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My local area has an endless succession of wooded tracks, canal tow paths and even a guided busway gravel path which are all great for a family ride or just stretching your legs but the old crosser in me longed for something a little dirtier on my doorstep. It was if the mtb gods had heard me when I discovered a little off the beaten track route through some woods with mud, roots and any number of trees to dodge that seemed to have only ever been used by the occasional goat herder or possibly Bigfoot. After an hour or so of schlepping through through the undergrowth I decided I was muddy and sweaty enough to head home and rode back towards the path, a smug smile on my face. This path is edged with a small kerb which most riders wouldn't pay any attention to whatsoever. Neither did I. I hit it at a jaunty angle and popped my front wheel up and on, presuming my rear would follow with ease, but the gods had other ideas. Caked in mud and soaking wet it slid sideways until I looked, if viewed in slow motion, like a speedway rider with my rear end and my front wheel travelling in the same direction. A split second later it stopped dead catapulting me sideways. I braced for impact and hit the gravel with both hands outstretched and my right knee taking the impact with a sickening thud. Now you may be thinking it's not exactly crashing out at Whistler or at rampage and I would completely agree but here's the thing. Moments before I had decided I was a bit hot and took my knee pads, helmet and gloves off. The price I will pay for that decision will be walking like a ninety year old for a week and picking bits of gravel out of my palms and my knee for days to come. So there are two lessons to learn. The first is it's probably a good idea to keep your gear on until you get to where you are going and secondly at some point, when you least expect it and with no warning, the universe will give you a swift kick in the taters! You have been warned!
The slow speed bimble crashes are always the worst ones. I ruined my ankle and knee for weeks by having a low speed tumble down a rocky embankment. The cause of which was slowing down to watch some lambs frolicking.
I was so happy watching them spring about I just veered off course, hit a rut and went over the bars, rolled down the hill and hit roughly all the rocks on the way down. The icing on the cake was the bike landing on me. You might not think that’s bad, but it was a Transition Trans AM. Like having a metal hippo bounce down the hill only to land on your head and torso.
I lost a day's riding at Bikevillage because of a tiny, trivial dismount- barely even hit the ground but it twanged something in my thigh. So annoying, took months to properly recover. Ironically I won the "crash of the week" award that week too, for a different crash which was enormous and did almost no damage.
Very first day on very first descent at Bikevillage my front wheel stopped on a root or compression or something (really nothing techy) whilst going at walking pace. I went over the bars and tumbled over the side of the trail off into the undergrowth, my bike landing on top of me! I think i bust my seatpost and helmet.
It’s the same with skiing; low speed pratfalls are the worst for causing injuries
Mmmmmm.....I wrote about this, now nearly 6 months ago, at the time.
Small over the bars, no trouble at all. Except I tumbled not to the ground but head first into a 6 foot ditch.
4 broken vertebrae. 3 Ambulances, Full Hazardous Area Rescue Team. 4 hours on the floor. A&E. Suspected bladder and bowel failure. 5 days on my back. 3 months sat in a chair doing not much. Now not so bad - intensive physio is doing the trick and I'm riding again, but like the old man I now feel!
Be careful out there folks.
I'm just now getting my mojo back, having started riding again in June, following a innocuous slide out (on a stupidly easy trail in Stanmer) in Aug 2018 that basically destroyed my left shoulder blade, shoulder joint and collar bone. By contrast I once crashed down a ravine in Morocco and got nothing more than broken thumb and some cuts.
Yep...
I once decided to not wear elbow pads because it was really hot and humid that day.
Now my right elbow is a mess of scar tissue and metalwork, it sits at an odd look angle and no surgeon in the world could ever make it have more than the 50% or so range of movement it has now, well, until it deteriorates so much that they'll cut the whole mess out and replace it with what looks like a couple of coat hangers cut into a T shape, but only if that happens after I'm 50 (or ideally 60) and I promise never to ride again.
Many people have said, what everyone is no doubt thinking, no way a couple of cheap 661 hard pads would have prevented that sort of damage, but possibly the worst part is, I don't know. They'd certainly reduced the severity of it, which is the kicker because most of the damage wasn't done by the impact, but by the surgeon washing out the forest floor from the wound, because it was compound.
this path is edged with a small kerb which most riders wouldn’t pay any attention to whatsoever. Neither did I. I hit it at a jaunty angle and popped my front wheel up and on, presuming my rear would follow with ease, but the gods had other ideas...it stopped dead catapulting me sideways
Perfectly describes the crash I had riding back from the beach, but I got catapulted into a solid metal fence, wrecking my shoulder and smashing my (unhelmeted) head solidly into the bars of the fence. Ended up in A&E with a doctor extremely concerned about my head injuries. Turned out to be nothing, but shoulder never has recovered.
I've been past the same point a few times since and can't for the life of me fathom how I managed to do it. Some days just have your number.
Yep.
Nine weeks ago I had a stupid crash on an easy bit of trail.
Lost the front end off a wet wooden bridge and landed shoulder first on a tree stump.
Broken collar bone that's still not healed and no idea when I'll be able to work (I have a physical job) or ride again.
Got an appointment on Tuesday with the consultant so hopefully they'll finaly agree to plate it so I can at least have an idea of when I'll be able to earn a living and ride again.
Been racing and riding offroad for over 40 years and this is the longest I've not been on a bike for in all that time.
Had some huge stacks on MX bikes and MTB's and always been lucky up till now.
Having been laid up for 3 months also with a non-union my advice is to insist they plate it. You will feel a lot better psychologically knowing it's on the mend at last.
global.
That's my plan.
Really not sure how then can refuse...
If its not showing any signs of repair after nine weeks it never will.
Have to see what happens, so far they've given me the run around with promises to do something and when I got to that point told to wait again.
Most British surgeons take a laissez-faire attitude to collar bones knowing most will heal or at least form a pseudo-joint. In that case they are reluctant to expose patients to the risk of an operartion. My surgeon was visibly shocked when he saw the x-ray of the two ends, still well separated. He said it needed plating then told me he couldn't do it for 3 months do I found another surgeon, who did it two weeks later. It's not so straightforward with an old injury because they've got to wake the bone ends up again and encourage new growth.
My last stupid crash was bunny hopping a kerb. All by bikes have SPD pedals. I forgot I was riding my son's bike so as I went to lift the back wheel I jumped unexpectedly off the pedals a fraction of a second before the back wheel hit the kerb at an angle throwing me off.
Luckily only pride hurt. Of course it happened 10 yards away from a gaggle of peds.
This Tuesday I was decending at around 35 kmh on my way home from work on a rough broken road when I stopped concentrating to read a text message on my garmin (stupid stupid function) hit a patch of gravel, lost the front wheel and cartwheeled down a steep bank clipped in...to land in a totally uninjured heap at least 20ft down a steep gully. Better still the bike was also undamaged. Probably one of the most spectacular crashes I have ever had.
That night I got up for a wee, slipped on the bathroom floor, broke a rib and smashed my eye socket.
SSS, paracetamol is your best friend, 1gm taken every 6 hours regularly so the level stays constant. Keep a note by the bed so you don't lose track. It's an excellent pain killer if used correctly.
There's a suggestion that ibuprofen actually hinders recovery so I didn't take it. It wrecks my stomach anyway.
The reason I'm laid up was a "one more time" while eyeing the ride home.
Nurse said not to take Ibuprofen.
Pffft amateurs, dislocated elbow, rounders. Off the MTB for 18 months, still not properly right 5 years later
Feel for you, especially the gravel!😭😀
Worst off I had was at the bottom of a tech bit after stopping for a family coming up the trail. Restart, Slow motion off, had to cycle best part of 5 miles back to car. Got home my partner just looked at me covered in blood and said “I’m not taking you [to A and E]”. Turned out I’d fractured my arm.
Not that I would wish a crash on anyone but hearing some of those horrible injury stories makes me feel a lot better about a just losing a bit of skin / pride. I suppose the thing that unites bikers of all kinds is the pure unadulterated joy of riding and that sometimes we're going to come off second best. I wish everyone a speedy recovery and hope you get back on two wheels. Next time you're out and about and cross paths with another rider remember we all have somethings in common. Give them a smile and say hi 🙂
4mph. Top of Long Batch at the Long Mynd. Some kind of animal burrow collapsed beneath my front shell and went straight over the bars. Fractured my left shoulder in a break they went through the socket...