I've spent the last three mornings on the red route at Chopwell woods.

I gather that it's an easy red route and doesn't take much doing.

There have been a couple of sections where by pure luck, nice brakes and a bit of magic, I have ended up only knee deep in the bushes (both times jumping small puddles and that was about it.)

I was fortunate to (lucky) to grab the brakes and manage to stop without coming off, but I did sort of throw myself back to get away from the thorns.

Is there a way to crash properly? Should I throw ,myself away from my bike or hang on and accept the consequences of over excitement.

I hold the bike to a point, then bail if i think " this is just not recoverable "

Same as fisha really, but remebering to clip out if I have time!

Never seen the point of bailing, I hang on to the bitter end and try to ride it out – you may surprise yourself! The only exception is OTBs, had quite a few running dismounts when front wheel has dissappeared into a bog or wheel shaped rut. Oh yeah and if you ever over do it with the front brake and start to go OTB don't let go of the front brake till you've got your feet unclipped, once you let go the bike will slam down pretty quick. Infact if your front wheel sinks into a bog grab some front brake, should slow down the rotation.

I mostly keep my hands tightly held onto the bars and use my face/kneecaps to provide friction against the ground, thus gradually bringing me to a stop.

I'm either mentally too slow or too stubborn to bail out. It never crosses my mind to even try before I face first on the ground.

I tend to find I crash properly when riding too fast beyond my skill level! I generally find I'm absolutely loving it until it dawns on me that pain is really imminent as I leave the bike. Occasionally, I'm really loving it, and then without even realising things are about to go wrong I find I'm in pain.

slow down?

If the inevitable has happened and you are on the way OTB then worth trying to relax and drop your shoulder, tuck and roll. Of course this is how every one of my falls goes 😕 I dont know about anyone else but the majority of falls happen before I realise, my first thought being Ouch!

Aye, slow down and learn how not to crash.

Learn to slow time so you can get a chance to position yourself to not get hurt… works for me

I find the best way is to start by track-standing at lights, right at the very front of a line of traffic on a busy main road at rush hour. End of the day is best, as everyone is scratchy from being at work, and just wants to go home.

The key part is to start to wobble and loose confidence in your ability to hold the track-stand for the remaining 1.5 seconds 'till the lights actually change, which of course, has the effect of making your hitherto working fine track-stand now useless, so you need to put your foot down, but almost magically you find you now can't disengage from your cleats, leading to the inevitable and stupid position of laying down in the road on your side, whilst still attached to your bicycle laughing like a maniac at the absurdity of it all, whilst the drivers behind either honk at you, laugh, or sometimes even get out to see if you have hurt yourself.

I'm actually now quite scared of being pulled down (another) inordinately steep and rocky bank into an very overgrown, stream-cut gully 100's of miles from anywhere whilst still attached to a bicycle (like last time), so I try to avoid crashing by not tempting fate by being clipped in, riding off-road.

i remember once when i was coming round a corner on a windy day on a downhill and the wind blew me towards a ditch instead and i couldn't turn out so i had to literally jump off my bike and i landed on my back, luckily i had my bag on so it didn't hurt but my legs were higher than my head put it that way lol 😀

Do people actually go through a thought process during crashing about how to land and when to unclip?

If so I'm impressed, normally I am off before I know it and have somehow managed to unclip during the process. Thats usually post the brief "oh f*** this is going to hurt" moment.:)

The only crash i've ever prepared myself mentaly for was the one that landed me in hospital, but thats because things started goign wrong about 100m up the trail, and I was desperately trying to bring th ebike to a controlled stop by aiming for the one bit of soft ish landing. Failed miserably and ended up bouncing down the track on my head/arms/knees/legs.

90% of my crashes on the trail happen too quick to do any more than kick the bike away as I aproach the floor.

got to agree with a few people up there though, a lot of the time ist the slaming the brakes on to try and stop that causes the problem, most wobbles can be ridden out of if you keep off the brakes, all they do is push you upright and in a straight line towards whatever it is your trying to avoid. Dont brake and look where you want to be and most of the time the bike will come back under controll and next time you'll know just how fast you can do that section i.e. a lot faster than you were tryign to as the 'crash' was actualy the bike just doing its thing and if you trust it to go through that fast it will usualy make it.

slow down?

was the last thing that got me in proper trouble. Thinking "hmmm. not sure i can maintain this" and trying to scrub some speed meant that "skimming over" became "bouncing off". Didn't end well, should have just held it to the bitter end.

I always like to have a decent bit of speed when I crash as that way you spend more of the crash going sideways rather than downwards, and it's the downward bit that hurts.

The slowing down bit isn't something you do once you're crashing … it's something you do to help prevent a crash in the first place. Trying to slow down once things get out of hand is pretty much a sure fire way of ending up on your arse as you've entered the world of panic and panic + braking equals trouble.

ask someone who does judo or jujitsu they will show you how to fall properly.my mates a master and when he has an off he instinctively rolls and allways ends up ok.bit like a cat

+1 for what he says ^

About the only thing I sometimes have time to do is relax arms/unlock elbows. If you can manage to do a sort of reverse push-up on landing you are less likely to dislocate your shoulder or break your collar-bone.

ask someone who does judo or jujitsu they will show you how to fall properly.my mates a master and when he has an off he instinctively rolls and allways ends up ok.bit like a cat

+1

The number of times that's helped I've lost count. However I got it wrong recently and ended up in plaster. I stacked the fireroad drop at Cwmcarn (proper ejection over the bars) and underestimated how far I was falling and landed on my hand harder than I thought. Just finished my 1st week out of plaster.

Otherwise it generally works pretty well, just relax and do a ragdoll impression if you find yourself rolling, you'll come to a stop eventually and reduce the risk of damage.

I usually have about a second's notice that things are going wrong. It goes sommat like this:

"Oh shhh… too fast … losing it … bike's gone all weird … but it's gonna be O… airborne … crunch … randomly tossed onto the ground………… huddle in pain.

I have had a couple where there's been no recollection of the events leading up the "airborne" bit. A truly good crash involves a tree that looms suddenly into your path.

I have hit the face of the landing on a double and bailed down a really steep hill. Instinct and good luck made me look back up the hill as I lay on the ground just in time to put up an arm and catch the chainring attached to 33lbs of Kona Dawg Primo that was careering towards my face. Wee bit of claret but no harm done. Oh forgot the point – just try to relax and do the most natural thing.

I have a feeling jedi was trying to say "judge your ability a little better when choosing a speed to ride at". But we all need to push past that from time to time IMO! Not wildly out of control, but certainly to the edge of what's comfortable, or you just don't progress.

As most above have said, if I have time to think about how to crash it's not really a crash, it's a misdirection and I'll probably just ride through it as best I can. Real Crashes are when you're just not expecting it and you pick yourself up off the floor wondering what the hell happened. It's amazing what you can actually ride through if you're stubborn/mentally slow enough lol.

Did a decent bit of crash practise at Whinlatter on Friday – over the bars coming down the South loop.

No technique on my part at all but got away with it fairly lightly – a sore and raw shin, nice bar end bruise on my thigh but fortnately flipped onto my back and my almost full Camelbak padded things nicely.

All my crashes have happened because I used the brakes.

I usually only have time to pull my face into a suitable grimace the split second before I hit the ground.

I have a mate who is pretty catlike when it comes to offs – not long ago he rescued an over the bars incident by some how managing to straddle/jump the handlebars landing in front of the bike on his feet. Then as he was stumbling forwards trying to stop, put one hand out behind him and caught the bike just as it was about to clout him.

Falling off my bike usually does the trick. Agree regarding Judo, whenever there is time tuck in an get your head and neck away from the 'landing site'. All my crashes have been in familiar trails where I have either been feeling unwell and shouldn't have been there anyway, on the brakes or have been over confident i.e. too fast. As the man himself said to me 'speed is that last thing that leaves you'.

dans160, you knows it 🙂

I'm fairly crash prone but I've got better of late by slowing down a little overall but then trying to ride out problems rather than my previous habit of riding faster, panic, then braking and falling off.I seem to be getting faster again as I'm more confident i can ride out wobbles and problems.

Normally I go down like a sack of sh1t and the first I really know about it is when I'm on the ground nursing my bumps and bruises. Possibly that's because most of my crashes happen when I get cocky and am going quite quickly (for me anyway).

Had a very minor off today – just got through a tricky little bit in the Nail Trail then managed to catch the front wheel in a hole at the side of the trail. Going slow enough to stay on my feet though.

Minor off in the Nail Trail