So I just can’t shift this continual fear of “what if”, and the potential for broken collarbones, wrists…Even neck/back (after seeing Tom Wheeler’s story).

Maybe it’s from only starting riding at the ripe age of 30 (I’m 33 now). Or having had surfing as my main hobby throughout my 20’s, where the consequences of falling off small-medium waves are generally non-existent.

There’s a lot I love about riding. Nature, time with friends, the exercise, satisfaction of overcoming challenges, the buzz. And I only trail ride and do the odd BPW trip- reds and blues. But the fear of broken bones (and potentially paralysis) is like a dark cloud hanging over me. Time off work, writing off the summer months, time away from surfing etc would all suck.

“Get a skills course” or “just ride more and you’ll get more comfortable” or “do the above, and stay in your comfort zone” is conventional wisdom. And I agree, they are sound advice for getting more confident/comfortable.

But the fact remains that however skilled and and comfortable a rider becomes, accidents still happen and bones are broken. Tom Wheelers accident is particularly haunting as it (appeared) he was going average speed and simply collided head/neck first into a wooden post. That could happen to anyone on a trail!

I wear a Bell Super 2r, knee and elbow pads. May even get a lightwwight Troy Lee padded shirt! I have no desire to do anything above trail riding, or small jumps and small- medium drops.

Maybe I’m distorted in my thinking, from reading about accidents, crashes, paralysed riders etc. In my head, it’s as if the majority of falls onto a shoulder, wrist or neck will lead to a break. People always say how fragile the collarbone is.

Is that lunacy, and it being more of a case of 1 in 10 crashes actually doing any real harm? Is the body generally pretty resistant? Lastly, I’ve done weights in the gym for years, so am pretty muscley in an athletic sense. Does the extra muscle, strength in the connecting tissues, and increased bone density make much difference?

I’m just at the point of selling my Bird Aeris and throwing in the towel, and am struggling to tell myself “it’s worth it”, or accept the risks. Again, maybe a symptom of age and disposition…

Any words of inspiration, other than just MTFU?

i know people who seem to break a bone every time they fall off.

i know others who seem to walk away from massive crashes with little more than scuffs and scrapes

No padding will prevent a collar bone going. Oddly the best advice I can offer is to learn how to fall. I did so playing rugby, martial arts has a similar effect.

Technique and skills training will make you a better rider, but won’t help if (when!) you crash. Sadly, I don’t know of any skills courses that teach falling off!

Roll in to it, basically!

Personally when I think about it while not riding it worries me a bit. However, as soon as I get on my bike all fear vanishes, right upto the point the trail ends and I giggle like a lunatic about all the near misses on the way down.

where the consequences of falling off small-medium waves are generally non-existent.

……or you could hit your head, drown and die! That’s my distorted view of watersports!

You are overthinking the risk. Mountain biking is not really that risky a pastime.

On the one hand, I’ve broken the same arm three times! Some of it was the result of the break breaking again, and some was bad luck.

On the other they weren’t as painfull as you think, even the one that ripped the plating and screws out of the bone and turned it to dust! I remember being more pissed off that it was going to be another 2-3 months off the bike.

Padding doesnt help, it just protects from relatively superficial injuries which just makes you ride harder and crash harder.

I can’t help feeling that, with your mindset, mountain biking may not be for you.

check your vit d levels if you want to know how likely you are to break bones…. i’ve broken both my collarbones and shattered my shoulder and I still ride bikes… depends if you still like riding or are put off too much by the fear of what ifs… your call but I’d say mtfu.

I had this fear a few years ago after broken collarbone on bike, wrist on snowboard and many others.
Those two were both the most stupid inocuus offs, no rhyme nor reason to them.
Had to pay mortgage by selling guitars and things.
Made me very scared of going out again on bike.
Got over it though.
I just like riding now out and about, I don’t need to jump off things anymore to get a buzz, just being outside is good.

I can’t help feeling that, with your mindset, mountain biking may not be for you.

It does read a bit like that.
It’s the same in any type of sport that has an impact risk,If you think about crashing a lot, you will crash, and if you are really worrying about it you will be tense, so if and when it does happen ,it could be a sore one.If you want to keep riding,dial back your Gnarr rating and increase slowly,so you are more relaxed,and most importantly,enjoying the level that you are at.A bit of coaching might help.

It carries similar risk to many other activities, including driving a car (which is a bigger risk), Road Biking (bigger risk still) and fell walking can be ‘at least’ as dangerous especially if walking on a high exposed ridge.

I’ve never had an injury related to a mountain bike crash and plan to continue this way. Safety is always the first priority. I don’t jump anything (I’ve not even bothered to learn how to) and I don’t treat any descent as a “race”.

If you think you are going to break bones and are riding with hesitancy then it’s likely to end with you on the floor.
Go to judo training… They teach you how to roll and break falls exceptionally well.

It’s a strange one in honesty, I’ve been riding hard All mountain, and National downhill for a few years now and have taken an absolute beating but when I was riding locally last Nov I made a mistake, and broke my spine. It’s easy to be complacent about these things, especially when riding locally but it’s always better to stay on the focused end of the spectrum wherever you ride. Equally, don’t ride scared every outing! Otherwise you might end up on your backside alittle more than anticipated! 😉

TBH, both mountain biking and road biking are very very safe. No idea where people get the idea that they are really dangerous from, probably the daily wail.
You have to really really go for it and then make a serious error of judgement (or have a total and utter skills failure) to do any serious or long lasting damage.

I’ve had a few injuries that have crocked me for a few days/weeks, but then i spent the best part of 15 years doing it for a living. I’ve had worse injuries slipping on ice when walking to the car.

After a youth being a fanatical if releativley poor rugby player, I was retired at 23 yrs old with knackered knee ( they told me that I would be lucky to walking at 50) pretty beaten up back took up mountain biking at 25, never rode a bike till 25, and I am now 50, yes I have periods of ‘ readjustment’ or recovery and my riding is irregular so some good patches and then some barren patches.

What does this have to do with OP, well my neck and back have some real weak points and a perchant for slipped disc/prolapsed discs/ rotated discs so I worry about the next crash, bang or off. I am pretty adept at falling and rolling, but still worry. Plus I am not blessed with any talent skill mor technique.

However I still ride but with in myself, okay what does that mean, well I ride as fast as I can (speed is your friend) I worry less over endo/OVTB moments ( a real fear with neck injuries) since I got a 29 er went on a skills course and
Relaxed….
A friend was training to be an sports phycology and looked at hypno therapy so needed students to practise on… for me it was excellent, rationalised my fears and with a skills course improved my riding ( though I am pants)

I will happily walk down stuff if not in the mood, happily pootle along some days, take a tumble but I am more relaxed about riding. I am just happy being out there.

So in summary try and rationalised your fears, and relax. Add in all things like protection if it helps you, MTFU well see jedi on here he had some wise words on that. Weights will help your riding but you will have silly falls, accept it as part of the sport.

Enjoy riding

P’s surfing would scare the living daylights out of me

Maybe I’m distorted in my thinking,

And it’s more likely to lead to an injury TBH. If you continually think you’re going to crash, you probably will at some point.

What Flashy said – Learn to fall. When I come off, I don’t ever put my hands down, as I have shoulders that tend to dislocate at will.

IMO most of my tumbles have come toward the end of a ride, on something inouccuous as I’m either tired or not focussing.

I rarely crash but have had some sudden impacts with the ground over the years, usually tarmac.

Never broken anything, which I think may be down to martial arts training in my teens and twenties. I seem to still break my fall and roll quite well.

I have now jinxed it and will break my collar bone walking LittleMissMC to school in the next 10 minutes…..

You can just ride within your limits to minimise crashing.

FWIW I know lots of people that have seriously injured themselves surfing if that helps!

Aye learn to fall (tuck an roll). And stay relaxed – it’s stiff, straight arms that break collar bones.

And if it happens, he-ho.

Falling off is part of it.

Think might just need some falls to prove to yourself you’re not made of glass. The muscle will help.

As above, worrying about it will lead to tension, increase likelihood of falling and causing an injury.

I find it quite easy to break collarbones. Done it twice. To the same one. Two lots of surgery and plating. Does it put me off riding? No chance. If you go through life wondering ‘what if’ then you’re not making the most of it.

The most scary part of breaking a bone is telling the wife!

Thanks guys.

Ironically, I commute on the roads daily through Bristol city centre. I’m careful, and while I appreciate that road crashes (in terms of severity) are generally worse than MTB crashes, the incidence is generally a lot lower. Likewise, I longboard skated throughout my 20’s on the pavements/roads and had countless occasions of falling on my side, only causing grazes.

So perhaps it’s my perception of MTB’s danger that is a bit skewed. But somehow, I just feel that much more vulnerable and on edge while MTBing.

Looking at it from a real-world point of view, I’ve probably used my Bird Aeris 20 times since last Sept (10 at Ashton Court in Bristol – tame blue trail, then a few times at Cymcarn, FOD, once at BPW) and never had an off. Even on the Whyte before that, I had 2 proper – albeit slow speed – offs in a year, involving the front wheel washing out. One where I fell on my face and cut my face a bit, and the other where I got catapulted sideways/forwards over the bars on a left hand switchback on ‘powderhouse’ section of Caffall at Cymcarn. While I crashed down on my left side/shoulder/head, no lasting damage was done. Out of all of my mates, only one has broken anything.

It’s a good point you make though about staying alert, within comfort zone (perhaps pushing it slightly) and backing off when required. That combined with wearing appropriate protection, should mitigate things a fair bit.

There are so many positives of the sport, it would be a shame to turn my back on it.

I completely see where the OP is coming from. I feel the same way. I don’t fall well, bruise very very easily and seem to seriously hurt myself at any given opportunity. Some people seem to me to be like “ive broken every bone in my body and I still go biking, biking for like yeeaahh” im more like “**** that it hurt” 🙂

Now a few years ago I took up motorcycling. (one of the best things ive done tbh, don’t do it anymore 🙁 ) and after a few years, track days, skills days etc I fell off at a slower pace than I would have if I was riding my pushbike. I had a full set of textiles on, shoei helmet, full set of forcefield pads (hip, knee, elbow, back, some of the best you could get at the time) and I still broke my collarbone and knocked myself out. It was over a year before I was on a pushbike and tbh the only reason im still riding and didn’t give up was down to the nice folks at Calderdale mtb club looking after me while I got back on my feet (real issue was poor nhs care for the long recovery tbh)

Anyhow long story short no amount of padding is going to stop you from breaking a collarbone. Ive done skills days and I can recommend them (if your in Calderdale woosh are highly recommended as its not a “skills day” but a riding day and it really helped me get confidence). however you really need to fall off a couple of times to get your confidence up and know that its not all doom and gloom.

Its a big thing though and you worry about yourself and your family probably worries about you as well because of it. Don’t give up but just adjust your expectations.

I’ve written about some bits of this before:
http://singletrackworld.com/columns/2015/08/man-in-red-2/

Essentially you’re not really at significantly more risk of the type of injuries you’re worried about mountain biking than you are a doing a lot of other outdoor activities. The other thing to remember is that statistically you tend to be better off in a health sense being active in slightly “risky” activities than you are being inactive.

So I’d say you need to look outside of mountain biking a bit to give you a better perspective on these “risks” that are worrying. We pick up a reasonable number of injured mountain bikers, but no where near as many as you ight think and serious injuries are thankfully very rare. I can think of maybe two incidents that fit in the sort of category you’re worrying about in the last 4-5 years, and that’s in one of the busiest trail centres in England.

There is the dichotomy of crashing better to avoid injury – as said ^^^. In some ways the more you gently push at your riding limits, the better you get at safely bailing out when it goes wrong. Collarbone breaks tend to come from quick unexpected – the sort where you instinctively stick your arm out to catch yourself. Those falls are just as likely to happen riding on the road, walking on ice, as catching a wheel on a wet root.

I’ll have been mountain biking 30 years this year. It takes a while (not that long though!) to get your head around the relative risks of riding in different ways, particularly if you’re early on the path and still developing as a rider. Give it time and it will all fall in to place.

Have you ever broken any bones OP? It’s rubbish, but, more often than not, you get over it. I started breaking myself at an early age, which I suspect helped me get over any similar fears. Telling the other half has become the biggest problem in later years, as someone mentioned. Breaking your hand the day before your child is born doesn’t win you any popularity contests.

I’m not trying to give you a sly HTFU, I have semi-irrational fears whilst white-water kayaking, just try and put it into perspective a bit. Sounds like you need to crash more often just to get your head out of the worst-case-scenarios too. Only staying within you comfort zone can often make that zone veeeery narrow.

The problem is that, if you are a rational analytical sort of person, mountain biking doesn’t really make any sense. The terrain is intrinsically unpredictable (that’s part of the appeal) so crashes are inevitable. We are surrounded by hard things like rocks and trees and we like to travel at speeds where, should we hit those rocks/trees, we may well break. Sure it’s fun, but other activities are just as fun with lower risk.

The advice above is all good stuff and serious crashes are rare, but there are very few people who ride anything more than very tame trails who haven’t had at least one injury that’s kept them off the bike for a while. I’d class myself as generally pretty risk averse and I don’t tend to ride anything unless I’m pretty confident that I have the skills to get through it safely, but I’ve still broken both arms in separate crashes and sustained a cut deep enough to need treatment and time off the bike.

It’s true that broken bones don’t hurt as much as you might think. But if you’ve got a busy life and commitments (work, family etc) the recovery period can be a nightmare. Plus, you are generally out of action and unable to do the things you enjoy.

I’m not sure I have a solution, but I do think the OP makes some good points.

If I do have any advice it would probably be to be honest with yourself about what you enjoy about this activity and what level of risk you are prepared to accept. You may then come up with a solution that allows you to carry on enjoying what you enjoy at a level of risk with which you are comfortable.

Good luck.

“I’d risk the fall, just to know how it feels to fly”

Breaking your hand the day before your child is born doesn’t win you any popularity contests.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one. Did mine the second time a week after our wedding, which was also the weekend before our second daughter was born. Neither of us were able to drive and had to rely on our parents helping out!

Mr popular I was not.

Allegedly the cyclists ‘classic’ injury, personally I favour the dislocated shoulder 🙂

Learning to fall properly can help for sure. I’ve done judo since I was knee high to a grasshopper and have found that has helped with falling off the bike.

On the flip side of that I have broken at least 2 collarbones at judo. Fortunately for me it was other people’s when I threw them!

Collar bone’s just a circuit breaker, right? Better that than the forces transferred higher into your shoulder (I was very, very drunk).

I’ve broken my right wrist (got back on, rode to hospital, back to cycling in a cast once they’d pinned it up) and left thumb (popped bone back in, taped it up with gaffer tape, went to hospital next day to get it plastered). Neither were that painful, and I found the challenge of adapting to having one hand/no thumb quite interesting – and a useful insight into what getting old(er) will be like.

Bones are tough but trees and rocks are tougher

Keep that in your head while riding

I ripped my knee apart 2 weeks before our youngest was born. Thankfully I could send a friend to tell my wife as I was at hospital by then! Crutches in the delivery room yielded surprisingly little sympathy from the midwives 😉

Neither of us were able to drive and had to rely on our parents helping out!

Yup – following an emergency c-section neither of us were able to drive after the birth for about 2 weeks. Went down really well.

I came into mountain biking late in life (61) after years dinghy racing and rock climbing. In both of these the consequences of failure is usually quite gentle .., either a splash or a fall arrested by gear, rope and harness assuming the rock is near enough vertical. So it was a bit of a shock to start falling off a bike – it really hurts!

That said, I don’t think your problem is how breakable bones are but a catastrophising fear. That can be overcome by repeated experience. I think its a good plan to concentrate on really good smooth technique which is best learnt going at speeds well within yourself. Training and skills videos help with that. After a while you will naturally notice yourself going faster and along the way you will have desensitised yourself to the worst of the fears. But you don’t want to lose it all … that would be dangerous! 🙂

I’m sure I read somewhere that the constant vibration etc caused by the act of mountain biking actually strengthens bones as it forces out microscopic bubbles as the bones form therefore making them more dense and stronger. So therefore you are more likely to break something if you stop mountain biking!

Most crashes don’t seem to lead to injury. I’ve seen countless people fall off and only saw one incident that was particularly depressing, but all the other falls I’ve seen have been nothing.

If you think mtbing is risky just think of all the thousands of germs that are around you and on the surfaces you touch.

Personally I carry some hand santizer around with me, one dispenser just about gets me though a day, and so far, touch wood, I have managed to avoid anything life threatening.

Are you confident that you’ve got the bike set up properly? Ie have you spent time sessioning a section trying really improve the ride quality that the bike gives you, and are you sure that your bike is still set up the same as it was?

When everything is setup as it should, I’m a pretty ‘committed’ rider in that when I’m riding I’m only thinking about the line I want to take and worrying about falling off doesn’t even come into it (and this is coming from someone who has crashed a lot!). When things aren’t setup right, then the fear starts creeping in, and that is the trigger to go around a start checking everything.

The point is that as soon as my bike setup is off, I have less control, and it’s that control that gives me confidence. The rub is that only you can set your bike up as you want it.

Invest a bit of time making sure the bike is working with you and not against you. I’m convinced people don’t do this enough…

it being more of a case of 1 in 10 crashes actually doing any real harm?

1 in 10?! Good grief. I’ve been biking for over 20 years, crashed loads, and never got anything more than a graze. And yes I know it’s tempting fate, but I’m actually confident enough to do this 🙂

In my experience, I’d say about 50% of crashes result in the rider getting up and laughing, another 30% the rider gets up, swears, rubs something and needs a few minutes, another 17% resulting in cuts, scrapes, damaged clothing and backing off for the rest of the ride, 2% a trip to A&E for some dressing and nurse attention, and 1% more pressing medical attention.

I think I’ve been to A&E twice – once for a dressing and once to ask if I’d seriously damaged something a week later. Both cases I continued the ride as planned, the latter was on the first lap of a 24 hour race. Bloody hurt, that did though.

I’ll admit that one crash springs to mind where I was not watching what I was doing riding along the ridgeway, and did not anticipate hitting the deck at all. Luck was probably a factor there.

Bike setup is a good call though. BITD when long stems were just becoming less popular, I struggled to stay on my Pace going down steps and drops. Riser bars and a 90mm stem sorted it right out.