After a couple recently I’ve finally come to the conclusion that the quicker the better. Last week was that slow is that the back wheel overtaking me, ah maybe that’s not going to work out well…
Last night was literally a how did that happen.

So which do you prefer?

With the slow ones I generally have a small chance to lessen the impact.

I prefer neither, I dislike the ones I can’t remember. The forest of Dean still owes me 35 minutes of memory loss

With the slow ones I generally have a small chance to lessen tense up and maximise the effects of the impact.

FTFY

At least with a really fast crash you don’t have time for that horrible sick feeling when you know it’s going to happen but you can’t stop it.
That’s one good thing about South Downs chalk crashes, you’re down before you know it.

It’s like when you’re rock climbing. The sort of fall when you go for a hold, or slip a foot and just peel off isn’t so bad but when you get yourself stuck and know you’re going to have to come off, especially on the lead above the last bolt its a horrible feeling.

Last one I had time to swear whilst in mid air. I prefer the quick ones.

I had one where I heard the guy behind me shout “**** hell” while I was still airborne. That smarted a bit when I landed backwards at about 35mph

Slow, anytime. I do that a lot so I’m really good at it.

medium speed are the best, like the OTB I had the other day, laughing when I hit the deck/bush. Slow ones, especially nadgery ones where you get to see the pointy rock that’s about to bruise your hip/crack your sternum are pretty bad but the worst I’ve ever had was a high speed front end washout on the road, didn’t even feel it go, just hit the deck hard and slid across the tarmac feeling my arse and knuckles being ground off as i went

Touch wood I’ve not crashed in a long while now!

Three broken arms in a row really focuses the mind on not crashing and has lead to some spectacular saves where I’d previously have bailed out! Oddly I’m also riding faster than I’ve ever managed before, it’s just very calculated and smooth.

Prior to that my last three were”

“I’m flying through the air……………………………….thwack, snap”

“Thwack, tumble, tumble, tumble……………………….urgggggggg”

“………………….crunch”

Of the three the second was least painfull and I had to look at the go-pro to figure out exactly what went wrong that had sent me cartwheeling down some fireroad (dragging front brake on a corner).

Third hurt like nothing else, as I’d ripped all the screws out of a previously plated break. Thankfully I’ve an incredibly high pain threshold.

I prefer the fast ones where you just go down.

The fast ones where you know you’re well out of shape for ages and skipping and twitching at high speed towards a certain crash are the worst though.

By far the worst through are slow, steep, OTB’s, the one’s where you just look down and there’s nothing but a couple of meters of thin air and a pile of rocks to land on and all you can think is:

“F*** you STW and your self righteous middle class ‘I do Judo and learnt how to tall without hurting myself’ bull****”

I’ve two mega fast ones in pretty quick succesion, one last year in the Alps, broke 3 ribs dislocated shoulder and fractured arm, that hurt for months and months,

Did the Ard Rock Enduro 3 weeks after getting back from the Alps and that hurt a lot not because I fell off because I didn’t but I’m not sure it did that much to aid recovery.

Oct…… KOM chasing a DH section I’d been 2nd on all year, into a long left and straight down, wet leaves! I just laid on the deck looking up trying to catch my breath thinking, how long is this going to take? Same shoulder same ribs, same sketch with rolling in and out of bed, not being able to wipe my Arse properly ……… Well pissed off,

I went through a phase of crashing a few years ago when my son would see what he could goad me into. Worst was a 30ft railway bank otb and I cartwheeled down before using a tree as a brake. While flying through the air I bizarrely thought “Oh f*#k, I forgot to get any more mayonnaise”. When I landed I was having hallucinations unsurpassed since my student days