wiggins urges London cyclists

 
“Holy Grail”: Evgeny Lebedev wishes Sir Bradley Wiggins luck with his hour challenge

Sir Bradley Wiggins has urged London’s cyclists to wear helmets to “help themselves” stay safe.

The Olympic time-trial champion and winner of the 2012 Tour de France also suggested there could be an argument for helmets to be made compulsory.

Sir Bradley told the Standard: “I think cyclists have to help themselves in terms of wearing helmets and things. I think that probably should go some way to becoming the law soon.”

His comments are likely to prove controversial as the debate rages about the safety benefits of helmets.

Sir Bradley spoke during a visit to the Standard’s offices to receive the good wishes of the paper’s owner, Evgeny Lebedev, for his attempt to set a new world hour record at the Olympics velodrome.

Many believe the compulsory use of helmets — as in countries such as Australia and Canada — would discourage people from cycling.

Helmets offer no protection from the most common cause of death for the capital’s cyclists — being crushed under a turning HGV. All five cyclists killed in London this year are believed to have suffered such injuries.

A study last year by the major trauma unit at St Mary’s, Paddington, said helmets probably protected cyclists from some head and brain injuries. They also protect from minor injuries — up five per cent to 4,134 cases between 2012 and 2013 in London.

Sir Bradley said he had noticed a “phenomenal” increase in cycling since he was appointed as a London cycling ambassador in 2006.

He hopes his attempt to set a new record for riding as far as possible in an hour — described as the “Holy Grail” of cycling — will inspire Londoners to get on their bikes.

On June 7 he will have to complete 210 laps of the 250m track at the velodrome, now called the Lee Valley VeloPark, to beat the record of 52.937km (32 miles) set on May 2 in Manchester by British cyclist Alex Dowsett.

“Something like The Hour record, when you think the distance covered in that, you could cross the length and breadth of London,” he said.

“It maybe changes the outlook for many people of how to get about. Hopefully it will inspire a lot of people to get out there. There might be just one kid in that velodrome who is inspired to do what I do, as I was 20 years ago.

“The atmosphere in the velodrome will be incredible. It’s quite humbling to think a lot of people paid good money to come and watch you do it. If it’s anything like the Olympics was, they will help the time pass a lot quicker.”

Sir Bradley said he had a “great chance” of setting a new world record.

He added: “It’s going to be tough but in some ways that is what defines you, makes you great, as opposed to just being someone who got close to the record.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in