Babes in Bike Helmets Calendar

All but the most geeked-out bike folks believe that helmets are a good thing. A small but vocal minority claim brain buckets are bad because they inspire unsafe driving or because the added mass to your noggin can be detrimental in a crash. But all that is fodder for another post. This one is about a calendar. As the name suggests, Vancouver’s Prohab Helmet Society is decidedly pro-helmet, and the non-profit organization is dedicated to making bike helmets accessible for everyone. It’s a good, but admittedly unsexy, cause. Or one would think. . . .

Prohab’s 2011 calendar, a collaboration of local artists and photographers featuring active cyclist women in Vancouver, may get some more people talking about helmets and hopefully add some cash to their coffers. The 2011 calendar, a follow-up to the organization’s successful calendar from 2010, features the Vancouver women riding and posing with their bikes in venues ranging from ladies on high-fashion bikes to a Little Red Riding Hood theme, and one shot that has a touch of a wet T-shirt contest element. These women ride their rigs for true in the streets of Vancouver, and the models are all shapes and sizes.

The calendar is $24 shipped to the U.S. or a paltry $2/month for a year’s worth of eye candy for a good cause. I can only hope, I’ve been good enough for Santa to deliver one of these to the base of my Christmas tree.

Back story on Profab. . . The organization’s goal is to “get as many helmets on heads as we can while developing awareness about the use of helmets within our bike community.” The organization was founded in the spring of 2009 by Dustin J. Bromley and Renee N. Le Page after a friend was in a cycling accident which left him with a brain injury. This was a wake-up call for the duo, who were “avid, though admittedly carefree, cyclists.” So they decided to develop awareness about the use of helmets within their urban bike community.

They organized multiple fundraising efforts, and as of this year have provided more than 160 helmets to active cyclists in and around Vancouver, B.C., who may otherwise have gone helmet-free. Support a good cause. Get a cool calendar for 2011 to boot. http://prohab.ca

—Stephen Krcmar