accident at afan today : air ambulance

Nice one buddy you take it easy. Take your time getting back on your bike & ignore any cr@p that may have been said about your riding. We ALL fall off every now & then! 😉

glad you’re ok.

Glad you are well now and should recover OK.

May I ask why the air ambulance tho? Precautionary or were you concussed / knocked out? could you have walked out or was it really not feasible?

curiosity and I AM NOT accusing you of using the air ambulance without need

Chris – I’ve replied (hopefully usefully!) On pistonheads.

glad to hear you’re ok. i’ve had a couple of very small facial scars in the past and you’ll be glad to know that they DO fade over time. can be a bit strange to deal with at first but it’s only temporary. thought such as “oh no, i’ve spoiled my good looks!” go through your head but this is natural and the way people perceive you is different to the way you perceive yourself, so go easy on yourself!

Glad you are ‘OK’….sounds like a scary one.

I replied on PH too, I’ve ridden with Chris on the PH downhill day in CwnCarn I fell of he didn’t that day!! 🙂

Get better soon,

Abarthchris good to hear your ok, sounds like a typical accident not down to lack of ability more human error, heal fast fella, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger 🙂

damn, just seen the pics over at PH. Very nasty, hope it heals quickly.

Hope you heal well abarthchris…

Was in Vancouver riding last summer, they have long sections of rubber checkerplate running on sections, not sure if its something that can be obtained here, but was quite grippy and wasn’t wearing badly despite being on a busy trail, CBC on Mount Seymour:

Get well soon mate 😥

abarth chris , glad you are on the mend and sorry to hear about the bump. I imagine you were treated at morriston hospital. were you under platics or maxfax. Just interested because my wife is a surgeon there.

Hope you make a quick recovery and get back to enjoying your riding soon!

glad your ok m8 , we all make the odd mistake , shit happends, i lost the front wheel on mine about 1 year ago , wacked me face when i hit the deck, it was sore, now got fullface lid,anyways the things people do to get into a heli, lol

Boardwalk sections are orrible, ruin a good trail (possibly because I hate riding on them, more than anything). If they’re big and full of gaps and jumps I dislike them because I know I cant tackle them properly, if they’re smaller they’re just bloody boring because its like paving over a nice section of trail.

good to know you are alright,

heal fast.

Ouch!! Glad you’re OK . . . ish. Heal real soon!

Abarthchris, good to hear you’re well chap!

Also, good to hear your response. All of us, no matter how good we are, can make a mistake, lose a wheel, etc and just crash. There but for the grace of God….

Don’t forget to donate to air ambulance, ground ambulance and mountain rescue folks!

Cheers for all the replies guys!

TandemJeremy – I was seriously out of it mate, the rangers were called first and they decided to call the air ambulance as I was repeating myself and couldnt remember anything about where I was or what I was doing. The Air ambulance couldnt land so the Seaking was called. Hope that explains a bit! I would’ve loved to walk off that hill but as it stands I still dont remember a thing about being on the trail for over 2 hours.

I was in Morriston as well, and I was in Plastics. Im not sure who my surgeon was, but whoever they were I extend my gratitude to them!

Abarthchris,

Glad your on the mend mate. Hope you and your ride will be pinning the singletrack soon.

As said above, even the very best fall off sometimes!

All the very best to you, wishing a full recovery as soon as possible

Cheers abarthcris –
I am just a nosey so and so really. ta

Good to hear you are OK now. Nasty one that.

Good news abarthchris – hope the recovery goes well.

Abarthchris, glad you’re OK. Can I recommend Neal’s Yard Rosehip Seed Oil to reduce the scarring? I landed on my face while doing the Skyline a couple of years ago and ended up with about 14 stitches round my mouth. You can hardly see the scars now, the oil is really good. That’s if you’re a bit vain like me!

I;’ve often wondered about using slate slabs on the wooden posts. It would take ages, cost a fair bit more, but you’d only need to do it once. Just think how many packhorse trails which are centurys old still exist. You’d have more problems with the posts rotting out from underneath. But then the slab would just sit on the deck. Slate is pretty grippy.

Slate grippy? Really? Not when it gets covered in gack from the surrounding trees it aint, just the same as wood! See pages like this when people make trails from slate!

*shrugs*

I’ve always found slate surprisingly grippy. It ain’t gritstone, but its OK.

Good to hear you are on the mend

Hats off to the guys who helped you (Rangers, Air Ambulance, RAF and Doctors etc) – they often are forgotten and do a damn good job when its needed.

Abarthchris hope you mend fast and get back out there soon.

[However I’m sure we all do our game safe in the knowledge that occasionally we get it wrong and things can go pear shaped. The last thing we/I want is the power that be taming our fun].

I suspect that for Afan they’d rather use the material they have on site, or the gritty subsoil, then bring in quarried stuff. There are odd little bits of “rock shore” elsewhere which don’t strike me as being any grippier than the boardwalk.

IIRC wasn’t the boardwalk grip-painted to start with, but this wore off? Hence the evil wire being used instead?

Get well soon Abarthchris, those are some proper horrible photos!

IIRC wasn’t the boardwalk grip-painted to start with, but this wore off?

I think it was. You’d need to be up there every two weeks to slap it back on. It’d be like the forth bridge.

Get well soon Abarthchris. All the best. Ps. Why do they always leave stray logs or tree stumps at a certain height next to wood work at trailcentres?! 😯

Why do they always leave stray logs or tree stumps at a certain height next to wood work at trailcentres

Becuase you’re not supposed to ride into them? Would you like them all wrapped in bubblewrap? Every tree hay bailed? Have you ever noticed they don’t leave coathooks on the trees.

Or maybe they should just tarmac it all and armco the corners.

Abarthchris, as someone who has also suffered a bad facial injury (I cut my nose off!) whilst riding I can recommend bio oil for the scares, it works a treat. Although it didn’t grown my nose back, that had to be fashioned from skin from my forehead!

Get well soon and don’t let it put you off, accidents happen to the best.

anotherdeadhero I know I know- they seemed to be ideally located for an errant faceplant thats all!

The ground is ideally located for a faceplant hora – and there isn’t a great deal you can do about this 😉

Why do they always leave stray logs or tree stumps at a certain height next to wood work at trailcentres?!

to make it more fun …. keep you on your toes …. make you a better rider …. and …. its a pain to dig the feckers out

Any stumps you see will be squared off to prevent you from impaling yourself on them. Beyond that, as ADH says, there’s not much point.

100% Science Fact, right there.

Abarthchris> echo what everyone else has said on here. Get well soon.. sounds nasty. Spoke to a quite a few concerned bikers on the trail and at the cafe.

Glad you’re okay and making a recovery.