wrote:
Following my various other threads, I thought I had better ask this
seperatly. I am going to be skiing the off piste bits of heaveny and I
think I need a helmet. I am a bit hard up, and it seems that a ski
helmet is either $50 or $120.

I have a kayak helmet that looks like this one [1]. It was expensive.
Do you think it would do? I reallly do not want to have to spend lots
on a new one but I would if it will significantly help my saftey.

There's a reason why they make kayak helmets, and why people don't just
wear bike or ski helmets kayaking (although a few hodads always do it).
It's because they're designed to protect your head from different
things. A kayak helmet is designed to protect you from multiple
low-speed impacts: you go paddling, smack some rocks, get up the next
day and do it again with the same rock-tattooed helmet. Bike helmets
and ski helmets, OTOH, are designed to protect against a single, bigger,
higher-speed hit: it has an inner layer that's supposed to crush and
stay crushed when it takes a hit, after which you throw it away and get
a new one.

If not, what is the best one to get? I do not care in the slightest
about looks, but do care about saftey and comfort (esp. my ears being
cold) and very much about the $70 difference from the cheapest to most
of them. Any suggestions? What should I be looking at? I am used to
trying on kayak helmets, and reakon they should be a bit uncomftable so
that you should not be able to move them forwards and backwards at all.

I bet you bought one of those coolio composite $200 doesn't-fit-anybody
kayak helmets. The state of kayak helmets sucks, quite frankly, because
everybody's getting all mystical about fashion and material and ignoring
fit. Ski helmets are not nearly as weenie.

(before you ask, mine's a Wildwater slalom-cut...gee, isn't it funny how
many people you still see wearing those?)