When you’ve gone a bit off-line and started heading straight towards a tree, does anyone else find themselves fixated by the immovable object?

Today at Chicksands I was quite happily doing a few runs on the 4X and dual slalom, just trying to improve my jumping technique (which is pretty poor). Then I got onto the snake run, did a slow run to get a feel for the trail, easy. Second run, I come over the first slightly rough bit of downhill a bit too far right and find myself pointing straight towards a tree, rather than the trail just to the left. I think i tried half braking, half turning to the left, before deciding it wasn’t working and straightening up. Queue big rugby tackle using my left shoulder against the tree, and now broken collar bone. Ouch 🙁

Feel a bit annoyed because it wasn’t a hard bit of trail, i just didn’t commit to fully turning or fully braking to fix the problem. Am I alone in this level of stupidity, or do other people do this too?

Nasty, healing vibes.

It’s the old “look at it and you’ll hit it” scenario.

Yeh, I shout it at my kids all the time – “look where you want to go, not where the problem is”

nobody ever shouts it for me 🙁

Try doing that on a motorbike on a left hand bend and thinking you can’t make it round.

You have to force yourself to turn harder, to break the programming. It’s just your nature to fixate. Simplest answer is only look where you want to go. If you focus on the tree, you’ll hit the tree, or hope to buggery that here’s nothing coming around the corner to give you a really bad day.

Huge sympathy. Look where you want to go…

I fell of a segway. Lesser injury more humilation

Those trees at Chick sands are scary

@ scaredypants

‘LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO, NOT WHERE THE PROBLEM IS!!!!’

All good?

Yeah, completely agree it’s about looking in the right place.

I also think that braking is normally completely unhelpful in those sort of situations. Just sticking some weight down on the outside pedal and turning is going to work, and braking just makes you straighten up more.

And thanks for the sympathy btw. Will have to head off to the fracture clinic on Tuesday to see if they need to operate 🙁

tomhoward, thanks – keeping me safe in my armchair 😀

braking just makes you straighten up more.

Your damn right. Still doesn’t stop me doing it. Get well soon mate.

its a tough mindset to get into, but if you have enough grip for braking, you usually have enough grip to make it round the corner. Easy to preach that of course, but it one of those useful mental tools to work on 🙂

Sat in an arm chair its obvious that its turn not brake. If you slide into the tree at least it’ll be wheel first

My tree interface moment was shooting out of hole and panic as I realise the saddles up and I know idea what’s ahead or how to jump

lots of braking. I’m falling of gracefuly and a tree gets in the way

done the exact same thing mate! think its called target fixation you go in the direction your looking….

4/5 weeks ago i hit a jump just after my mate did it….. i hit it slightly off line landed heading straight for a tree…..and crack snapped a 5 inch thick branch with my rib and crack! cracked rib….
now i did happen to have my contour HD recording at the time and watched it over various times…. and still can’t figure out how 1. i managed to go straight into the tree. 2 how i didn’t steer left of right of it lol

If it makes you feel any better I broke mine yesterday as well. Doing a straight forward but sizeable(maybe 10-12 foot)drop off onto a steep slope. Must have landed with too much weight forward or clipped something with pedal – can’t remember really. Anyway over the bars and impacted heavily on my head/shoulder. Luckily avoided blacking out and managed to ride home with a rather unusable crunchy shoulder. Shouldn’t really have been doing such sillyness alone but hindsight isn’t much use now.

Annoyingly just got my bikes all serviced and it’s the driest it’s been out for ages! Bike is fine, not a scratch. Guess it could have been worse.

If it makes you feel any better I broke mine yesterday as well. Doing a straight forward but sizeable(maybe 10-12 foot)drop off onto a steep slope. Must have landed with too much weight forward or clipped something with pedal – can’t remember really. Anyway over the bars and impacted heavily on my head/shoulder.

Ouch! Could have been landing rear wheel first, front then slamming down and you getting bucked over the front?

I think anyone who doesn’t suffer from target fixation when things start going wrong is either a naturally gifted rider or someone who’s actively worked on managing that (bad) instinct! I try not to but still do, though less often than in the past. Hope your collarbone fixes ok burntsandwich!

You’re not a proper mtber until you’ve broken your collar bone, there’s a tick list. Do snowdon, ride at cannock, sustrans c2c, fracture collar bone etc. When mine broke I had to have a great piece of metal inside my shoulder for 4 months, got a great scar now. Also got sick pay as was off work now 3 months, just annoying as I was off work but couldn’t ride. Healing vibes op, hope you’ll be back in the saddle for summer proper.

if thats the case i will hopefully never be a proper MTBER as my work only pays SSP and i certainly could not afford to live on that!!!

Ah crap, that means I have still got to break my collar bone after breaking my wrist a month ago!

Can I add my name to the broken collar bone list……. I did a combination of burntsandwich & mrtrotter as I got a jump very wrong and hit a tree over Cannock Chase. My appointment at the fracture clinic is tomorrow too. What are the ‘average’ recovery times for this kind of break?

If it makes you feel any better here is a video of me separating my shoulder rugby tackling a tree, NSFW language pinkbike video

About 5-6 weeks should see you back in work 🙂

Just don’t do what I did last April and take your eye off the trail just before a drop and dislocate your elbow and shatter the end of your radius into six pieces. It is not fun.

Healing vibes to the op and all other casualties of the weekend.

Johnbot, that video looks really similar to my incident (and painful!), although at least you have the excuse of hitting a jump first!

People are talking about 5-6 weeks / 3 months before getting back to work… I’m taking tomorrow off but planning to be in again before the end of the week. What slowed people down so much? I imagine I should be fine to sit at a desk and attempt to use a computer, although understand that doing anything involving lifting or carrying might be tricky.

If they tell me tomorrow that they need to put metal in then I might be off for a bit longer…

Impressive jump though Johnbot. Just showed it to wife and she said. “You can worry about this stuff or you can go out and enjoy yourself, fun always has a risk factor” I thought she would have had my bikes on eBay immediately.

Hope all you injured folks heal quickly.

I broke mine 3 1/2 weeks ago when I crashed whilst tackling a simple berm. Luckily it wasn’t a bad break and I haven’t had to have an op. The hardest thing about work for me was getting there, but managed to get a lift in and not take any time off. Sleeping is also tough – take something strong.

I’m back at the fracture clinic tomorrow for a check and hopefully will get back on to the road bike soon if I get good news. I seem to be able to move my shoulder fairly freely again now. Plan to be back on the mtb in 3 weeks or so as need to get Alps fit!

I think I came off (see above) because the run in to this particular drop wasn’t very long and I was going too slow. Don’t remember exactly what happened. Just remember landing too much over the front and then it seemed to speed up very fast, then agony and tumbling down a steep splope and being unable to breathe.