MTB and spinal injuries – BC edition

Interesting research / evidence around an increase in spinal injuries among MTB riders.

It does to me raise questions about it there’s a similar increase in the UK. I have been to Glentress three times since the new trails, and three times there has been a MRT team and helicopter on the lower trails.

Do we have an issue?

‘Staggering’ number of spinal cord injuries linked to mountain biking: UBC study

I had only read a couple of paragraphs before surmising that it would be about mechanism of injury.

Modern bikes are so capable and speeds so fast that when it goes wrong it goes wrong

The data has always been there that trail centres/bike parks have disproportionate numbers of injuries

It’d be interesting to see UK data as I suspect the average ride in BC is vastly different to in the UK. The absolute numbers don’t seem huge – 58 in 14 years so just over 4 per year. I suppose it depends what the denominator is (Number of MTB kms ridden in 2008-2022 in BC)

That’s a good point re distance to injury.
It also didn’t give much context – how does MTB compare to riding in traffic due example?

I found out I had two crushed vertebrae in my spine and Osteoporosis in 2009 but had never had a relatable crash . Told by a specialist to never ride off road again and take up jogging instead ? My GP said he thought he was just covering himself , carry on but be careful so the next year I spent the Summer in Whistler ? Still MTBing now 15 years later but I’ve always been a wheels on the ground bimbler the complete opposite of radness !

I’ve smashed myself up more on road bikes than the MTB, including badly breaking my spine 9 years ago (almost to the day).  The issue is the bikes are more and more capable, but riders not. It really does not take much to break your spine, believe you me.  A car hit me, and I was doing 13mph. Bike was fine, but my spine broke in two before I even hit the ground due to deceleration forces.

It does to me raise questions about it there’s a similar increase in the UK.

Similar increase ? The report didn’t suggest, to me any increase in incidents more that riding trail centres in BC is more dangerous than other sports and with my limited experience of BC riding I am not surprised. The trails and bike parks runs I rode would be far longer and technical than anything I’ve ridden in the UK. As mentioned above riding a full sus down a black run at speed is going to risk a lot of damage to you if you come off and I’m not really surprised the injuries are more severe / prevalent than skiing or snow boarding.

Notable that they are looking at Bike park injuries, where features and speeds are going to be larger. Most tended to be ‘out the front door’ according to the study, so thats a lot of energy to dissipate you your upper body/head on landing.

Whilst the empirical number of injuries is low, in comparison to other ‘extreme sports’ the prevalence of total paralysis is high.

Maybe we’ll see those motor bike explosive inflation vests become more prevalent?

“Maybe we’ll see those motor bike explosive inflation vests become more prevalent?”

IIRC there were a lot of deaths and serious injuries in cross-country horse-riding about twenty years ago, and then riders started using similar inflating body protectors which drastically improved things. I’m not sure how you’d get them to trigger on a bike without false triggering…

Given the amount of over the bars moments that I see on Pinkbike Friday Fails I’m surprised there is not more spinal injuries, on watching the video clips I really wince at the crashes.

I’m not sure how you’d get them to trigger on a bike without false triggering…

pull cord attached to the bars?

No statistical info to back this up but there has to be a correlation between social media influencers and the uptick of these devastating injuries.
Whilst professional guides are not immune to injury (and are likely part of this particular study group), there is a significant mitigation process that goes into taking guests out for a ride in a hazardous environment. We were not guest injury free in Whistler, however much of our guides responsibility was managing individual rider risk exposure while encouraging safe(r) progression.
There’s will be STW members who’ve experienced injury in Whistler while being guided, however riders generally were inherently safer in a guiding program than under their own steam.
More recently, the scene has changed. Add in retired pro riders, turned “guides” who already have the risk gene removed and let people pay money to ride with them and that’s another factor all together, that’s just touring the gnar… yes, I know a local mid blue level rider who went on such a guided ride, was put on trails he shouldn’t have been anywhere near and he’s currently still recovering from a spinal injury and head trauma. Back on the bike now and oddly I saw him last month, out for redemption on the same program that put him in hospital in the first place.. that’s the power of influence.

New to the sport riders accelerating their riding journeys from their expectations as to what they perceive is achievable from instabangers. Coupled with the accessibility of the sport and being able to jump onto a superbike without the older progression of starting on a sh*t bike and learning the basic skills certainly can’t help.

Then headline videos on PB like “12-Year-Old Lands Triple Backflip on BMX”  and that risk gets pushed onto the generation who are even less capable of managing their risk, become influencers themselves and the bar of expectation gets raised higher and higher, the risk larger and larger.
Perhaps Josh Bender was the OG, but his stuff was clearly of significant risk of personal injury, done largely in inaccessible places that took real commitment to find. Then the rise of Remi and bringing new lines to your screens Whistler bike park with a decent following of people looking for their own take on his creativity. He’s taken a different approach over the last few years with openly communicated risk management and the thought process being brought in for consideration which I applaud.
Now, care free riders like Yoann, OF Lewis etc who are riding mega high risk features on video, for your viewing pleasure just steps from the highway, or a short pedal from your car on a well known and established trail, and its difficult to escape the normalizing of risk.

Ultimately, even just locally, influencers will kill someone through emulation.

Everything @BearBack just said…

I had an interesting experience when I had a go on a modern enduro style bike recently.

Ive been riding mountainbikes since the mid 80’s, i’m a reasonable wheels on the ground type rider, quite happy on Laggan Black for example but not on jumps on northshore stuff.

Anyway I set off downhill on the enduro bike and before I knew it I was just absolutely nailing a completely new to me red run at warp speed. I was staggered at what it could do and at no point did I feel out of control. I was hucking over boulder gardens and absoloutely hooning along

When I got to the bottom I realised that had I come off I would have seriously bloody hurt myself, and that actually scared me. On my own bike i would merrily trickle my way down, nice steady lines picking my way through technical sections. If i cocked up id just step or jump off, the bike might clatter but i’d be fine

Modern bikes let you go a whole lot quicker

No statistical info to back this up but there has to be a correlation between social media influencers and the uptick of these devastating injuries.

I’ll wait for the stats before drawing conclusions. If indeed it’s possible to get such stats.

Everything @BearBack said.  Quite a lot of debate over here on this unsurprisingly although noticably not on the biggest site in the world (unless I missed it…. ) More so on some of the smaller (and dare I say it more mature sites…).

I think the building of blue flow trails (especially worse built ones) is one culprit.  Locally we have two notorious trails and one of them is a blue flow trail that has a few corners and features that can catch the unwary out.  And when they are caught out they’re going fast because it’s not tech.

And then modern bikes and modern geometry make things fast… as high school physics told us it’s mass * velocity^2

No statistical info to back this up but there has to be a correlation between social media influencers and the uptick of these devastating injuries.

Absolutely agree.

It’s not all bad though, I also think it’s the reason the young teens I see riding and that ride with my lad are doing stuff on bikes I couldn’t have even imagined at their age. They’re learning formally with coaches, and informally through social media. In our local enduro race series kids in the U15 age groups are pushing the elite riders, and the U17 are beating some of them.

its difficult to escape the normalizing of risk

By my standards even smallish Tweed Valley influencers are risking some serious injury almost every ride they go out, and the ones that ride mountains are chancing disablement every other ride. I’ve happened to walk some of the mountain trails, I just think how the heck, why would you even want to ride that bit, what if you mess up.

The awkwardness and steepness of trails really doesn’t come across on camera.

No statistical info to back this up but there has to be a correlation between social media influencers and the uptick of these devastating injuries.Ultimately, even just locally, influencers will kill someone through emulation.

Reminds me of “Guns don’t kill people, rappers do.”

I’ not convinced speed is your enemy – big jumps/drops are a different matter of course – but I broke my back quite badly (4 vertebrae) 4 and a half years ago – yes I was on my MTB but travelling at c 5mph at the time – OTB into a ditch and landed on my head, the “scorpion kick” as my legs went over my head did all the damage – you can just be very unlucky!!!

+1 on the influence of Insta and Youtube on people riding beyond abilities through influencing. That has always been an issue in adventure sports alongside online influence though – I remember debates about the new generation of creek kayaks, drysuit etc and you could paddle really scary stuff without the skills and experience needed.

I think the building of blue flow trails (especially worse built ones) is one culprit. Locally we have two notorious trails and one of them is a blue flow trail that has a few corners and features that can catch the unwary out. And when they are caught out they’re going fast because it’s not tech.

And then modern bikes and modern geometry make things fast… as high school physics told us it’s mass * velocity^2

I would say similar – modern bikes are soooo calm up to a point particularly on certain trails, but that point has moved steeper and faster so when you do come off… I think the new Glentress ‘car park’ trails are a perfect example of this – huge speed is easy on massive berms and then it suddenly throws you a steeper drop into one, a flatter berm, or a out of pendulum corner…

These seem like small numbers and you’ve got to balance it against the positives of actually getting out and doing exercise you enjoy IMO.

Reminds me of “Guns don’t kill people, rappers do.”

The logical conclusion of your comment is we should severely control or ban bikes, rather than reducing the influencers “normalising risk”.

These seem like small numbers

Hmmmm, i think you’re downplaying it – if you read the full paper rather than just the news report it’s clear that the numbers are disproportionately high for the numbers of participants (compared to other highly physical contact sports), these numbers are only from a single acute trauma center in one province of Canada – so the total N for Canada is likely a lot higher, the incidence appears to be increasing in the 2 years after their record review, the people being paralysed are young and fit.

Interesting question, especially around the number of MR/helicopter visits to Glentress.

I’ve only ridden there a handful of times since the new trails opened, but it’s the only place I’ve been where I was passed by people smoking weed on the climbs, and there was a crowd all stopped for a smoking break at the top. There were a lot of wannabe motocross riders on ebikes there.

The new red feels like a rocky blue for big ebikes to me, and the accessibility of places to hurt yourself doesn’t sit too comfortably to me.

A few weeks later, I was riding & chatting to a pal who is a winch paramedic on a helicopter and has visited many Scottish trails in a working capacity. He is very much of the attitude that fewer people get seriously hurt riding than get seriously ill by either alcohol/drugs or just being sedentary & pretty much all physical exercise is good physical exercise.

Btw, I fractured a vertebrae falling off a BMX mucking about in the park with my daughter on a Saturday morning. If I’d been on an MTB ride I’d have had a back protector on.