I need to be in Switzerland to shoot a wedding on the 16th of July, was planning to drive out a bit earlier with a friend and do some biking – I just broke two metacarpals and had plates put in on Tuesday. They reckon 4-6 weeks for recovery which should be fine in theory but I’m hesitant to book ferries just yet. If biking is off the cards then I will probably fly.

Anyone have any experience of:

A How long after breaking metacarpals could I be back riding again as normal (and this would probably be mostly uplifted riding so lots of descending ideally). I asked at the hospital but they said ‘it depends’ pretty much.
B How long before the channel ferries/tunnel get booked up or massively more expensive, if at all

Thanks in advance

Only advice i can offer is dont rock up at the tunnel to buy a ticket – it will be crazy money. If you buy it online on the day in the car park it will be way cheaper.

You’ll be able to ride a bike I expect. However, problem I had was hoofing the front wheel over stuff, bunny hopping etc anything that involved pulling up on the bars, which you do all the time often not even thinking about it. in fact generally being a pilot on the bike (rather than passenger) was painful.

Not a wrist, but I broke my radius and was riding 3 weeks later once it was plated and the cast came off.

This was stupid for 2 reasons.

1) there would have been no strength if I had come off, the bone would have just folded in half over so much as a hard landing.

2) bones like some vibration to stimulate healing. Too much can however prevent healing all together. When I almost inevitably broke it again in the same place 6 months later the bone was non-vascular (aka dead) which is why it broke.

I’d take a road bike, and take it VERY easy on the decents!

I make that close to 11 weeks, you should fine accepting normal healing times (ie you are not a smoker, diabetic etc)

There’s a fairly solid callus formed and you should be ok for most stuff by week 6, completely rock solid by week 12.

Hang on I may have read that wrong- how much earlier than the 16th July?

Thanks peeps.

TINAS metacarpals is hand bones not wrist but your warning is heeded!

I would be planning to leave on something like the 7th July and maybe biking from the 9th/10th.

Almost 3 months it should be fine.

So you’ll be riding at 9 and a bit weeks. I would say between this and the type of riding that uplifting in the Alps involves I would feel compelled to retract my earlier optimism and say you would be better off not taking the bike. For perspective we would normally advise against contact sports until week 12.

I broke my ankle in march, rode the mega in july

i broke a metacarpal (no metalwork required tho) on the 7th of sep, did a dh race on the 19th of oct

youll be fine

just get a snowboard wrist/hand aguard

Hey forgot to check back in, thanks peeps! So, in conclusion – it depends. 🙂

Sounds like it should be ok though – wrist guard is a good tip.

…”Buy it in the car-park on the day”…
Not from a ticket-tout shirley?

You could always go riding but knock back the gnar. Just enjoy being outside, somewhere different.

You could always go riding but knock back the gnar. Just enjoy being outside, somewhere different.

I think this would be the way forward. Would quite like to do some hiking too.

For future reference: I’m going next week and I think it would be foolish to do much biking. Hand is mostly back to normal but still a little swollen and gets inflamed when I use it much.

I’ve ridden a bike a little bit but I think I’m gonna stick to hiking this time.