With No Other Option, Sikh Mother Bridges Safety and Inclusion With Innovative New Product

Jora and Kabir love to ride bikes with their friends. The thrill of the wind in your face, the freedom of having your own set of wheels before you can drive: in many ways, it seems like a right of passage for kids.

But for Tina Singh, watching her boys zoom down the street used to be a source of anxiety. That’s because the boys in this Sikh family wear their hair in a topknot under a covering called a patka. Traditional bicycle helmets don’t fit over the patka, so Sikh children are forced to rearrange their hair each time they ride or just go without. 

For Singh, forgetting the helmet was not an option. Besides being necessary for participation in many youth sports — and a law for kids under the age of 18 riding a bike in her province — Singh knows that helmets are just plain common sense.

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As an occupational therapist who has worked in the area of acquired brain injury, she’s only too aware of the potential hazards of riding a bike without a helmet.  

So at first, she tried another solution. She hollowed out the inside of helmets so that they would fit over her sons’ patkas. But as the boys grew, and their bike-riding skills and capabilities along with them, this Ontario mother knew it wasn’t a safe solution.