Having just recently broken my collarbone I’m now acutely aware of 1. How bloody painful it can be and 2. That I want to avoid doing it again whilst riding

I’m looking at a lightweight, breathable body armour for trail riding, would prefer foam over hardshell and a few stash pockets would be good.

Anyone using the 7idp flex or something similar?

I’m not sure that armour can protect you from *how* a collar bone breaks – the way the forces are transmitted is not something it can mitigate?

Even a small reduction in the potential of getting injured again is worth it.
I’ve been thinking about getting some before I broke the bone, this has just made the idea more firm

IMO body armour isn’t going to stop you breaking bones, especially something like that 7idp jersey. It may reduce a bit of gravel rash in event of a crash but that’s about it.

Skills course would do far more than protection to avoid another collar bone break, and many injuries in general.

For general trail riding, the body armour vest stuff with shoulder pads etc is going to be restrictive and hot (have got the stuff but just use it for DH and BPW type says, which is rare). I have doubts that it would stop a collar bone break anyway.

I washed out on a corner once, scraped up my arm, and considered elbow pads. Then I went on a skills course and realised why I washed out in the first place. Now I’m a lot more confident on my cornering and haven’t washed out like that since.

I know where you’re coming from though Spawnofyorkshire. Just left the fracture clinic having a cast removed and a splint instead and I’m already thinking of ways to not get injured instead that don’t involve riding on flat surfaces for ever. I’m guessing the feeling will go away when I’m ready to ride trails again.

Oh, and ironically I was wearing full protective gear including a full face, back protector, etc.

I agree that these enduro vest thingies won’t stop you breaking bones – but I can understand they might provide an effective psychological benefit.

So go for the one you think looks the best for your needs and get riding again.

No body armour in the world will stop a broken collarbone! In fact it will probably make you over confident and more likely to hurt yourself again.

Learn how to crash….i.e. It’s about not tensing, tucking and rolling, and definitely not putting your arm out to stop the ground or tree that you’re heading towards at speed.

I credit judo as a child with helping. A lot of practice of how to hit mats and be thrown without hurting yourself. Also a lot of falling off BMXs as a teenager.

The old POC T gives you a mix of both soft / hard armour – helped me in the Alps a couple of times so far: http://www.pocsports.com/eu/spine-vpd-tee-archive/20330.html

Certainly seems to let you brush off smaller crashes that would have send you back to base for a day or two without armour.

jamesfts – Member

IMO body armour isn’t going to stop you breaking bones, especially something like that 7idp jersey. It may reduce a bit of gravel rash in event of a crash but that’s about it.

No, it will however it could lessor the extent of the damage.

For example I decided to do away with elbow pads one faithful day in 2009 – crashed, broke my elbow – would it have help? Possibly, it was hard-shell so it would have spread the impact over a greater distance – but what would have probably done is stopped in becoming a compound fracture, which would have saved me the ‘wash out’ which caused more bone to me lost and I wouldn’t have got the infection (that the wash out was supposed to stop) that meant it didn’t heal for 8 months, which meant more bone loss, most distortion of the joint and less movement.

I think chapking and slowman have it that it’s a psychological thing for me.
I only did my shoulder last week so a fair way off riding again.

I crash very rarely so it’s more the potential outcomes of it happening that I’m thinking about. Also as I did say it was on my mind before I did my collarbone, get the points about the armour not protecting that specific bone, but I’m interested in protection in general.

Thanks sillysilly for the poc suggestion,I’ll have a look. How does it size up?

As others have said, body armour won’t stop you breaking bones, it will help mitigate cuts, bruises and grazes however.

Learning to crash will help your chances of not breaking a collar bone (says he, 8 weeks, post collar bone break).

crashed, broke my elbow –

I think that’s a different type of injury though – direct impact rather than transmitted force.

I’d recommend elbow pads to protect elbows but you could still break your collar bone if you land on your elbow wearing them.

From bitter experience I can say that while body armour won’t prevent broken collar bone it will certainly reduce the severity of the injury (for a direct impact)

I always ride with body armour but just knees and maybe elbows (plus an EVOC back protector pack since I broke my back)

I echo that skills courses are the best but there is an element of confidence it gives me when doing more technical trails. The elbows come out for steep trails. I’ve also got a TLD vest I use for uplift days too – but I think this will stop sharp rocks and abrasions rather than bone breaking impacts.

Collar bones are a tough one to avoid due to how they usually happen.

I fractured my radius 2 weeks ago …
Body armour wouldn’t have helped at all as it was the impact transmitted from my hand.

The real reason for the crash was over confidence and not really paying attention and just plain stupidity…

I was at Southampton bike park with my 7yr old… and in fact it was really hot.. so I had my knee pads on my ankles all morning… got admonished by the 7yr old so pulled em up after lunch… and was following him down a double track with fairly small jumps but I thought I’d get a bit more air if I could go faster and not worry about landing on top of him .. so I decided to be a smart arse and jump between the two tracks…

This wasn’t all that hard.. so I didn’t put in all that much effort… jumped and the front wheel found a hole pretty much 1′ deep and 27.5 long…. so it was an instant OTB

I’ve been OTB lots… (well a decent few times) … I even spent an afternoon once doing nothing but go OTB for the amusement of my kid and show him how to land/crash..(it’s actually harder than it sounds to do deliberately even when you checked the landing and its full of soft pine needles). it’s just in this instance I had no control over the crash due to my own stupidity…

I thought about the crash after and wondered – should I have been wearing more protection .. but I unfortunately came to the conclusion if was my own stupidity and over confidence

I think had I been wearing body armour I’d just have been more careless and stupid… I did snap the camera mount off the helmet so lucky I was wearing half the helmet (no chin bar)

I went out yesterday for a gentle ride (just Swinley reds) and was actually thinking the whole time how to crash jut in case. I can’t really grip the bars properly so that stopped me being more stupid … though I did again get admonished for doing a 2′ drop off (end of Red 21 onto the fire trail)

If it’s physiological then body armour might well just make you over confident … unless you are riding FW WC DH

Learning and practicing how to crash will give you more confidence … IMHO then actually hunk about HOW you bail…
When you see the pro’s on HUGE jumps they all know how they are going to bail before the jump … so when something happens they part company with the hard and heavy object they are riding…

Just my 2p worth really….

POC stuff comes up fitted so you may want to size up. Check out Dainese too if you want a hard shell. Like others are recommending – I did buy armour alongside a skills course with Jedi that was awesome. Riding in 5.10’s instead of running shoes also made a massive difference for me 🙂

After breaking my collar bone, I now wear a RaceFace light weight body vest thing, wouldn’t call it ‘body armour’ (it’s not like the full on DH type with hard shell padding everywhere) but it does have the removable shoulder pads, bit of padding across the front of the chest bone and a removable back protector (which is always out as I already have it built to the hydration bag) along with my usual elbow and knee pads. The vest is quiet disrete, it’s made of this thin meshy type material so you don’t sweat in it under your jersey.

No it won’t stop me breaking my collar bone…but what can, it has however,on many occasions, helped cushion the blows to my shoulders on on falls, odd tree hugging and coming off on rocky areas. Not only that, it does help you to ride more confidently (after a bad fall) which most of the time, helps your riding.

TroyLee do a nice one with built in elbow pads, and more padding in, which probably works out cheaper than buying it all in separate forms, they look light weight too.

ajantom – Member

No body armour in the world will stop a broken collarbone!

Not necessarily true, smooth hard armour in particular will sometimes skid instead of digging in. Also, if you’re feeling more protected you <may> be less likely to stick out an arm.