New riding hat - 'date of first wear' v date of manufacture?

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soloequestrian

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It's about time I replaced my hat. I've been offered a really nice Charles Owen one - it's stock from a tack shop that closed. For a brand new hat it's a good price but the date of manufacture is 2022 so it's been shelved for nearly 3 years. The general advice seems to be to measure hat age (and therefore when it's time to replace) from the date of first wear - that's what the BHS recommend - but there is also the idea that materials degrade even when not used and so this is really a 3-year old hat. What is the general opinion and/or does anyone have any suggestions for a definitive source of information? Thanks!
 
I would imagine if it has been stored out of sunlight and in a box its probably OK, if out on display in the sun personally I would not risk it.
 
In my early days of riding lessons we drove some way to a well known saddler and they kitted me out including a hat that unknown to me had been on the shelf 4 years. The manufacturers sent me a new one through the post. But the shop obliged us to take the old one back to them.
 
It is worth noting that though the older hat may still be fine, hat design has altered a good deal.
Improvements in hats made for cyclists have affected riding helmets. My current riding hat is lighter and cooler than all previous ones. There is a hard outer shell as before which is designed to protect the skull from hard obects in a collision or fall, but the saddler (qualified fitter) inserts and adjusts a mesh cap inside that is the correct size for ones head and is designed to reduce the bruising that occurs in a fall when ones brain collides with the interior of ones skull.
 
Skib said:
It is worth noting that though the older hat may still be fine, hat design has altered a good deal.
Improvements in hats made for cyclists have affected riding helmets. My current riding hat is lighter and cooler than all previous ones. There is a hard outer shell as before which is designed to protect the skull from hard obects in a collision or fall, but the saddler (qualified fitter) inserts and adjusts a mesh cap inside that is the correct size for ones head and is designed to reduce the bruising that occurs in a fall when ones brain collides with the interior of ones skull.
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Do you mean MIPS? If so, that has been around for (I think more than) three years as I'm on my second MIPS hat, so the hat in question could well have it.
 
It doesn't have MIPS and I can't really work out why - there seem to be hats of all sorts of prices that do and don't have MIPS and I don't think it was on any of the stuff I read about safety standards while looking for information on hat age!
 
It will be out of standard now won't it? I thought they changed every 3 years. and most insurance for instructors, arena hire, shows etc needs safety equipment to be up to current standard I think. Worth checking at least
 
soloequestrian said:
It doesn't have MIPS and I can't really work out why - there seem to be hats of all sorts of prices that do and don't have MIPS and I don't think it was on any of the stuff I read about safety standards while looking for information on hat age!
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It’s a preference, and a fit thing, I have mips only because it fitted me better than the non mips version of the same hat 🤷‍♀️. My cycle helmet doesn’t have it it has a proprietary manufacturers version. To me development is actually pretty slow, far slower than a 3yo hat would worry me on that basis!
 
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