[Closed] Accident stats for mountainbiking?

@TJ - I am not sure deaths is the right stat to determine whether mountain biking is dangerous. Also as far as I recall road deaths are around 300 with most of those being pedestrians who are hit by vehicles. Also from memory deaths amongst road cyclists in London number around 25.

Sadly I know of one death whilst mountain biking but it was related to un-diagnosed heart disease.

How do you propose to use the information to make the world a better place?

Well, I remember a lad collapsing and dying years and years (maybe a decade) ago at a downhill race after suffering a TBI.

There have been a few killed in Whistler that I know of, although at least one of these is due to Bears.

I do know of a lot of people/cases who have broken their necks mtbing though.

Road deaths of cyclists is around a 100 each year.111 in 2010
http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/adviceandinformation/cycling/facts-figures.aspx

The reason for looking at deaths is its an exact count. Injuries you get differences in classification and reporting. I do accept tho that there culd be a lot of non fatal accidents but few fatal ones.

Edit

I am not trying to prove a point - genuinely interested in putting some hard facts together

Not deaths, but this is an interesting stat from a fairly recent study into injury in recreational mtbing ( http://emj.bmj.com/content/early/2010/07/19/emj.2009.086991.full)

The overall injury rate of 1.54 injuries per 1000 biker exposures suggests that recreational mountain biking compares favourably with many other popular sports. Studies looking at indoor and outdoor soccer have found injury rates of between 4.0 and 18.0 injuries per 1000 player exposures, while rates in competitive rugby union often exceed 100.0 per 1000 player games.

So relatively safe (in those terms at least)

there was a poster on here ~2yrs ago who had a heart attack & died on a ride. some posts about it after.

can't be the only one.

was there not something a while ago about Borders General Hosp getting a new lease of life due to a steady stream of injuries from GT and Inners ? Think there have been a couple of deaths at 7Stanes but were due to underlying heart or other conditions I recall rather than mtb injuries

In the past I had found a searchable database on accidents in th UK but cannot find it now

any thoughts?

found it but not much use
http://www.rospa.com/about/oursites/hass-lass.aspx

I know someone who had a heat attack on a ride (I wasn't there), he survived though, he might have had the attack walking the dog though so hard to link directly to MTBing (although the climb will now of course be for ever known as heartattack hill).

Think there have been a couple of deaths at 7Stanes but were due to underlying heart or other conditions I recall rather than mtb injuries

yup, probably around 3-4 years ago and both in quite a short space of time. As you say though an underlying (but unknown) condition was to blame, the sort of thing that could happen if they were doing any sport though

I think if there where figures I don't think cycling would be near the top.

This would however mainly depend if they determine the difference between cycling for pleasure and cycling for transport.

was there not something a while ago about Borders General Hosp getting a new lease of life due to a steady stream of injuries from GT and Inners ? Think there have been a couple of deaths at 7Stanes but were due to underlying heart or other conditions I recall rather than mtb injuries

I would imagine the incidence of and range of injury is different from road cycling. Perhaps more 'falls per hour' but at slower speeds and minus a lot of the 'road rash' and fatal head injuries associated with high speeds and being hit by something that weighs at least a ton and is travelling between 30 and 60 mph (e=mc squared etc)

I wonder about the effects of location and 'the golden hour' on injuries too. No stats to contribute, but recently on a local club moutain bike ride someone was immobilised by injury: had this occurred on the road he could have been in an ambulance within 20 minutes and hospital within 40. As the access to the very off-road 'crash site' was so poor, it took a couple of hours and the poor guy was nearly hypothermic by the time he got anywhere warm. This was not in the depths of winter, but a few weeks ago before it got ridiculously cold again.

I read somewhere a few years ago that on average a mountain biker has one day off work each year as a result of a biking injury.

I wonder how many days per year are saved as a result of being healthier from the exercise and generally being cool 🙂

My guess would be yo are right Julian
Found a few articles on injuries
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=mountainbike+injury&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=on

My hunch is that looking at deaths only won't be much benefit, they are probably very rare and won't tell us much about how 'dangerous' MTBing is.

When I was in East Surrey ortho ward being treated for a broken wrist, that I broke MTBing, the surgeon told me that MTbers were their third most frequent patient source for trauma injuries, after motorcyclists and footballers.

My hunch is that, in terms of serious injuries, it's pretty dangerous.

Mountain biking is increasing in popularity worldwide. The injury patterns associated with elite level and competitive mountain biking are known. This study analysed the incidence, spectrum and risk factors for injuries sustained during recreational mountain biking.

The injury rate was 1.54 injuries per 1000 biker exposures. Men were more commonly injured than women, with those aged 30–39?years at highest risk. The commonest types of injury were wounding, skeletal fracture and musculoskeletal soft tissue injury. Joint dislocations occurred more commonly in older mountain bikers. The limbs were more commonly injured than the axial skeleton. The highest hospital admission rates were observed with head, neck and torso injuries. Protective body armour, clip-in pedals and the use of a full-suspension bicycle may confer a protective effect.

Travel insurance companies must have a good idea of the risks involved. The premium that I've paid while racing abroad recently wasn't particularly expensive - so the risk is probable quite low, certainly lower than parachuting, paragliding, white water rafting etc

There was a death on the Marin trail last year, but I believe it was a heart attach.

The guys at Llandegla keep very detail records of all incidents that are reported to them. They also have rider numbers. Not sure they'd share it with you, but they may. They seem to have a couple of ambulances a day at the weekends 😯

Teej you are such a bullshitter, I had a massive row with you last year about helicopters and MTB accidents where you claimed to have access to all the stats. Fligging liar.

Ooo- how do clip in pedals 'confer a protective effect.'?

Toys - I suggest you check that. Yo claimed superior knowledge as yo had access to the journals. I know what I said which was that having an athens password I could get to all the journals which I could.

This is a different situation - I cannot find any stats or decent info and was looking for a bit of discussion around the subject. I wondered if I had missed any sources of info. NHS has mucked up my athens access as well so I can only get abstracts now

stuey - Member

Ooo- how do clip in pedals 'confer a protective effect.'?

Goodness knows. I suspect that clip in users has less severe injuries

Not sure what they mean by 1000 biker exposures.
I suspect this is bike hours so 1 rider for 1000 hours, 2 for 500 and so on.
Looking at my Endomondo history I do about 250 hours per year so this means I will have a significant injury every 4 years.
I doing alot worse than this with 3 moderate injuries all requiring surgery in 4 years. 🙁

The stats on road casualties give 100 ish a year dead, 2500 serious injuries, 14000 minor injuries ( but serious enough to report) but that specifically excludes off road cycling

can you be 100% sure off road cycling is excluded? One of the issues I've heard aired about comparing the relative risks of journeys by car bike or on foot is that any cyclist treated for injury is presumed to be transport/road related, overstating the risk to cyclists on the roads, whereas pedestrian injuries are only reported as journey related if they are hit by a car - if you trip over the curb and break your neck on the way to work its not counted as a pedestrian stat.

In terms of [i]reported[/i] accidents, it's low. Lower than cricket. Whether that's a reflection of the reporting threshold (a bruise from a cricket ball may prompt the first aid kit to come out, a bruise from mountain biking may prompt some pointing and laughing from your mates), I don't know.

Some data from the USA would appear to back up my suspicions that you're far more likely to knacker yourself playing a contact sport:

The most practical method of assessing risk potential in a sport is to measure the number of injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures — i.e. the number of times a participant engages in the activity over the course of a year. Using this method, Boxing ranks first with 5.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures, followed by Tackle Football (3.8), Snowboarding (3.8), Ice Hockey (3.7), Alpine Skiing (3.0), Soccer (2.4), Softball (2.2) and Basketball (1.9).

With the exception of Snowboarding (which ranks third), none of the other so-called “Extreme” sports carries a particularly high risk of injury. Surfing is 10th in risk potential (1.8 injuries per 1,000 exposures); Mountain Biking 18th (1.2 per thousand); Skateboarding 22nd (0.8 per thousand); and BMX 24th, also with 0.8. In-Line Roller-Skating places 27th with only 0.4 injuries per 1,000 athlete exposures.

http://naysisportscene.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/sports-injuries-documented.html

Mountain Biking 18th (1.2 per thousand);

I suppose theres a question as what counts as an 'exposure'

Is this exposure

[img] [/img]

given the same weight as this exposure

[img] [/img]

or this one

[img] [/img]

Obviously the first pic is the most dangerous - as they've got a polar bear on a lead!

Last guys in trouble: not clipped in 🙂

I would suggest that this would be a statistical minefield. But a fun game to assess the likelihood of injury in the three pictures above:

Picture 1: Suitable footwear, poorly fitting helmet and a dog on a lead....?????

can you be 100% sure off road cycling is excluded?

Road accident figures are compiled from the police submitted stats 19 form. It is only done for road accidents. Serious accidents the police were called to off road like a MTBer would just be recorded under a computer ref no.

http://www.stats19.org.uk/html/stats_20_notes.html

"2.1 All road accidents involving human death or personal injury occurring on the Highway ('road' in Scotland) and notified to the police within 30 days of occurrence, and in which one or more vehicles are involved, are to be reported. This is a wider definition of road accidents than that used in Road Traffic Acts."

By the figures presented above the injury rate seems to be between 1.2 - 1.5 per 1000 exposures.
If you ride twice per week that's 1 injury per 10 years of riding!
This seems extraordinarily low to me. Every one of my good friends has had at least 1 significant injury and I would hazzard a guess that almost every stw poster has too.

TJ. You could try this route. http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/enquiries.html
MrsT says it all depends on how the cause of death is coded for recording purposes

This seems extraordinarily low to me

Thats what I mean - there is probably quite a gulf between mountain biking as you or I understand it or as non-cycling statistician understands it - in that third pic of mine it wouldn't be healthy for the rider to think 'theres only going to be one day in 1000 that I can expect to get hurt riding like this'

"2.1 All road accidents involving human death or personal injury occurring on the Highway ('road' in Scotland) and notified to the police within 30 days of occurrence, and in which one or more vehicles are involved, are to be reported. This is a wider definition of road accidents than that used in Road Traffic Acts."

TJ,

FC should provide any statistics they have if you FOI request them.

Think you have a problem identifying what is "mountain biking" though. e.g. there was a death in Glasgow in the late 90's where someone came off a home made ramp and landed on his head. But although it was on a mountain bike and jumping (so probably meets most definitions) it was in an urban setting. Even if you consider all "off road" incidents, then you will be including presumably riskier activities such as downhill and low risk family rides in the woods. Then do you control for number of hours riding or miles covered?

Have a look here (I've not read it yet):

Pubmed reports 62 hits for "mountain bike injury"

[url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21962047 ]Here's one comparing XC to endurance[/url]

[url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21076012 ]And another US study[/url]

I can't be bothered to look through them, but you are welcome to peruse the abstracts. Might come back with a considered opinion if you all calm down 🙄

Off the top of my head in the last 2 summers:

Approx 260 riders doing a week in the Alps, so approx 1300 guided rider-days.

9 went to hospital - of those, there were 3 broken bones (all collar-bones), 1 head injury, 1 semi-degloved finger, 1 "penetrating injury" (to calf), 1 nasty flesh-wound ("peeled" ankle), 1 sprained ankle and 1 I can't remember!

Any number of cuts & bruises on top of that, but very few enough to stop someone riding the next day.

Hmm. A 1 in 28ish chance of going to hospital following a weeks holiday seems pretty high risk to me..

Well...

On a ski holiday last year 3 of 19 ended in hospital... With major stuff
And this year, 50 of us over 2 weeks, 4 blown ACLs

Any off-road biking is likely to be classed as 'mountain biking' so the stats are probs a shade low.

Of all the guys I ride with, I can think of one who hasn't broken a bone. But that's guys who ride most weekends, race regularly etc which probably represents a very low number of riding-hours in terms of the total by everyone.

"on average a mountain biker has one day off work each year as a result of a biking injury"
😯 6 years of MTBing and no time off, am I due 6 days off due to injury then?

I cant think of many incidents that even cut a ride short of people I know either. One that ended up on crutches for a while and one that got a quick look at in a&e

EDIT: actually, I can think of somebody else who had a cage built up around his leg for some time

"Protective body armour, clip-in pedals and the use of a full-suspension bicycle may confer a protective effect"
Awesome, Ill be sticking with SPDs then!
or are they comparing to toe-straps? ..

"on average a mountain biker has one day off work each year as a result of a biking injury"

I think I've only had one day off work as a bike guide in the last 5 years!

I suspect that statistic is heavily skewed by the occasional broken leg which necessitates weeks off...

First of a great idea for a thread.

I've been wondering how the risks of rock climbing compare to mountain biking

1.2 incidents per 1000 seems low to me. The link that Poly posted was very vague. It did say that one American Survey said that 48% of MTB regulars questioned had been injured.

My experience of magazine, friend internet anidotes would sugest deaths are higher in rock climbing than mtb but with broken bones being way more common amongst mountain bikers

Not mountain biking but here but child birth is way riskier than rock climbing

http://www.hse.gov.uk/education/statistics.htm

again this one sugests climbing is risky

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090721122848.htm

This is quite good and would be ideal if written for mountain biking. The death rates are quite high but I think that the inclusion of winter mountaineering probably boosts the numbers

http://www.thebmc.co.uk/bmcNews/media/u_content/File/press/factsheets/ParticipationStats03.pdf

I'm running out of steam now

John Ireland is head of recreational health and safety for the Forestry commision and was aske to do a study on bike safety. Maybe worth trying to contact him?

Just found this

john.ireland@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

Haven't looked at the links ampthill, but I remember the last time I looked at the BMC's stats that, surprisingly, there were more deaths in rock climbing than in winter climbing. However, there were more accidents/injuries in winter climbing.

I guess winter has more falls, but softer landings!

the issue is complex, in our risk assessments rider and vehicles is probably the biggest risk as the likelihood of a fatality is higher.

We still have the risk of someone going off an edge but it's more likely to be spectator and or local kids mucking around (where they ride makes me wince)

in our first event, we hospitalised 4 riders, the first a great divide rider, mtb journo and now STW staffer was on the practice lap, the second was an experienced CX/ XC rider and sponsored rider and two more later on for more minor stuff. Now we rarely get an injury despite pushing the courses and riders harder.

At Lee quarry my understanding is the see-saw is the biggest issue followed by some of the jump combo's. There have been plenty of call outs for R&PMRT but as far as I am aware no fatalities.

If you compare Xc/ DH racing against timetrials then TT's are far more dangerous when it comes to fatalities, but that always comes down to other vehicles, their speed and the driver.

Preston Arena used to be known as the "carbon graveyard"

Track racing is also prone to crashes

Ok had a browse around the journals last night

the 1: 1000 (approx) figure keeps on coming up. remember this is for injuries requiring hospital treatment . Assuming riding once a week thats one person in 20 gets a injury requiring hospital treatment a year. Sounds like an over estimate to me. I know a lot of MTBers for many years and only know of two injuries that fall into that category. Not all mincers either.

One US study found injury rates falling

I suspect there is a huge variation in this tho and it includes all sorts of MTBers

One study was from the Vancouver area including the north shore - still did not have high rates.

Howver if you look at minor injuries - cuts and bruises then rates leap up to 3 in 4 🙂 Deaths seem to be very rare indeed

so from what I have seen - minor injuries - every gets them regulalry. Even me.

Injuries requiring hospital treatment - much rarer - 1: 1000 rides. very approximately that includes DH racers, serious freeriders as well as XC mincers

Deaths are very very rare indeed. I can only find reference to 3 or 4 worldwide in ten years. there may be more but its clearly a very rare event.

Interesting stuff

So I guess its about how yo see this as to if you think its dangerous or not as a pastime. To me I don't care about bumps and bruises and teh serious injuries are rare enough for me to consider it not to be dangerous. I am suprised at 1:1000 tho - I would have thought from what I have seen much much lower.

300 000 people a year go to GT and Innerlithan IIRC - 300 -500 visit borders General thats 1:600 / 1000 and that while not the most dangerous of groups is surely more risky than riding outside of trail centres / DH tracks?

I wouldn't say I'm that active in Mopuntain biking but

Last year I crushed 2 fingers and did something to my ribs/ thorasic joints. Fingers x-rayed physio on back

The I took my son to casualty for a minor soft tissue injury

My cousin took up downhill 2 years ago he was hospitalised at least once

My sister in law snapped her wrist about 2 weeks ago (yes on a mpuntain bike ride)

I know that non of that is stats but it seems like more tham 1 in a 1000 to me

Actually over the last year its been more like 3 casualty visits for 300 max rider participations in rides.

The crashers make up for the non crashers - never ( touch wood) anything much more than bumps and bruises for me in decades of regular road and offroad biking

Yes of course tj. My first trip to hospital despite riding since the 80's. I can think of floads of mates who have never been hurt but who take part regularly

As always with epidemiological studies, the denominator is difficult to estimate. Incidence may be well recorded in terms of absolute count, and even comparators across types of riding and other sports. But prospective longitudinal observational studies will be rare and unreliable. I'm happy to accept 1:1000 - that's a visit to the hospital once every 5-6 years for a group of friends or a family riding weekly.

<\Insert anecdote>
Of course I broke my collarbone mountain biking last year after only 18 months of riding. That's about 1:100 for us. 😳
<Insert anecdote>

TJ,

1 injury in 1000 what? 1000 rides? 1000 miles? 1000 hrs? The suggestion seems to be 1000 rides - but surely the risk increases with distance/time. So someone who rides one 40 mile route a week is more likely to get hurt than someone who rides 10 miles 3x a week?

If you take Glentress and Inners as an example though - then you were suggesting Borders General gets an average of 5-10 riders per week through its doors. I'd guess that some go to ERI too, and others may go to other local minor injuries / A&E after going home so the number could be double that. It attracts a good mixture of mincers and more serious riders of differing abilities. Although "manufactured trails" that have been risk assessed etc so risks should be lower than on wild stuff, that "safe environment" and the good surface/drainage tend to push speeds up so make the consequences a little higher. A quick look at visitor stats suggests 190,000 per annum at GT - (2002 stats) whilst a 2010 article on bike radar suggests 340,000 for GT and inners combined. i.e. about 4000-6500 per week - suggesting the injury rate is more (riskier) than 1:1000 (if your Borders General numbers were true averages rather than "summer" averages) but in the general ball park.

Is that high? Well compare it to skiing at just under 3 injuries per 1000 skier days - its in the same ball park. Ski deaths are 0.68-0.71 deaths per million skier days. Assuming Glentress/Inners had a similar risk to downhill/alpine skiing you would expect roughly one death there in the last decade. http://www.ski-injury.com/intro

On a ski holiday last year 3 of 19 ended in hospital

Wasn't Switzerland was it?

[url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1434734/bin/1472-6963-6-25-2.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1434734/bin/1472-6963-6-25-2.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

If you take Glentress and Inners as an example though

But it's not a representative example. A ride on the South Downs, or example, or even South Wales, isn't going to be as technically challenging as a lot of the GT and Inners routes.

I know that non of that is stats

Yep! A sample size of 4-5 (you and your mates) is utterly useless when you're talking about a group of tens of thousands (the number of people who ride off road in the UK).

On a ski holiday last year 3 of 19 ended in hospital

factor in peer pressure on that one i think

years ago did stuff with BMC and we used to get collated data from regional sports councils
surprisingly fishing was one of the highest risk activities - high participation/older people - high risk heart attack, sometimes too much to drink

horse riding well up too - long way down

Mr Agreeable - Member
A ride on the South Downs, or example, or even South Wales, isn't going to be as technically challenging as a lot of the GT and Inners routes

Yes, but then there's skill level of rider on technically challenging trails against those on "leisure" trails.
I'd imagine skilled riders have less accidents, but when they do they're more severe against leisure riders having more accidents of a less severe nature.
That's of course ruling out the "really unlucky" situations where a "soft" accident has a high injury consequence (such as landing on a broken bottle in a grassy field)

Truth is no-one really knows, maybe somone should set up a survey site and trawl it around the mtb forums, or even maybe-er perhaps the "mtb press" could join forces and put a simple survey form on their websites along the lines of...

What skill level rider do you consider yourself
What is your typical riding type/terrain
How often and for how long do you ususally ride off road
How many accidents have you had and how many required hospital treatment
Never going to be definitive but may be an interetsing exercise......

I agree with comments above that stats are probably skewed by the definition of mountain biking.
People who hybrids on flat graded tracks and country roads will lower the figures.
I think the figures for technical singletrack riding would be way higher than 1:1000

Choppers and ambulances are regularly seen at South Wales trail centres on weekends.
I recall a weekend last year at Cwm Carn where the chopper frequency was so high it could have been considered part of the shuttle service!
Shuttle to top of DH track -> bomb down -> shuttle to Newport hospital.

If you asked magazine readers (probably keener riders than average to start with) to fill out a survey, you'd have a self-selected set of responses, which might not be very representative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_bias

Also worth bearing in mind the general level of hospital admissions across all the population. I've been needed hospital treatment twice as a result of biking accidents in about 9 years of serious riding, but no other hospital admissions for other causes.

I recall a weekend last year at Cwm Carn where the chopper frequency was so high it could have been considered part of the shuttle service!

I've only ever seen the ambulance there once. But that doesn't make for such an interesting anecdote.

http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/8902018.Cyclist_died_three_days_after_injury_between_Hackpen_and_Overton/

As nice as it is to see an attempt to base a debate on fact rather than a combination of wiki&dogma, I fail to see the real value here. It is somewhat amusing to see statistics being quoted here to two decimal places as if this gives them a sense of extra scientific legitimacy. But what do they say about statistics.....!?!?! Like some (!) economic stats, this is merely noise.

Isn't the issue really rather simple? Like most outdoor recreations (trying to use non-emotive words like sports there!), mountain biking is "potentially" dangerous. The nature and extent of the danger depends on a whole host of factors, many/most of which have already been described. So once that is recognised, individuals can make their own assessments of the risk and prepare accordingly. The more they do this the less likely that the potential risks and dangers are realised. A basic tenet of mountaineering leadership or perhaps I should say, simply common sense?

The alternative idea is well illustrated in the first of the three photos above. The first nice "family" ride looks nice and safe....helmets, relatively controlled environment etc, but they are ignoring plenty of potential dangers with ill fitting/ poor choice of helmets/footwear and the folly of riding one handed while controlling (sic) a dog.

THM, I think the point was TJ wanted some ammo for his latest row, which appears to external to the forum, but you are right, this all just conjecture, and has very little meaning for any understanding of the rate of injury in our sport.

we were told by a mechanic in the hub at glentress a few years back the last death they had was caused by an unplugged handlebar going through the riders skull. No idea if it is true or not!

bigjim - don't know about GT, but that definitely happened at the BMX track in Derby a few years ago (through the chest though, not the skull).

Most mountain rescue sites give stats if you wanted a relative comparison of accidents compared with other sports (sorry TJ, 'activities' or whatever you want to call them 😉 ), my local one does:

http://www.edalemrt.co.uk/team_statistics.html

I crashed last night!

Nothing major - a bit of a rolly polly thing attached to the bike! Today I have some brusing and a dead leg! 😥

I ride 2-3 times a week, and have done for about 5 years now. I don't fall off that often (4-6 times a year at a guess!)

I have only ever needed hospital treatment once! (broken collarbone..)

Hope this helps the stats!!

toys19 - Member

THM, I think the point was TJ wanted some ammo for his latest row, which appears to external to the forum, but you are right, this all just conjecture, and has very little meaning for any understanding of the rate of injury in our sport.

Cynical old hector.

I was genuinely interested in it and thus had a trawl around looking for stats and came up with very little that was meaningful. However its not all just conjecture - there is some research there to discuss that is peer reviewed

I thought it an interesting discussion.

Poly - the 1000 is rides I think.

Hugor - one of the 1 - 1000 figures came from an analysis of xc and endurance races where one would think the risk is higher that leisure riding of most types. another set of stats showing low serious injury rates was from vancouvers north shore

Its not a great set of stats and I shall go looking for more tonight as I have got my athens password back so can get into the more detailed stuff

I have a wealthy client who was taken out by his bank manager when he was out at his Swiss Chalet for a game of golf. The manager was called mid-round to be informed that one of their other wealthy clients who'd opted for a MTB day instead of golf had ridden off the trail following far more experienced riders and had died from the injuries (he fell a long way i believe).

That's the only death i've heard of as an actual result of crashing rather than heart attacks etc.

Regarding clipless pedals being safer, could it be not the pedals themselves, but the style of riding that's making a difference.
Once you're in a position where a crash is inevitable, I don't suppose it makes all that much difference whether you remain attached to the bike or not.
However, clipless pedals are [i]generally[/i] worn by experienced XC riders, who are probably less likely to injure themselves crashing than novices or downhillers.

I'd expect the clipless thing is due to the potential of flat pedals with long metal pins to cause lacerations. I've given myself at least one shinburger that was bad enough to require stitches; I just toughed it out though. :rawk:

The first nice "family" ride looks nice and safe....helmets, relatively controlled environment etc, but they are ignoring plenty of potential dangers with ill fitting/ poor choice of helmets/footwear and the folly of riding one handed while controlling (sic) a dog.

There's also some evidence that novice or leisure riders are more litigious than experienced ones, as well as being less self-reliant. The true cost of injuries isn't just measured in A&E admissions: fighting a court case is potentially much more expensive than patching someone up after a spill.

a friend of mine was killed about 17 years ago going over the bars descending Darwen tower.

I wonder if some accidents are caused by less experienced riders loosing contact with the pedals and that this is reduced by clipping in

I ride flats and very rarley feel my feet moove let alone come off but you know what I mean

But it's not a representative example. A ride on the South Downs, or example, or even South Wales, isn't going to be as technically challenging as a lot of the GT and Inners routes.

It is somewhat amusing to see statistics being quoted here to two decimal places as if this gives them a sense of extra scientific legitimacy.

There have been a few killed in Whistler that I know of, although at least one of these is due to Bears.

What a load of cobblers.
There was 1 death on WBP in 2002. severe head trauma on Crabapple hits.
No one in (modern/tourist) Whister has EVER died from a bear conflict!

The incidence of death and serious injury in Whistler with Skiing is far higher that mountain biking. I believe 3 this year from skiing, at least 2 from a combination of alcohol, sub zero temperatures and sleeping in the snow). And 2 high profile skiers from Canada have died in world competitions this winter.

Although the admissions from the bike park to the med center in summer is proportionaly higher with broken bones, road rash etc etc

If you want to see stats, you need to work with a bike park facility with their own medical response unit to see what the incident rates and severities are.
Trouble is that they probably wont ever release that info..

I can tell you though, that if you remove 1st morning and A-line, your chance of injury on WBP is HEAVILY reduced!

As a side note. I saw a Mens Health (USA) article about head trauma and Cycling is teh #1 sport for emergency clinic head trauma admissions. The NHL is currently trying to crack down on high/head hits in Ice Hockey after some 3 death/suicides of pro hockey players whose deaths have been attributed to concussion. Hockey is only #14 in that list.

A growing body of research on both hockey players and boxers indicates clearly that blows to the head cause irreversible damage, a condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Breaking news. A 40yr old man died yesterday riding on Cypress mountain in West Van.

Always sad to hear

[url= http://www.theprovince.com/news/Mountain+biker+killed+Monday+Cypress+Mountain/6581546/story.html ]News[/url]

No one in (modern/tourist) Whister has EVER died from a bear conflict!

The incidence of death and serious injury in Whistler with Skiing is far higher that mountain biking.

Be careful with stats on that one - there are probably more skiers than bikers by at least one order of magnitude.

Be careful with stats on that one - there are probably more skiers than bikers by at least one order of magnitude.

Very good point.

There a whole forum on this subject on MTBR.

http://forums.mtbr.com/rider-down-injuries-recovery/

I've not searched it but there's possibly some pointers there....