Mine was the Saturday before last. A stream crossing which didn’t look very deep turned out to actually have around 6-8inches of silt/mud/slag under the water. Cue my front wheel sinking up to the axle and me being shot over the bars and landing in said stream 😳

My last mtb crash was beginning of September in Morzine, last few days of the season. I f***ed up on some roots at speed and landed arse first on a root and stopped dead with no roll. I fractured my L4 and damaged 3 discs in my back.

No crashes since as I’ve been taking it easy. Although I did manage to have 4 crashes trying out MX a few weeks ago… ooops.

Before Xmas I was going to the quarry on my own to practice jumping off the various kerbs. The previous session had been great and I must have done 100+ clean takeoffs and landings off kerbs between 20->70cm high.

The first one I did on the next trip was off the 20cm kerb, which I screwed up and piled my elbow (padded) into concrete, burping latex out my front tyre too – berk!

Still hurting from my ‘drop’ into the skate bowl almost two weeks ago 😳 . Front wheel dropped too quickly and I landed knees and elbows first onto concrete. Holed a new jacket in both elbows, still have one knee twice the size of the other (although I can ride – thank God) and my ankle is black (no idea why as I didn’t hurt there). Can’t wait to go back for another go though . . . as soon as the swelling goes down enough for my pads to fit 😉

My last crash was on the road.

Downhill on a winding muddy road. Suddenly a Land Rover was blocking the road. Grabbing the brakes made me start to skid so I released the brakes and tried to avoid the car.

Unfortunately I clipped the verge and went over the bars. Somehow I finished up behind the Land Rover without touching it.

Total damage: a sprained wrist and really bad cramp in both legs.

last crash (and proper ride 🙁 ) was in France in August

coming up to a rocky section & looking for the best way over when I hit a rock I hadn’t seen just off the track edge in longish grass. Stopped the front wheel & I nearly did one of those somersaults to feet, still holding the bars*

*half somersault to backpack & let go to allow the bike to land on me

lucky though – could easily have broken my arse/back as I landed on the rocks I was “planning” for

Hit a snow-covered low wall or ditch coming down off Whinfell into Borrowdale. The first I knew about it was hearing myself shouting “HUUUUIII” whilst in mid-air.

No damage done as I landed in fairly deep powder, but it did happen at the exact moment I was thinking to myself how well I’d mastered snow riding.

Adirt jumping mate was riding with us, took us down some massive jumps.. unfortunatly due to me never dirt jumping properly before, made a mistake mid-air resulting in a front flip onto my head with the bike landing on me. Knocked out for about 2 mins, when i came round one of my brake levers was bent into my leg, i had a graze down the whole right side of my body and my face was bleeding 😥
and the first thing I saw was my mate’s face, which, if you knew him, would know is NOT a good first thing to see..