this is a neat article doing the rounds, thought id x-post here

The Risk of Dying Doing What We Love

I also liked how the rider is sending it off the chart 😀

The climbing one is a bit odd as it only references climbing in the Tetons (part of the Rockies) whereas climbing covers much more than that. A bit of searching comes up with a BMC piece in which there is this:

RoSPA suggest that the risk of death from rock climbing while on rock face (i.e. actually climbing) in the UK is 4000 per 100 million hours:

His baseline is 1 death per 10 million hours of commercial flying. That figure above is 400 per 10 million hours of climbing or one death per 25,000 hours which is roughly a third of his quoted risk.

I’ve had far more serious injuries road cycling than MTB. The injuries weren’t inflicted by me though.

Base jumping not terribly safe. I’ll remember not to try that.:-)

Those base jumpers need to go on a skilz course 🙂

Ski touring more dangerous than skiing?

MTB more dangerous than paragliding and hang gliding?

Flying and gliding hours are fairly self explanatory, but Downhill MTB?

A full day (10-12 runs) at BPW gets you probably 1 to 1.5 hours of riding, depending on the trails and how good you are.

A ski lift park is probably more efficient – 2 hours maybe? But have the stats counted that as an 8 hour day of MTB?

A full day (10-12 runs) at BPW gets you probably 1 to 1.5 hours of riding, depending on the trails and how good you are.

If I were compiling it I’d say the uplift/chairlift/pushing/queuing counts, eating in the cafe doesn’t. i.e. if I fall out a chairlift and break my neck or get run over by the uplift van, that’s a skiing / mountain biking accident. If I get pissed and fall off the bar whilst doing an apres-ski maccarenna, or choke on a BPW burger, that’s not.

I’d say downhill / freeride mtb is alot safer than riding a motorbike. nice chart but looks nonsense.

Ski touring more dangerous than skiing?

Risk of avalanches and the mountain getting you are much higher randonee skiing.

A full day (10-12 runs) at BPW gets you probably 1 to 1.5 hours of riding, depending on the trails

He says DH. Depends what he means by that but BPW isn’t DH.

I couldn’t open the link where he took the stats from but I’m guessing it’s not a very comprehensive set.

I assume that the ‘risk’ here is the risk inherent in doing the activity; it probably needs offsetting against the risk of not doing any physical exercise (i.e. cycling might be slightly risking but has been shown to be very beneficial in reducing health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle).

@Pjay – back when I considered myself a climber and climbed to a high standard I happened to have a conversation with an insurance actuary who worked for one of the main insurance companies and asked him about the increased risk. His answer was there wasn’t any to the insurance company as it was countered by my much better general health.

Basically sports accidents are single events, they are traumatic and cost a lot to fix but as far as the company is concerned it’s a limited risk whereas they see someone who’s unfit/unhealthy as a long term risk since there’ll be ongoing and potentially unlimited costs. This assumes that there’s no recurring problems from an accident.

He says DH. Depends what he means by that but BPW isn’t DH.

I couldn’t open the link where he took the stats from but I’m guessing it’s not a very comprehensive set.

Whats the definition of downhill you are using, and what would qualify? It might not be suitable for a national or international DH race, but it’s uplifted trails created specifically for and used exclusively by bikes at an “official” venue.

Whats the definition of downhill you are using, and what would qualify? It might not be suitable for a national or international DH race, but it’s uplifted trails created specifically for and used exclusively by bikes at an “official” venue.

That’s the point of opening the link that he’s using. Is it proper DH racing? Or is it DH as defined by that random bloke who claims to ride DH on his Carrera?

BPW is just mountain biking, according to my own definition.

https://www.alpinmesse.info/de/Mountainbiken-in-Zahlen/

Here is the second link, I cant make out the first.

Google translate:

In the period from 01.11.2017 to 31.10.2018 9 bikers died fatally (mean 10 years: 5 deaths per year) and 686 persons were registered as injured. Despite probably much more bike days , fortunately there has not been a significant increase in deaths over the last 10 years .
Unlike the number of injured, whose number has increased highly significantly in the last 10 years , from annually 286 in the first half of the period (01.11.2008 to 31.10.2013) to 534 annually in the second half (01.11.2013 to 31.10.2018) ,
Apart from the deaths, bike accidents almost always occur on the descent: of the 706 registered bikers (dead, injured, uninjured), this was 86% and only 4% on the ascent. In 10% of casualties (dead, injured, uninjured) the direction of travel was unknown or flat.

This is incidents documented by Austrian mountain rescue. No distinction between park and mountainous back country (for want of better terms) that I could find.

“apart from deaths” to me indicates that at least some of these are going to be exposure/ cardiovascular problems, not spannering yourself in a crash – this muddies the waters further

Is the driver down the bottom just regular driving or sports related?

If the former, I’d place him right way above most activities there. Though the percentages based on 1000 hours seem a bit iffy.

Whats the definition of downhill you are using, and what would qualify? It might not be suitable for a national or international DH race, but it’s uplifted trails created specifically for and used exclusively by bikes at an “official” venue.

When BPW opened they were clear it’s not a DH venue. It’s a bike park. In fact, take a proper DH bike to BPW and see how you struggle (I know friends who have and said never again). Antur Stiniog on the other hand is more like it.

I know old school DH has been shoved aside in favour of “park” and Enduro bikes, so big 200 travel dual-crown DH bikes are a rarity these days. Even DH venues have been shifting to flow trails and freeride features rather than the flat out steep DH.

Yup BPW is a bike park with uplift.
According to his graph I am immortal as have done high altitude climbing, ice climbing, rock climbing, DH, sky diving, micro lighting, worked on a trawler, swan, flown loads of times and survive the M6 two days a week and travelled through lots of third world countries and had guns pointed at me on several occasions. Think I’ll have a beer to celebrate getting old enough to have grey hair and developing bald patch. Send me $50 cash if you want to learn the secret of eternal rubbish.

You were a swan? Cool.

Got neck ache, had to give it up and not very good at swaning so taking lessons now.

Does it have sitting in the sofa endlessly while over consuming food, never exercising and drinking too much on the chart?

Risk/benefit suggests that the bigger death issues we face are things like heart, obesity and diet related diabetes.

You have to read the Norm Chronicles and start to understand micro-morts to actually take notice of that chart.

Anecdotal but a mate who climbs and rides MTB (he’s good at both) reckons MTB is generally worse for injury not death.

Would be surprised if riding motorbikes on the road (even if just recreational) was not much riskier, in the UK at least! Never known anybody die MTBing. I know it happens but it is rare. Plenty of broken bones, awkward shoulder injuries, concussions, I’ve heard of the odd heart attack but not known a victim yet. Known a few who have ended up in the graveyard riding motorbikes on the road though 🙁

nice chart but looks nonsense.

The entire point of the exercise is to challenge what ‘looks dangerous’ but might not be. So saying it ‘looks nonsense’ is.. well.. nonsense 🙂

trumpton

Member

I’d say downhill / freeride mtb is alot safer than riding a motorbike.

Mmm, not sure. I’ve never gone for a 12 hour downhill ride. Even something really daft like the fort william endurance downhill I spent literally 102 minutes riding and that’s way into the point where I was going a bit mad and had bits of skin falling off. Most people on an innerleithen uplift don’t do every run top to bottom but even if you do, it’s what, 30 minutes? Generally the longer you’re riding on an uplift the less severe the riding is.

The risk per ride/incidence is probably higher for motorbikes, I think, but the duration is much longer which’ll drive the deaths/hour right down. I reckon trackdays might be quite comparable to uplift days?

We just love our favorite pastime and facing up to its risks can be stressful because we also want to be safe while having fun. Psychologists call this type of stress “cognitive dissonance”, and we intuitively look for ways to remove the discomfort of our conflicting emotions, often by downplaying the risks to ourselves and to others.

Many of the comments above seem to confirm this. 😁

As someone who normally rides from the door to trails I can say for certain that the road journey by bike feels more hazardous to life by some orders of magnitude

Agree with northwind here, the author is very clear is is deaths per hour, not per instance, of performing the activity. Hence MTB DH more risk of death than motorbike. per hour, I can believe that.
It also accounts for the insanely risky base jumping, because the duration of the jumps themselves are very short – he gives this sepcific example in the write up, if you read it, and explains why he has not included the climb time in the base jump example.

All that being said, there will be a lot of assumptions going into this, it’s not exactly scientific (no peer review, limited data points) so best considered as an interesting general guide.

US based and per hour of activity, well that is a surprise! An interesting way to interpret it.

whitestone

Member
The climbing one is a bit odd as it only references climbing in the Tetons (part of the Rockies) whereas climbing covers much more than that. A bit of searching comes up with a BMC piece in which there is this:

RoSPA suggest that the risk of death from rock climbing while on rock face (i.e. actually climbing) in the UK is 4000 per 100 million hours:

His baseline is 1 death per 10 million hours of commercial flying. That figure above is 400 per 10 million hours of climbing or one death per 25,000 hours which is roughly a third of his quoted risk.

agree many years did stuff for BMC and I recall that Horseriding (head injuries) and Angling (high participation, age, heart attacks, alcohol) featured as way up there in data not climbing

I’ve had far more serious injuries road cycling than MTB. The injuries weren’t inflicted by me though.

Same for me.

Psychologists call this type of stress “cognitive dissonance”, and we intuitively look for ways to remove the discomfort of our conflicting emotions, often by downplaying the risks to ourselves and to others.

See also the anti-phobic effects of risk taking. It basically means to scare yourself and take risks means you’re better prepared to cope with day to day stress and risks and a happier, calmer person when you do deal with life’s bumps.
This study is purely deaths. It takes no account of benefits of taking exercise, risks etc.