Be careful and healing vibes to the rider and chapeau to the blogger for helping out and for sharing this.

Nirvana Cycles posted this blog link up today, well worth a read. Nasty fall on the new Leith Hill trail linking the Tower to Summer Lightening. Given the threads recently on full face helmets and why some riders don’t jump this seems relevant. I though I’d just share this and say be careful folks. This fall could have ended up much worse and it’s bad enough as it is.

muddyground blog

(I had a search but didn’t see this posted)

Was done (as in discussed) yesterday I believe.

nice blog, bookmarked for future perusing.

@j it’s on the horse and hound thread, which has morphed a bit.

The bike, by the way, was fine.

Phew! 😀

Ouch ouch ouch. Healing vibes indeed. Very well written blog too, will follow for a while. Thanks OP.

@allthepies and @matt – a day late and a dollar short, nothing new there from me as usual.

HEALING VIBES. Reminds me of one of our crew, competent biker of 20 years, but with 5 pints of adrenaline inside him…. beer straws through his top lip.

Blimey. I can almost hear the impact. Nasty.

The bike, by the way, was fine.

I knew you lot would be concerned about this element 😆

The rider is fine by the way. Broken eye socket, nose and jaw. As was mentioned, he went to jump something he should have rolled [indeed was told to quite clearly by about 6 other riders] and did the classic panic face plant. However, we all read about these things, but the reality is very ugly. He was in a very bad way and it took over two hours for the paramedics to get him off the hill. For all of those two hours he didn’t really have a clue what had happened to him or why.

Can’t say it’s put me off cycling. Stuff happens.

I’m guessing my key point is that really if you are going out, to make sure at least one member of your group is carrying a basic first aid kit including one of those foil blankets. Those blankets are only £2 and weight nowt. We were 200m from the pub, but it still took over two hours to get him out, and that was with four ambulance crews in attendance. The blanket plus putting his arm in a sling made all the difference. As did telling him he was fine and to sit still and not move.

It’s a great trail by the way, real class.

make sure at least one member of your group is carrying a basic first aid kit including one of those foil blankets. Those blankets are only £2 and weight nowt

This may just be the most important thing written on STW today.

Broken eye socket, nose and jaw.

The rider is fine by the way.

If that’s your definition of fine 😯

Glad it’s not more serious. Just shows how easy it is to do nasty damage to yourself very easily if you’re not careful.

What’s app was he using that shouts your average speed out? That sounds class 😉

If that’s your definition of fine

Compared to the initial prognosis he is! The paramedic called out the heart unit as he had chest issues. They thought he’d also broken his neck and arm.

The app was annoying. You do not want it.

What do the jumps look like then?

Broken eye socket, nose and jaw.

WHOOA 😯

I’ve face planted – down a drop that runs out into the landslip? carpark at Peaslake- straight over/washed out at the top and landed on roots. Landed on my face. No problem.

Last year- caught end of left handlebar in wire fence projected down a banking and my face took the blow. Just felt like being punched. I was more bothered about my glasses (that cut the bridge of my nose).

If I ever did any of the above = Full face helmet time fullstop.

Seems like I’m going to have to finally book that Jedi course and learn to manage wee jumps …

GWS downed rider.

This new trail does make the removal of the “log jump” (cough) on the top part of SL1 feel a little bit over zealous.

GEDA – I’m guessing crash location here but essentially a little roll in and then two mounds with the second one having a little kicker on the top. Can roll the whole lot very easily. If he went over the bars then its quite possible his face hit the ground were the trail starts coming back up for a final jump exit hence why he ended up a mess.

Actually, bit of digging and I guess it was here and I am assuming he did it on the jump before the big (in my world) step up you see this guy do on his first pass.

http://instagram.com/p/lTGMTwHC_a/

Healing vibes.

Looking forward to trying this new trail but will be rolling the jumps for sure!!!

Makes me think next bike should be a an XC bike and time to stick to less hairy stuff perhaps??

Yup, face planted on the upslope of that section after the kicker. Diary of a Mountain Biker have some good photographs of the site from Sunday. It’s not lairy and entirely rollable. Just caught him out. As for that video, wow!

I rolled it quite happily on my XC bike on Sunday.
It’s a lovely bit of trail building, and much kudos to the guys that built it and the land owners and land managers that approved and funded the build. It’s taken years of work with the Surrey Hills AONB to get this to this stage.

By the way – the log removal on Summer Lightning: I’m one of the people involved in the volunteer effort to build and maintain it. No idea who took the tree trunk out of the first section.

No idea who took the tree trunk out of the first section.

I thought it was just in a general clear up of that felled area as they took other logs away that weren’t on the trail. Shame really…it wasn’t much but it was still a nice little feature. Maybe it could go back

I’m guessing if this guy was wearing a full facer he would of been fine apart from a banging head ache and a concussion. Makes me want to get a full facer right now.

But in the end, it was the rider’s fault for jumping it. Bit of a more than he could chew and it came back to bit him in the ass. Props to the rider who had the blanket and bandage!

What eeks me the most though is the fact that the pub was 200m down the road and did no one bother to go ask for help? There’s a pub at the edge of my local trails and some guy cutting down trees for the council managed to trap his arm under a decent sized log. As the story goes his work mates rushed off to the pub to get some lads down there to help them roll the log off his arm. The pub was 600m-ish away and they came back running with 10 guys in tow. Anyway that’s getting of topic.

Glad the rider is all right though. Apart from having his face smashed in which COULD of been prevented by wearing a full facer. I just hope the guy can go back to having his face without it being totally disfigured! Good luck man, have a speedy recovery.

What eeks me the most though is the fact that the pub was 200m down the road and did no one bother to go ask for help?

Huh? What would you expect them to do? He wasn’t trapped or wasn’t in any immediate danger by the sound of it. If he had a log on him like your example I would get your point but as it was, its best left to the paramedics

He crashed on an innocuous XC trail, yes of course a FF would have minimised the injuries, but you could fall over walking along a pavement, best wear a pressure suit eh?

As above, the point about the pub was how close they were to civilisation and how difficult it still was to get an injured person out, not about how unhelpful folk were!

And… It’s “should/could have” not “of”. Sorry, that’s a real bugbear!

@aka from @muddy’s blog it seemed the 999 call was made very promptly, did you read the blog ? The only reason to go to the pub would be if there was no mobile signal or you wanted a pint as all the blood had made you feel you needed one.

Huh? What would you expect them to do?

I guess they could have sent up a flagon of ‘whacker

http://www.ploughinn.com/leith-hill-microbrewery/

or would Crooked Furrow have been more fitting?

boom boom

I think we have a new name for the trail there, I always thought “SL2” was a bit unimaginative.

Name for the trail, Broken eye socket.

Sounds like a town from an old western.

Nice of him to pose for the camera though.

irk.

Mate of mine was riding the other night and fell off managing to break his neck in 3 places, prety innocuous fall. He is OK, nerve damage and an op to stabilise but no paralysis or anything.

I feel slightly nauseous now.

I’ve also had one of those blankets in my pack for probably about 15 years, not had cause to use it luckily.

Can anyone find youtube footage of the part of the trail this happened at? I’d be interested to see it 🙂 .

@michaelmcc – I think it’s the section that Rich at All Biked Up (who’s been central to getting the trail approved and built) posted on his FB page some time ago, roll in and then a small step up.

Trail Name – Face First ?

Can anyone find youtube footage of the part of the trail this happened at? I’d be interested to see it .

Look at the Instagram link posted by Gotama further up this thread.

Trail Name – Face First ?

winner.

I preferred your suggestion of tallywhacker…fits well with the others

from the Tower:
Tallywhacker (to the BOAT)
Crooked Furrow (the CSR bit)
Beautiful South (cricket pitch to Waggledance)

Beautiful South (cricket pitch to Waggledance)

The northernmost bit? That offends my geographical OCD.