[Closed] Your Worst Tumble ?

End of a long muddy January ride in the Surrey Hills - descending quickly on the rough concrete road in Denbies vineyard to the car - onto the grass verge to avoid a family - didn't realise there was a large lip to get back onto the road (covered in grass) - over the bars onto the concrete at around 30mph. Think I landed on my head - helmet was in two pieces - and slid for ever. Ambulance and back brace, two large pieces of concrete in my hand (one of which came out 3 months later after an operation) and most of my left side shredded.

I felt like crap for weeks but on the upside ended up with some impressive scars (reference to the earlier "Chicks dig scars" thread).

While riding DH at Cwmcarn:
Near the bottom of the track I sent the drop off the bridge a [s]bit[/s] lot too far and didn't have time to set for the massive berm (think, 8ft high). I lost control at the start of the berm and somehow went flying off, over the top of the berm and landed at the bottom of the other side... on my head. Cue aching neck and moderate concussion. I was pretty lucky really.

fractured skull. unconscious for 5 days. 32 staples. hospital for two weeks.

In a race in 1998 I came off and nicked palmar artery in my right hand. I didn't ride a bike in anger for several years after. I have a cracking scar from my wrist to the inside of the second knuckle of my little finger.

Forest of Dean, took my eye of the track on a rapid descent for a moment, woke up in hospital with 2 broke ribs, fractured wrist, 30 stitches in my left forearm where I had severed the muscle and a fractured collar bone.

Oh the fun of DH lol.

Quick Friday summer evening blast in local woods, not paying attention, over the bars. Landed on my head and was unconscious for an unknown period. Rode home feeling ok but turns out I had concussion and something called transient global amnesia. Spent the night in casualty and couldn't hold any info in my brain for 24hrs. Wife was pretty scared at the time as I kept repeating myself!

Fast descent at D2D last year, went to pass someone and hit a hidden stump off the trail at full tilt hammering out of the saddle. Wheee.... Broken shoulder.

GB

and the next question has it stopped any of you pusshing too hard ? as i think i will be keeping both wheels quite close to the floor for a while now and start building up magain slowly !

I'm still pushing but I've lost the urge to ride as much DH now, I'm riding fun XC stuff instead. It'll come back soon enough on its own though.

no, because i don't remember how i did it! except that i (almost) always wear a helmet ever since.

Broken wrist and hole in my leg (you could see my knee-cap) following my son (then 10) down DH3 at Aston Hill..., 4 nights in hospital, 2.5 hrs operation and I've still the metalwork in me.

And then last week over the bars at Innerleithen, still not learnt 😐

my bash hat saved me from something a lot more serious i think Completely cracked through & when i got up this morning there was a lump above my temple and mark from the impact .. i doubt i would be just sat here with a fuzzy head !

OTB at Gisburn, going too fast with not enough skill! 😉 Run out of trail, helmet shattered, out cold for a couple of minutes with an egg sized bump to head, got some nice scars on my chin and top lip! Ended up with physio on my neck for a couple of months too! 🙄

Not really, I'd done well to be racing for as long as I have without hurting myself so I knew it would happen eventually...

Hey Dean, it was me you were riding with yesterday when you crashed. Not surprised to hear you are feeling a bit rough this morning, it was a pretty quick smash, I would guess a bit quicker than 20mph though.
Don't let the crash affect your confidence, your basic technique was fine but next time wait until the bike lands before you try to turn the corner! if you had hit it with less speed you would have landed in time to settle the bike and get round the bend for the next jump. Drop me a Pm when you are heading over next time and I'll show you some smaller stuff to build some confidence on.

Get some updated pics up too so we can see the bruising!

Hello pal, Im sure i will do it again, said to Adam i want to nail that set before summer on the way out ! just feeling a little tender and sorry for myself .. That would be great !If im feeling right may be around next saturday , so will pm you .. Change of Tires and Pads Perhaps may be a start !!!

[IMG] [/IMG]

Thats what my Ribs look like today Btw

Not quite sure exactly what happened thanks to concussion. Low fast jump and i remember being too far to the right. Came too with a broken pelvis. It seems that my knee hit a tree in the landing and pushed my femur backwards. Chipped the hip socket (fine and no problems) but broke my pelvis. Whole right side detached in an unstable pelvic fracture. Air ambulance and a month in hospital, big operation with plates and bolts etc and three months in a wheelchair. Sold my 224 and replaced it with a Blood. Stopped downhill racing and avoid high consequence stuff like long gaps and fast jumps with difficult or cluttered landings.
Still love downhilling but try and ride 'well' rather than 'fast' (but do neither). Now ride every day (except when pi$$ing down like today). Cycling and swimming are fine but other sports like tennis and squash are now just for playing with my children because my adductors seem to no longer exist. Currently investigating whether they can be salvaged with physio or just be thankful for what I have.

Very low speed incident on a boardwalk.

Broke my ankle / leg in 4 places, rearward dislocation and torn ligaments.

Got back on the bike and rode out of the forest using 1 leg.
Got in the car and drove for an hour (it's an auto)
Crawled from the car and had a cup of tea at home.
Got taken in to hospital by the wife.
Cue morphine, and a week in hospital before they could operate as it was so swollen.

MTFU 🙂

(happened nearly 3 years ago) but first tabletop on the bigset at glentress, hit it too fast and didn't know what happened really but didn't think it was that bad, rolled up my shorts and there was a 2-3cm diameter hole in my knee where you could see muscle tissue/fat (maybe bone) resulted in only 3stitches and a big bandage for 3weeks. Had only been at glentress for 3/4 an hour too!

No, slowed me for a bit then the adrenalin rush comes back, and now I'm quicker than before [b]BUT[/b] now I make sure I'm 100% concentrating until I get off the bike safely (fingers crossed).

Crell Wins !!

mine was on the monkey at Cannock at the end of one of the first parts, beautiful day, summer 2010.

came out the wood to a small run of steps where you cross the fire road then the stream, I was watching my mate crossing the bridge instead of watching where i was going and the second to last step had me clean over the bars down onto the rocks on the side using my chest as padding, i did a few rolls before coming to a stop, 1 broken finger, two broken ribs, loads of bruises and cuts.

bike was still rideable so i finished the rest of the monkey and FTD before being driven 100 miles home and packed off to the hospital.

hurt a bit but generally had a good day 😀

unlike this weekend, i crashed my sovereign friday practicing wheelies doing around £100 of damage and coming down pretty hard on my left side, ( i was actually seeing stars for around 3 mins). then this morning on my way to the woods on my heckler i lost the bike coming over a canal swing bridge, real surprise, coming down really hard on my right side and trashing my 2 week old short cage carbon XO rear mech...aghhhhh

both bikes in 48 hrs!!!!

makkag - Member

Crell Wins !!

i beg to differ.

Probably this one : http://www.pinkbike.com/video/206864/

( second crash at the very start ) nothing broken,but a fair few bruises to take home with me 🙂

well true , im having difficulty concentrating today & had to go back to the begining of the thread.. Crell's Survival ride and drive impressed me !

to be fair, that is impressive indeed.

I've still not got all my confidence back since breaking my shoulder nearly five years ago. Now I know what sort of impact an injury can have on family life I get off and push whenever I think I'm taking a risk. Bizarrely this means sometimes avoiding little things and being un phased by bigger ones. I've got used to being called a nancy, but that's better than losing another summer. I still love my riding though, and ride much more than I did before my big off.

I once borrowed a light for our regular Thursday night ride, mine being repaired.

Handed it back at the end of the ride as I only had a mile or two to bimble home, taking in an unlit footpath running downhill behind a local church.

Laid off the brakes and built up a decent speed, forgot there was a bollard in the middle of the path at the very bottom.

Took a fair battering as a result, including a couple of cracked ribs and a Giro Xen which was pretty much split all the way up the back.

Managed to stagger the remaining 100 metres or so back to the flat. **** knows what state I'd have been in without my lid.

Bike was fine!

OTB on a road bike doing about 30 approaching a 90deg bend that was covered in sand. Dunno how. Must have done something to highside it rather than lay it down and get road rash.

8 stitches to chin, dented/chipped chin bone (can still feel the asymmetry now, 20yrs later, although it's quite small and not really noticeable), and lots of raspberry jam.

Back in the day when we didnt wear helmets i hit a metal bar that was across the trail (didn't see it due to sun/trees/shadows, etc. Unsure of exact speed but is was certainly >20mph, i was thrown down a rocky trail eventually landing on my back around 30ft from the bike....first thought was phew i'm alive then the pain happened.....straight to A&E. Diagnosis was a boken arm, cuts and bruises, put in plaster and told to return in a week when swelling had gone down. When i went back they also discovered i'd broken my wrist too (scaphoid) so this would need a different cast. To cut a long story short i spent over a year in plaster as my scaphoid bone 'died', had an operation to transplant bone from my hip into the wrist, fortunately this worked 🙂

This one:

Spilt a whole pint of cider, and got laughed at by the kids, the shame!

Worst (potential) was having an over the bars moment at Rivelin, cheeky time heading back from the 'Headstone', but the OTB also meant over a small rock/cliff. I basically somehow managed to land ish on feet, bounce a couple of times, slide headfirst and then use self arrest technique from snow to roll, spin and slow before hitting a tree...I must have gone 30-40m on a slope I could not climb back up...

Crikey there's been some carnage in this thread. I ripped my knee open on a Chiltern flint while chasing a mate on a very off camber trail. 4days in hospital, general to get it fixed, absolutely blew my confidence for years.. until I was Jedi'd 🙂

It did make a couple of good articles tho: http://pickled-hedgehog.com/?p=156

megavalanche few years back

theres a wooden laddery drop bit, quite steep
(think its on the qulaifier, runs under the lift and is a bit of a bottleneck if you know the race)
first run hit it too fast, but like a numpty grabbed a load of front brake nose dive + over damped forks = im flying OTB down a steep rocky mountainside,just managed to grab a handfull of ski netting and stop my tumble as i landed on my head and shoulder,
im confident that my helmet and body armour saved me, still left me with a damaged rotator cuff that took 18months to heal

oh and the bike ended up a fair way down and was a pita to get back!

I'm like Bol, I broke the side of my humerous off in 2001, and the impact it caused on our family life made it too complicated to do the same again!

I do have to remind myself of this when in a bunch and we start off down a nice inviting downhill!

It's very frustrating to realise that I have to be a grown up!

I got knocked off 2km into a 50km race resulting in a broken thumb and various nasty cuts and bruises, got back on to finish the race, somewhere in the top 30% of GC if I remember.
Another was a 30mph tumble on the road which threw me down the road resulting in this damage to the bike.
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/think180/3217750376/ ]http://www.flickr.com/photos/think180/3217750376/[/url]
Went home, changed bikes, went for a teo hour ride. I was stiff as buggery the next day, mind.
MTFU. 😉

After 12 years of various cosmetic knocks, scapes cuts and grazes I did this last September: [IMG] [/IMG]

Excuse the pirate face.

Unconscious for a few minutes, blood everywhere from two head lacerations. Smashed in helmet and a couple of K damage to the bike. I rag-dolled down the trail about 20-25ft.

Walked off the hill not really knowing where I was and 6 stiches later I was home at 4 in the morning. Family were saying I was pretty out of it for about a week before I became more normal.

I thought I got away with just the cosmetic stuff, but its since become apparent in my job that I'm more irritable, struggle with loud noise and have an appalling short term memory - all symptoms of a minor brain injury. All in, I think I was pretty lucky.

Fractured skull, broken wrist, died on route to hospital in ambulance (was resuscitated obviously) was in hospital for 5 days and I still (10 years ago) cannot remember a thing.

Most dramatic was a run in with a car on Thursday which trashed the bike, had me landing on the car roof then sliding off again, and drew crowds of worried observers. But physically I've got away from it with a mild head injury and bruising, didn't even go to hospital (although I have seen a gp since).

Most painful and embarrassing was the time I crashed on the 200m stretch of road between the car park and the trail, breaking a couple of ribs and buggering up my shoulder. No reason for it really, smooth road, car sitting behind me patiently waiting for room to overtake, but I was looking out for the turn and trying to brake and indicate all at the same time and just lost it.

Over the bars after finding a big rock in the way on landing a 2ft drop, hit the ground really hard. Shattered helmet, out cold for over an hour before someone came along and found me. Didn't know I'd been knocked out, so sorted myself out, discovering I'd dislocated my right shoulder, broken my nose and removed half the skin off my chin. Helped to get my shoulder back in, then rode back to the car, got cleaned up and drove home. Managed to get home but shock set in as I tried to get out of the car. Neighbour helped me get out and put the bike away, then ran me into hospital. Turns out I'd also broken my jaw, ruptured a disc in my lower back and shattered most of my right wrist. Kept in overnight to be patched up, where they noticed I was drifting in and out of consciousness and not remembering stuff. Rushed off for a brain scan, found severe swelling at the front. Had to go back and live with the parents while I recouperated.

A year on, I've a changed personality (less averse to risk, less chatty), can't have a drink without getting severe headaches for days and can't remember anything between 2002 and 2004.

motox2k, you beat me - i didn't break my wrist! 😆

Road crash descending Mount Etna; I don't really recall what happened I just woke up in hospital a very unhappy bunny, but I guess my front wheel washed out seemingly on a straightish bit?? Took the impact on my face breaking my nose, jaw and cheek bone. I lost 9 teeth, and a lot of skin from a variety of parts of my body. The hospital did a great job putting me all back together, and after a further nose job and some rather expensive dental work my new smile is actually far better than my old one 🙂

This was about 9 years ago; I had about 5 months off the bike, as I could take being rattled about without head and dental pain and once back on it did take me about 18 months to get back into racing fully committed, and every now and again when descending at speed I do have to 'have a word' with myself to make sure I keep fully on the gas.

2007 crashed crossing Rocky waterbar in chatel, didn't unclip, tore ankle ligaments.

2009 On "10%" on le pleney, lost front, crashed, didnt unclip, broke end off tibia. Had it pinned in Geneva.
Now ride flats...

2011 Really innocuous fall on penmachno, landed with elbow square on a rock. Broke off end (elecronon), tore off tricep ligament, needed surgery to re attach. Had left pads at home... 🙄

2013 already planning a broken collarbone based on ongoing form!

The Canyon in Les Arcs I ended up at the top of a steep descent at the end. My mates appeared at the bottom after I returned back into the woods thinking "cricky, that's steep". I simply thought that the steep descent I had looked at was the way out and if my mates had done it, unscathed, it must be ok.

They beckoned me down so I rode it.

Part way down I saw a ditch at the bottom that I considered to be death itself. I was never going to ride over it. The track was too steep to stop on so I got off.

I landed in said ditch of death, shoulder first.

As I lay there, in agony thanking my lucky stars that I hadn't lost my looks, or teeth, I saw a group emerge out the trail down this sweet looking bermed trail to the right of where I emerged.

I asked my mates why they didn't tell me about that exit. They said then that was the way they came out!

Still laying in the death ditch, a Scotch bloke emerged where I had a few moments earlier. His mate beckoned him down, I tried to convince him not too, fearing he may bail and land on me.

He rode the drop on his 8" monster DH bike and stayed on, just. The ditch of death was thwarted but it did claim his £80 front wheel, oil seals in his forks and his fork oil.

We rolled down to Les Arcs together, me to the hospital, him to the bike shop. He bumped along on his seriously flattened rim, me with an arm hanging uselessly with me wondering how on earth I was oing to wipe my arse for the next few months.

Ends up I tore all the ligaments in my shoulder. It took 4 months before I could mountain bike again.

Thankfully, this happened on the last day of my first Alps holiday at about 3pm. It could have been worse.