ok so following a crash / fall last weekend I have broken the neck of my femur. I.e broken hip……the doc’s have put a pin, plate and some screws in my leg so i’m going to be off the bike for at least 12 weeks so i’m looking at hip an upper leg protection for when i get back on the bike

anyone got any good suggestions? the best seems to be the POC VPD 2.0 but there over 100 quid I know i shouldn’t cheap out but im just wondering if there are any other suggestions?

Also any suggestions on re-hab from a dynamic hip screw would be ace haha

I broke mine the same, though I just got the screws, no plating. 12 weeks on crutches, about twice that before I could do anything much with it- though I wasn’t riding at the time, and wasn’t that fit so the physio didn’t have much to work with, that probably slowed things! I’ve regained full strength and almost full mobility, it does cause me a bit of pain mind but it’s never stopped me doing anything I want (it’s actually the reason I ride bikes, I suppose! I got back into riding for rehab as I couldn’t run)

I tried POC VPDs but they’ve got an annoying wee chamois pad thing which I didn’t like. 661 Boxxer Evos are pretty good for everyday riding, they’re just like slightly sweatier lycra shorts, but the protection doesn’t feel amazing- the pads don’t cover the end of the femur that well, which seems daft, it’s the most exposed part.

The normal non-evo Bombers have better coverage but I wouldn’t wear them for anything other than downhill, they’re much bulkier.

Just a thought, but did they do any other background checking? It’s not that easy a bone to break, and cycling goes quite well with osteoperosis… That’s what got me. Worth knowing about if it’s the case as it’s treatable!

didn’t do any back-ground checking it seemed a fairly straight forward problem i fell off and landed on a big pointy rock that smashed into my leg and it broke. Apart from a couple of other small cuts and bruise’s i didn’t have any other injuries

I’m 6 weeks no load on the leg and then partial load on the leg with physio from then. hoping to be riding on the turbo in 8 weeks and back on the road bike in 12….mountain bike ….i dunno

From your description I would doubt there is any practical armour you could wear that would prevent such an injury; certainly not on that part of the body.

Happy to be proved wrong, though.

Seems reasonable then!

I guess the plate causes some differences in treatment, I was slightly weighted from the word go, and went straight from that to no crutches (which in practice still meant using at least one crutch most of the time, just had no strength or stamina in the leg and the muscle memory was shot. All surgery and disuse damage rather than break damage)

There was basically 3 things… Muscle, bone and flexibility. Bone should take care of itself, with a little luck, especially if you didn’t badly displace it. Muscle will come anyway, just need to wait til you get the allclear to stress the bone. Flexibility might take a bit of work, the standard physio regime was targeted at a reasonable degree of flexibility but I wanted more than that so we upped the ante a bit, was harder work but worth it. Just make sure all concerned know what the goals are- it felt to me like hip recovery best practice was largely aimed at pensioners with hip replacements rather than young active folks, my physio was brilliant though.

Good luck! I can’t recommend it tbh but it worked out well for me in the end. Lifechanging I suppose but almost all positively.

@Mikey- if he’s anything like me, protecting the injury site is still well worthwhile, the bolt heads stick out of the bone so can be a bit sensitive! Padding will help protect the damaged area a bit, won’t make an immense difference but then, it maybe doesn’t have to be to be worthwhile.

@Mikey- if he’s anything like me, protecting the injury site is still well worthwhile, the bolt heads stick out of the bone so can be a bit sensitive! Padding will help protect the damaged area a bit, won’t make an immense difference but then, it maybe doesn’t have to be to be worthwhile.

Ahh, OK. Fair enough.

i have an old pair of EVS shorts that have a coccyx pad and removable hip pads…they can be a bit bulky to wear but worth looking at, although the latest version of these shorts look like the hip pads aren’t removable…
http://evs-sports.com/store/home.php?cat=272

Was really looking for some of the gel or d30 filled shorts but I cant actually find anyone apart from poc that seem to use it..any ideas?

Looking on the d30 website its say 661 use it but I cant find any products on there page that say anything about it