[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.

theflatboy, my hand was backwards on my arm 😮

Night riding, lost it on a techy bit going v.quick, broke a couple of saplings before hitting a big one with my kidney and stopping.

Kidney only half working for a week or two so not clearing infections very well, scratch on ear lead to massive abscess in middle of muscle in neck, mis-diagnosed about 6 times by different doctors, leading to septicemia and finally being sent to hospital for emergency surgery.
I was later told I had about 24 hours, if it hadn't been cut out as the rest of my body had pretty much shutdown, don't remember much of it.

I'm happy to say I don't have any stories worthy of this thread, but do now feel a bit queasy

I still remember holding onto the bar rail of the bed in the middle of the night and finding my hand on something hard and crusted (previous patients poo?)- anyway with the realisation and a visual check I still held on as it was the last thing on my mind. Then there was the lady in the bed next to me crying out for help then from what I gather slipping away.

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Broke my arm doing something similar to t he OP in Spain*.

*I think, I remember taking off, and vaguely remmber landing, but can't remember if i came up short or overjumped it, I'm guessing the latter as I was thinking SPEED SPEED SPEED JUMP after the guide told me you had to do the (big) drop before it to maintain enough speed and I took the ckicken run round it.

My Worst incident I don't actually know precisely what happened.
I was 17 at the time, I left my then Girlfriends house at about 20:30 and turned up at home ~1.5 hours later (it was only a 10 minute journey), I quietly put my bike (with forks bent backwards sufficient to lock up the canti brakes) in the shed and went up to my room, My sister apparently worked out from a rather circular conversation that all was not well, I got kept for a night under observation (which again I have no memory of)... I assume I either hit something or someone hit me and buggered off, I had no helmet on (not something I do these days) and both the staps on my rucksack were snapped off, suggesting I stopped reasonably quickly and the inertia was enough for thebag to carry on and shear its straps (I must have carried that home too) ...

Luckiest escape was massively over-jumping the bottom table at UK bikepark, landing front wheel down perpendicular to the ground and only being winded, by rights I should have at least broken my collar bone, it was a good 15ft up/30ft long jump to faceplant at speed, and it definately affected my confidence with jumps and General DH riding, despite being a relatively consequence free incident...

Got slightly off line at the bottom of a short but steep descent at Woburn. The deep dry sand at the bottom offered little grip, therefore no chance to change direction or slow down before hitting the tree just off to the side of the trail - a dead stop from about 15mph. A&E thought I'd been hit by a car. Shattered collar bone and four bruised ribs, along with what the doc called "very impressive soft tissue damage" (gee thanks!). Not fun at my age - tend to ride now with a bit more forward planning about what to do if it all goes a bit wonky...

2nd November, 2009. A nice frosty night ride.

Entering a wood, following a mate, he flicked up a small brnach, my front wheel caught it, down I went. Was doing about 5mph. Stuck foot out to stop a full tumble, but it all went wrong and down I went. Immediately knew I was in trouble. After much laughter from mates, established that I was going to be taking no further part in the evening's ride. My ankle was well & truely buggered. Had to ride out of the woods (bottom of the hill) with one leg and then ride to the car (at least 3 miles away). then had to get the bike on the trailer, drive home, take bike of trailer, put in garage, unhitch trailer and put away & remove tow bar. Got in and pretty much collapsed in a heap. Mrs Feet asked what was up, so told her and she replied 'well if you will do such bloody stupid things as ride in the dark in the woods...'. Anyway, foot was now swelling up nicely and going funny colours, so off to bed I went.

Went to work the next day, but ended up going to the walk in centre, who sent me directly to A&E. A&E then just said it should get better in a few days / couple of weeks.

Fast forward 3 1/2 months and it's still swollen & still a funny colur so had a GP referral to have an X-Ray. The radiologist spotted all was not well, but it took another 2 weeks to get the results back and be told to go to teh fracture clinic where teh consultant announced I'd broken my ankle quite nicely in 3 places, but it all seemed to be healing OK, so a course of physio prescribed.

****ing thing still hurts nearly a year and a half later.

the last one. after which my physio said. well, that'll be your cycling over then. and as the weeks roll by, looks increasingly likely to be true...

Oh what happened? Knee ligaments?

That tabletop at the bottom of Ski Run at FOD. Was having an awesome day on the uplift, did the full 15/16 runs and fancied sessioning the tabletop as I'd wanted to clear it for ages. I was so close to clearing it, gave it a bit of extra speed and pulled up which caused me to twist in the air and then nosedive sideways. Tyre pinch flatted, I ended up over the bars in a cloud of dust. Something happened to my shoulder, don't know if it fully dislocated but something definitely popped out as I felt it go back in, then it came out then fell back in again as I shut my car door to go home. Drove home 1 handed with the heating on full in the middle of summer, as I was freezing!

Doctor said it was just muscle overextension and it would be fine in a few weeks. Almost 2 years later and I'm still on the physio stretches which can be quite painful, and it clicks in the cold. Sometimes get sharp shooting pains through the shoulder, maybe a trapped nerve or something?

apparently my mystery knee is beyond the ken of the nhs to either diagnose or advise on fixing. i would go into the boring details but i have insufficient life left. suffice to say the following becomes an ever more accurate portrait of orthopaedic types as time goes by

I rode into a tree stump (placed there by a swearword).
Branch went into shin/calf and swung me and the bike around 360 deg.

Had to "ride" 7 mile to get to a car - shoe full of blood.
Loads of stiches -internal and external.
Eastern European doctor waved away the suggestion from the nurse that it may require "plastics" and told her he had dealt with many gunshot/shrapnel wounds and that this was no different.
My calf looks like a half eaten pastie.

Last summer, nice dry evening, relatively small jump at the Bomb Crater in Swinley. Front wheel washed out and I went down on my shoulder then head. Broken collar bone, smashed helmet and a mild concussion.

Sat on a log for a while, then cycled out of the forest with my two sons, loaded the car (my bike on the top of the CRV 😯 ), sat debating how to drive (not an auto), then drove home looking grey and went to bed with painkillers. Went to hospital the next morning.

D(ad)TFU 😉

I did this near the start of a Pootle about a year back. Landing square onto rocks/The Beast onto my bare knee.

Ps, I have knobbly knees normally 😀

I finished the rest of the Pootle

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Broken elbow on a washout and a dislocated shoulder and torn ligaments after a trip over the bars 🙄

Cannock 2011 just bought a new zesty - wasn't tuned quite right(excuse for rubbish skills). Hit the rock pavements went over the bars and landed on hands and knees. Bit sore - finished the ride. Over the next few months slowly became unable to walk without being in agony.
One MRI later showed severe prolapsed discs requring surgery. Now off for 4-6 weeks recovering.
Best part - this is the second time.
Missus and i still discussing me keeping the bike - or not.
Only bonus - managed to watch 6 seasons of criminal minds.

In terms of what the **** happened and outward physical damage my OTB at last year's Bristol Bikefest is up there for me;

[img] [/img]

Although breaking my wrist in 4 places a few years back tumbling down the Picnic Bench trail in Leigh Woods was the most debilitating

Broken elbow

Gawd I'm shit on a bike 😆

Absolutely hooning down White Coppice, the previous weeks melting snow had eroded away a hole that wasn't there the week before. I was on top of before I saw it. I tried to clear it, but you know when you get that horrible sinking feeling..... you know you're not going to make it

The back wheel hooked up, I went straight over the bars and face planted, basically punching a mahoosive hole in my face. It was a right mess. 'Multi-directional lacerations' according to the various surgeons who prodded me while they glued and stitched my face back together. I was absolutely covered in blood! And completely dazed. I'd have been in pretty serious trouble without the helmet!

I'm amazed I'm not more seriously scarred! And Thank god for my rather chilled mate Paul who coaxed me, completely befuddled, back to civilisation

A high speed DH launch ramp I built was altered to a medium speed kicker for flare by a 16 year old right after showing him papers saying to tell all riders of any changes on private sites (to get round insurance) and I hit it faster than I could pedal.

Landed on my front wheel, thought 'no problem' but then I hit loose leaves and the wheel slid. I saw the ground coming at me, actually said, 'I could die here' and closed my eyes and relaxed. Hit right side jaw, full facer has a few gouges there but didn't break. Apparently I rolled onto my back, didn't travel any. Sat up 2 seconds later and started swearing. Got up and rode off, but was wobbly. Been told the electricity probably stopped in my head those few seconds.

Suffered an mTBI, with internal right ear bone fragments loose most likely. This was about 10 years ago. I couldn't walk right for 6.5 years until the fragments were 'moved'. I was suffering headaches, hallucinations (from my memory, superimposed over hearing and vision) turned grey and sweaty with exertion. Jars to my head would stun and almost render me unconscious. I'm light sensitive now, so those stupid flashing front lights people use really are my bane on an evening commute in the dark. 1 in 7,000 people are epileptic, and far more light sensitive, it's a shame people don't think of this.

I had blackouts and then seizures for many years. Only figured the blackouts due to finally figuring out the almost constant physical pain in the left side of my head was me slamming my head into the unit next to me where I sat at home. The seizures were distressing, lowered IQ, unable to know my own name, complete physical lockups and probably stopping breathing during them too.

Short term memory gone to pot. Had to learn to put things into long term. Memories pre-accident are still there and I had to relearn a lot, to make new connections to access them all. Still have crap maths ability. Headway (brain injury charity) was around but not accessible for me (not in my city) and the NHS wasn't geared up for brain injuries (nurses yelled at me for my style of riding saying 'bikes aren't meant to do that' etc) They couldn't even send me to the brain specialist in the next building, red tape said if I wasn't going to die in 24hrs I had to ask my GP to send me to the specialist. Took me 4 months to remember to make an appointment. I was 5 months in. From 9 to 14 badly I suffered badly. I went on a hard XC ride and came back and had my first seizure. The damage was getting worse. At 18 months in I had my second fall off the top of a staircase seeing a corridor there and my employer (solicitors) said there was no way with this known condition that the public liability insurance would cover me. Off to the GP and got signed off.

The specialist then got upset with me, diagnosed me then filled in my DLA forms saying "has no day to day problems" even after I was blacking out, overflowing my bath, burning my pans on my stove. Took 1.5 years to get to an independent appeal and found the paperwork. Also my GP didn't state what he'd diagnose me with, then he retired, leaving me piss poor, and confused.

A whole load of variable symptoms, misdiagnosis by many doctors, awful experiences at the hands of neuro-psychologists and psychiatrists (apart from one shrink, she was solid) Put on 55lbs in weight, lost 30lbs two summers ago and working on the rest still. Differences in chemical balance meaning allergies surfaced, and particularly sensitivities to things.

Was hard watching my kids grow up, being forgetful, bad sleeping habits (a lot of 12-13hr sleeping) confusion over dates and facts. But I did get my education paid for and I graduate uni in June, (hopefully) and may be able to work in a half-decent job. There are limitations though. Memory still buggered, knocks to head are awful, fluctuating emotions.

I have always and still advocate wearing helmets obviously, but gotta say there were many, many, many times along the route to where I am now where I wish I had just died.

The best thing we can learn from this as 'sportsmen' is to observe your mates for symptoms after head impacts. If you notice changes, tell them to report to their GP for diagnosis before their world turns to crap. If you suffer a concussion then don't ride for 2 weeks, as a second 'could' kill you (biggest killer of young men in the US is head injuries, due to gunshots, vehicle accidents and american football and you'll find plenty of info on the web about concussions and mTBI's) Headway (the brain injury charity) is a reasonable source of literature, particularly the book aimed at family and friends. Usually stops them giving you grief when they see you healthy on the outside and say you are faking, trying to stay off work. And remember if you suffer one, don't blame. Blame is the biggest cause of psychological problems amongst mTBI sufferers.

I'm back riding, I can do most stuff. Things sure have changed in the last ten years, but the fun is still how I remember it.

Swiss01,

apparently my mystery knee is beyond the ken of the nhs to either diagnose or advise on fixing

Go to a private consultant (about £80 to go see one at the nuffiedd hospitals). They're usualy just the NHS consultants moonlighting. My nneighbour did this, got the diagnosis, and then had the option of having the op there and then for £3k or waiting 6-8 weeks on the NHS (same surgeon, the consultant). Once he was in the system as it were he could have MRI's OP's whatever was needed, all on the NHS (or quicker if he paid for them). Going through the NHS consultant/physio system takes wayyy too long as thye're doing their best to avoid the relatively expensive options by eliminating all the cheep ones first before they send you to the consultant.