Let’s hope there’s some reporting of the case as it progresses, to save us this pointless bickering.

On the contrary. Sad story, crap misleading article, no winners and debate that runs the risk of descending to a poor level. Let’s hope the story dies quickly and that the injured parties get their just results.

Another thing to think about when riding BKB now!!

There’s no debate “aracer” is right – we’re wrong!

I went on a basic skillz course last year, I’ve been MTBing since 1993.

Just thought Id chip in, I have no real opinion at the moment.

Quite an interesting case though, for an insurancer like myself.

When I’ve replied in that way it’s been to comments which seem to have ignored previous explanations rather than explaining why they’re wrong. We did already do that in the world outside STW an experienced mountain biker doesn’t mean quite the same as we mean here, and given I got several people agreeing with me then it seems it was explained well enough. I’m not seeing people disagree with explanations given earlier, simply repeating of previous comments which have been answered.

This is a massive leap of faith, especially as the solicitor says “”A mountain bike rider who is on a course for beginners and is a novice”- nothing specific to “rough terrain” or “descents”. Essentially you’ve decided what it must mean, without anything to support it.

It says in the article ‘Although experienced in cycling and mountain biking, he was a novice to “rough terrain” and “descents”.’, which is where I was getting that from – not my words, and that supports my explanation quite well.

Wrong side of bed this morning, cyclelife?

No, just fed up of reading self opinionated posts.

Looking at the videos it looks like pretty flat single track

It’s not a steep trail as such but it’s downhill enough to pick up a big head of speed, falling on which is much more dangerous than going OTB at 3mph on a steep nadgery bit.

Feel free to provide a coherent argument why I’m wrong, cyclelife.

I’m starting from the assumption that a top barrister does have a coherent argument when he’s appearing in court.

My thoughts/opinions are posted above for all to see, they mostly disagree with yours. The way you present your opinions as being THE only correct ones is what’s winding a few of us up.

None of us know what happened that day and we don’t have many facts at all other than some guy on a course crashed.

It will be interesting to read the judgement about where responsibility lies. And any worth while debate will only happen after it has been issued.

wow chill pills all round

The way you present your opinions as being correct is what’s winding a few of us up.

Do people present their opinions as being incorrect normally?

Thanks THM edited post.

Well they’re my opinions, but if you’re going to repeat previous claims and basically ignore my comments rather than explain why they’re wrong, then you can’t be that surprised at me simply repeating my replies or referring you to earlier ones. I am at least trying to justify my opinions…

Do people present their opinions as being incorrect normally?

It’s not specified but is assumed in chewk’s case, I believe.

I think it’s best we wait to see the facts. Saying he’s in the wrong because of his own job or he must be an ambulance chaser is bloody weird. I hope you don’t serve on court jury’s.

Dunno if its been covered – I’ve only skimmed the thread but negligence has a very specific meaning in law and in cases like this negligence must be shown for there to be a payout. ( lawyers please correct my laymans blunders)

In this case it all rests on the instructors competence – and did he have the level of skills, knowledge and experience we would expect an instructor to have? and also were his instructions reasonable for a person professing to have that skill?

Its an odd thing. He would be held and rightly so to a higher standard than someone who was taking less experienced pals out as he is claiming to be an expert. However so long as the instructors actions would seem reasonable ( not necessarily perfect) for someone claiming to be a mountainbike instructor the there is no negligence.

Horrible accident with a bad injury ,be interesting to see if mtb training has a disclaimer on the form ,I have seen seriously injured people riding on flat sections,example , bounced on the smallest of roots broken femur to name but one ,it was stated the guy went the wrong way twice ? Haveing ridden bkb many times its not exactly a bomb hole if it’s the part I am thinking of it’s about 3 ft roll in roll out but if you cock it up as with anything there is a risk ,but if you don’t like the look of something get of and walk , not sure if anyone has ridden Hadly Olympic track at one point the air ambulance was picking up people once a week .

I think if you turn up somewhere and put a helmet on it generally means that there is a certain amount of danger coming your way, full finger gloves, maybe even riding glasses or safety glasses.

Think Climbing Walls or these go ape activitys for instance, imagine falling out of a harness and dropping 30 Feet from a tree and them claiming that wasn’t part of the plan? Of course it wasn’t but there must be an element of responsibility from the person who is in control of the apparatus? In this instance the bike rider.

You would normally look at your bike and think everything looks fine, that forms part of your own risk assessment. You would asses the trail, the conditions etc again all part of your own assessments.

The instructor has his own criteria to fulfill before he is happy that the individual can progress. That looks like the most basic trail imaginable. Smooth no rocks no gap jumps no step downs and no gully at the top. No doubt he’s come off there I’m. It disputing that but I just feel that we have a massive blame culture where an individual can get togged up in some safety equipment and then when something untoward happens say “I wasn’t expecting that”

There is I feel a certain amount of fault on both parties behalf how much and what cost is up to a n other and I understand also that there’s likely to be only losers, or

What about – an “accident”?

Why do you think he pushed him over the edge on purpose while he wasn’t looking after tampering with his brakes?

was there a thread on here about the crash? i remember someone posting something about a bad crash way back

I think the guy suing is making the best of a thin case – he has to attack the instructors competence – its the only case he has.

Good analogy. So you wouldn’t think it reasonable to sue for compensation (to try and make your life more like it was before) if you’re a novice and the instructor didn’t fasten your harness correctly? OK, it’s not that great an analogy, but on a mountain bike course somebody doing terrain they’ve not done before (so a novice at that) is relying on the instructor choosing suitable terrain for them, because the instructor is in a position to judge that, whilst the student isn’t. I think what might be being missed here is that we have a bit of an unknown unknown, or a D-K situation – the novice rider doesn’t know what he’s capable of riding.

I don’t know if it would help, but from all the available evidence it does seem unlikely to me the instructor was at fault – however I don’t have all the evidence and it’s not something I’m prepared to rule out.

Tjagain you are a master of reading into a small news article sir.

To be fair to TJ, there are many others here that seem to have enhanced skills in that area.

Looking at the videos it looks like pretty flat single track

Yeah, some people said Brendog’s crash at Rampage didn’t look too bad… You can’t judge from a video what a track is like. Not saying BKB is the most extreme track by any stretch. Just, you can’t and shouldn’t judge from a vid.

TJ’s summary is dead right and agrees with what I said.

I think smell_it is reading hora’s post as sarcastic, which I don’t think it was 🙂

The thing is, the actual injury caused is due simple luck (or a lack of it). 9,999 times out of 10,000, falling off a mtb, at a relatively slow speed, causes between either no injury or a minor one (lets say from a bruise/scuff to a broken bone, as a range of typical injuries).

Anyone taking part in Mountain Biking, which is, lets be honest, classed as an “extreme sport” ie, there is a known, and significant probability that you could be injured taking part, has to know this risk.

So, if we accept that the paralysis, whilst of course possible, is actually highly improbable (i don’t know the stats for people paralysed MTB each year, but i suspect it’s actually pretty low) then the instructors negligence must be considered without the actual end-effect being taken into consideration.

ie; Did the instructor take all reasonable steps, which were necessary in his, and other similar instructional situation, to mitigate against clients falling off their bike, where it must be noted that it is IMPOSSIBLE to prevent every single person who rides a bike from ever falling off it, and hence to prevent them suffering potential life changing injuries….

I think reasonable steps i this case can be defined in a typical instructional situation, such as:

1) Riders told and reminded repeatedly not to ride anything they are not 100% confident of clearing
2) Riders reminded to stop, get off and look at anything they are un-sure off before riding it
3) All usual safety equipment checked (helmet, gloves, maybe pads etc, depending on level of terrain being ridden
4) Bike safety checked by instructor
5) Riders coached at a sensible level of progression after a basic assessment of their skill and aptitude
6) Riders stopped where it is OBVIOUS that they are riding beyond their ability (<< this is the tricky one, because it’s’ usually obvious AFTER they have fallen off, which is too late…..)

Despite, doing all that, it’s still possible for a rider to skid on say an innocuous pine cone, in the car park, 10 sec after getting on their bike and hit their head with enough force to give them permanent brain damage. Which an normal adult should file under “sh*t happens” and no go round suing people………

I think smell_it is reading hora’s post as sarcastic, which I don’t think it was

I was 😳 but I had just drank two Six Point Resin’s on an empty stomach, and it went straight to my head 😀 apols

I just hope that, following this, all MTB instructors get clients to sign a disclaimer before they allow them into their lessons.

Bike safety checked by instructor

They don’t, they get the riders to check their own

A racer,No I don’t think it’s reasonable to sue for compensation, what I think is reasonable or acceptable is that the rider having donned a helmet and sought out a qualified instructor should have taken reasonable steps to safeguard himself against possible injury by insuring himself against such accidents.

buckster – Member 
Was this it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvAhJ81dCss
18 and or 39 seconds…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgdDPdfuGfM
…42 seconds?
Edited as original still is wrong I think

Forgotten it used to have more trees and was more of a sloppy surface. It’s all smoothed out and “surfaced” now. It’s like the motorways of Swinley now 😉

Anyway, yes, 39 and 42 in those mincing along videos (to be fair, videos did used to be more sedate affairs, plus the average Surrey Hills rider wasn’t on a Strava run).

And yes, the videos flatten it out totally. It wasn’t that much of a challenged to anyone experienced but for those new to it or a lot of weekend pootle riders it was a bit of a take a breath moment. Just one of those drops where it looked worse than it was. Though back with steeper head angles and less suspension it was more jarring.

Far more of a challenge was the old ending of Barry’s. Didn’t go down the breaking bump berms but went further along, and then straight down a muddy messy root infested slope. Best way to tackle it was as the instructor in this case said about the drop, off the brakes to the bottom. Was way more fun that ending, especially when wet 😀

Thing is, you can crash badly at any time. I went absolutely flying when riding along a flat dry part of the ridgeway. The stump of a tiny sapling was in the middle of the trail. Broke a rib and severely bruised myself.

If this guy hit an unseen rock at the wrong time – well, that could’ve happened to any of us.

Not worth the paper they’re written on. You can’t sign away your rights if somebody is negligent – and if they’re not then it’s also useless.

Not even if the instructor is negligent? If, as in your/my example you’re a novice climber, don’t know how to fasten your harness correctly yourself, the instructor doesn’t do it properly and you fall?

From the article:

He was injured when his front wheel suddenly jammed on “what looked like a clumpy, grassy piece of ground”, the High Court heard

To me that sounds like something that could happen to any of us. Kind of thing where you could run the trail 1000 times and just that one time that little rut catches you for no good reason.

Was he riding with his eyes shut?
What’s the instructor supposed to do if their client decides to not look where they’re going?

Not worth the paper they’re written on

Hm, does that count for every disclaimer ever? Funny how they still exist really.

I think there is a clear case for negligence if an instructor fails to do something, that results in injury, that the client would not be reasonably expect to spot themselves. IE failing to do up a climbing harness correctly, wouldn’t be expect by a novice, as they don’t know how a climbing harness should be done up.

But for MTB instruction, if you don’t know how to ride something you have two choices:

1) Stop, ask, or walk
2) ride it anyway and hope for the best.

When it comes to MTB features, it’s rare for them to be un-obviously “dangerous” to a novice, usually, the opposite, where a “small” drop, root, or jump looks like a massive one to a novice!

Deadkenny exactly what I’ve been thinking. JRA can really bite. **** horrible luck

No – you can deny responsibility for things outside your control, which is where they have a purpose. Whilst we’re talking about climbing, if I go to the climbing wall for example I sign a disclaimer accepting that climbing is a dangerous sport, so if I injure myself from falling off and there is nothing wrong with the wall I can’t sue them for my injuries (otherwise they would be open to me making a claim even if it was all my own fault). However if one of their top ropes failed such a disclaimer would have no value, because that’s not an expected risk. I’m not entirely sure how a hold failing would be judged – I think the disclaimer would cover them for that as it’s outside their control, provided that is they have a proper system of inspection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Contract_Terms_Act_1977#Terms_rendered_ineffective

Ah, systems of inspection, they’re not worth the paper there written on.