Getting back on, after falling off….

Last week I had an accident and came close to breaking my hip. I am off the bike at the moment as I have severe swelling, bruising and a bruised kidney.

As I am now resting at home, I feel a little nervous/anxious about getting back on the bike.

Anyone else had something similar happen?

Is it just a case of getting straight back on the saddle and riding?

I broke my hip.

Was very nervous initially and, tbh, it’s taken me some years to get to the point where ‘the fear’ doesn’t take control on some tricky stuff.

Things that will help (and some of these I wish I’d done sooner);

1) Protection, would paddign knees and hips etc make you feel less vulnerable?
2) Training: why did it happen? Would skills training help avoid a repeat or give you confidence to tackle similar obstacles.
3) repeat: once you’ve got over the injury, sorted out 1 and 2 go back and look at where you fell off and why. If you feel confident reride it and ‘prove’ it was a one off.
4) New bike: A new bike always makes you feel better about riding 🙂 I ‘rewarded’ myself after 4 months off the bike with a new frame when I injured myself.
5) don’t push too hard, if you are nervous accept it. If you want to get off and walk a tricky bit then do. Don’t be embarrassed.
6) do a few road miles initially, can help just to get back into turning pedals without worrying about off road obstacles etc.

Good luck and I’m sure you’ll get your confidence back.

When I have had a bad crash that required some down time I spent a bit of time analysing the crash to work out what I did wrong to cause it.
As a consequence I have changed certain aspects of my riding to make sure I don’t make the same mistake.
But I spent time watching riding clips on you tube talking to friends and when I got back on the bike I found a obstacle or track feature similar to the one I crashed on and then sessioned that until I was happy
Then moved on but with a better understanding of my riding

Is it just a case of getting straight back on the saddle and riding?

It depends what you were riding when you came off. Not talking out whether you get back on the bike or not, clearly that’s a given, but there’s a difference between coming off on a simple trail and injuring yourself dropping off a cliff. Figure out what went wrong, then get back on the bike once it’s not too painful and there’s no risk of doing further damage.

I’d echo what both wwaswas and Sancho have said. Don’t try and ride pretending it didn’t happen, do everything you need to to make sure you feel happy about riding. I had a big off which resulting in 3 months off riding – plenty of time to analyse what happened and visualise how I might have done it differently, and to consider how trivial the outcome would have been if I was wearing pads.

I didn’t rush back at it, expecting to be pushing in the same way. I took my time and enjoyed the details and technique of the riding I did “within the envelope” as it were. It wasn’t that long before I found it had stopped affecting my riding. What has been constant since is the precautions taken to prevent injury if it happens again and make sure, in the event of a repeat, that the immediate consequences aren’t horrid (wearing pads, telling people where I’m going, not pushing it when I’m on my own in the dark!)

Four years on and not wearing pads off road is an extremely rare occurence for me, and I think I’m a better smoother rider as a result of the “recovery” process.

Is it just a case of getting straight back on the saddle and riding?

For me it was, but I had to ease off quite a bit to build my confidence back up. The last couple of years have seen three falls that have left me requiring hospital treatment. One was a broken collarbone after a road bike crash due to a double blow-out. That knocked my confidence because – after analysing the crash – I couldn’t work out how I could have avoided it.

Only now am I getting my confidence back. However, I’d suggest NOT getting a new bike. Whilst I was recovering from my collarbone my bikes were pinched. When I was back on the bike I was riding different bikes from what I had ridden before the crashes. Having to get used to a different bike whilst also overcoming confidence issues was harder than expected.

I find I concentrate a lot more on my riding than I used to 🙂

After I broke my collar bone I became a lot more cautious in my riding and my “progression” but it was a long time ago and I am now a better faster rider than I used to be.

I recently broke an ankle snowboarding and was very nervous about the following season and how I would feel getting back on my board, but in practice I very quickly got back into it – but carry the learning of the incident in my head and try to avoid making the same mitake again.

I think you have to use it as a learning experience and then you’ll know very quickly once you get back on the horse if its still something you want to do as before.

Is it just a case of getting straight back on the saddle and riding?

Yes, and the sooner the better, but as others have said it’s a case of softly softly catchy monkey.

Obviously you’re going to be pretty stiff and sore for a while, but as soon as you feel able to, go for a gentle potter. Build it up as you start to feel more confident, but don’t go too big too soon!