i know it’s a rubbish question. but.. do people die in the UK from riding their mountain bikes off road ?

i have no idea.

from falling off?

Yes.
But not very often.
Much like rambling.

Probably, people must fall and hit their heads/necks badly enough.

I quit motorbikes just before taking up mountain biking again properly… I’ve without a doubt injured myself more mountain biking over the last few months than I ever did in 5 years of riding motorbikes. Two friends have broken colar bones this year alone.

Yes, but very rarely. Even serious injuries aren’t that common – far more so on the road I’d say (even if you take out the car/cyclist collisions).

how many people have died in Cannock this year because of the dangerous braking bumps ?

People only die if they don’t wear a helmet. Fact.

Someone died of a heart attack back in July at Glentress, they were cycling.

how many people have died in Cannock this year because of the dangerous braking bumps ?

by the numbers?

2 with permits, 1 without, 3 dead wallabies. 🙂

The dangers of mountain biking are probably overstated.

Minor injuries are pretty common (cuts and bruises). Serious and life threatening injuries are pretty rare thankfully.

Statistically you are far more likely to be killed on seriously injured driving to the trails than actually riding them

there have been a couple of deaths at Glentress 🙁

A group of scout starved to death after getting lost in a Cannock braking bump

I had ’24 hours’ according to the Surgeon as a result of an infection and a kidney not working 100% from a MTB crash.
Now have a nice big ‘pirate scar’ on my neck, GRRR!

I’ve died twice, but I got better!

Someone died of a heart attack back in July at Glentress, they were cycling.

I bet more people have died of boredom reading the glentress cafe threads on here

Rugby is far more dangerous I believe.

MTB = safe/dangerous

Depending if you are concerned with deaths/life threatening injuries, or ‘minor’ injuries (scrapes, cuts, bruises, broken bones etc).

Rugby is far more dangerous I believe.

So is cricket, golf and donkey catching.

donkey catching.

the trick is to not try and catch them if they’ve fallen from above the first floor.

Catch this donkey

I was once skiing at Lake Louise, when some poor soul decided it would be a good idea to try out an area marked with the following warning sign:

WARNING! Do not proceed beyond this point. Risk of Death.

In any case, he died.

Go figure.

Some poor soul died at Kirroughtree last year (I think).

Statistically you are far more likely to be killed on seriously injured driving to the trails than actually riding them

I find that stat unlikely given how safe cars are. Any references?
In 2010, in England, the KSI rate for cars was 39 per billion miles. Given that serious injuries for RTA stats includes any broken bone or any injury requiring in patient treatment then mountain biking would need to be very safe indeed to have a serious injury rate less than driving a car.

Not that I’m saying MTBing is dangerous but cars are extremely safe.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/statistics/tables/ras30056

People only die if they don’t wear a helmet. Fact.

You know, I think you’re right. I distinctly remember that my grandfather wasn’t wearing a helmet when he died.
*runs off to see if any other people have died when not wearing helmets.*

I’ve heard of a few people dying from heart attacks but nothing from crashing. I was told that quite a few people have died in Les Arcs on the DH course however I’m sceptical.

Another fact.

A shark will only eat you if you are wet or near water.

Stay safe kids.

It’s an astonishingly safe sport/hobby, considering how many of us are rubbish and stupid 😉

I’ve been closer to death for forgetting the wifes birthday than going for a ride on my bike
And I am indeed rubbish and stupid 😯

I know of someone who has been in a coma since crashing at Cannock this Summer. Unknown as to whether a braking bump got her, but I think it may have had something to do with the skiddiness on the sandy bits when it got extra dry.

lots of casualties due to carbon frames snapping and the fibres getting into their blood.

If there are such stats, how many are due to injury/accident and how many to ill health? People die from heart attacks during sporting activity and MTBing wont be any different

sorry its the Daily Bile but one of the first from google

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-362803/Four-joggers-die-Great-North-Run.html

and cyclists locally to me (heart attacks, not necessarily fatal)

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/wallingford/9115012.Cyclist_suffers_heart_attack/

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/archive/1998/04/17/Oxfordshire+Archive/6640379.Heart_attack_cyclist_back_in_saddle/

khani – Member
I’ve been closer to death for forgetting the wifes birthday than going for a ride on my bike

Why not combine the two and increase both statistics. 😯

Someone broke their back in Hayfield a few years ago

My mate asked a mechanic in the hub about this a couple of years ago and he reckoned about one fatality a year was what they had, which isn’t much considering the number of people hooning themselves around the place. Apparently the last one at that time had been a handlebar end/head interaction?

“Apparently the last one at that time had been a handlebar end/head interaction?”

Obviously wasn’t wearing a helmet…. some people

I had an ‘unstable pelvic fracture’ and was told that there is a 30% chance of bleeding to death because you tear the arteries that run through it. However before that in twenty years no more than cuts, bruises and concussion. Friends have done arms, elbows, collar bones and ankles of course. The only actual death I heard of was from a National Trust ranger who told me about a mountain biker getting tangled in a tree and breaking his neck.

jools182 – Member

Someone broke their back in Hayfield a few years ago

How much do you want to bet that he wouldn’t have had he been wearing a helmet?

My wife went on a child bereavement course last week. Two kids were there talking about their dad who died driving home from a ride at Hamsterley.

Yes they do , customer of mine lost his life at Cwmcarn a few years back, he was wearing a helmet.

my mate disembowelled himself on one of his comedy bar-ends back in 1993 riding the bombhole at pines ridge on woodbury common..

he’s still very much alive though.. they shovelled up all the slippery stuff and stuffed it back in..

Luckily he was accompanied that day as he often rode alone and it was pre-mobile phone

a fellow guide stacked it last year in the hills around Trento, Italy. the un-capped bar spiked her in the gut. she was air-lifted to Trento and spent two weeks in care. the bar dug itself deep inside her gut and she lost half her stomach. she can no longer eat meat and can’t tolerate as much alcohol as before – a big problem for a girl from munich….

the doctors said that if she’d arrived 30 minutes later at the hospital there was a very good chance she might hae died.

whilst guiding over winter on Gran Canaria one roadie died after drifting across the road, getting bumped by a car and then falling head first onto the kerb stone (by chance i road past this guy when the ambulance and police were there. he was clearly dead – a pool of blood that had originated from his mouth surrounded him and his eyes were glazed over. horrid), another ended up in intensive care after a heart attack and one swedish guy paralysed himself trying to impress some girls by going fast, locking his back wheel in a hairpin, losing it, hitting the deck and sliding underneath the crash barrier and falling/tumbling 40m down a cliff.

on one of my tours a guy literally lost his face after not paying enough attention to his direction of travel relative to the road. he crashed into a concrete storm drain about 1ft deep by two feet across. his fall was slowed by his face grinding down the rock face above the drain.
i jumped off my bike and luckily there were three other people who saw it happen. i jumped down into the drain and landed in a pool of blood. the guy was face down and all around his head there was a pool of blood. i was scared. i thought the blood was coming from his ears or mouth. luckily the guy was still conscious. we sat him up and shaded him. his right cheek was open – a two inch, messy gash – and the bone was visible. he had his hand over his mouth and was mumbling that it hurt. i told him that he’d have to show me what the problem was otherwise i couldn’t help him. he removed his hand and his whole top lip came away in his hand until it was hanging by a thread of skin. it like something out of a film. i unwrapped a sterile patch and told him to press it firmly onto (what remained of) his lip and not to try talking.
it seemed like an eternity before the ambulance showed up. the worst part was hearing its sirens echoing around the valleys for at least 30 minutes before it arrived.

he got taken to hospital and ended up having skin grafts from his arse plastered onto his face to reconstruct his upper lip.

and the irony of it was is that this happened after i had a led the group down some rather tricky, loose, rocky singletrail and 15m away from where i’d told the group to take care on this twisty windy asphalt descent.

overall… not something i’d like to go through again…

i had some other incidents to deal with whilst on GC – a few broken collar bones; a guy that ripped the tendons that hold the ankle together and could no longer stand or pedal; one guy who drifted off the road and tumbled 10m down a cliff through cacti and shrubbery and landing a few metres ahead of a bumused member of our group; one guy who got taken out by some idiot resulting in his forearm bone sticking out through the skin and his elbow ripped open to the bone; several broken ribs; a few embedded cactus needles; plenty of grazes; and lots of punctures.