Ouch! Broken collar bone.

Crikey, that hurts!  Came off on the Shredder at Ae Forest on Saturday. A wee bit of concussion and assorted cuts and bruises, too. If the kind chap who rang for help and wheeled my bike down to the shop is reading this, thanks!  Also a big thanks to the cafe (and bike shop?) owner who took me to Dumfries A&E.  Good people, both.  Has anyone any experience of how long it will take before I can ride bikes again?  I’ve been told up to 6 weeks for driving, so I’m thinking bikes will be a bit longer.  I’m, ahem, 68 so maybe won’t heal quite as fast as a younger chap …..

Gentle road riding, 6-12 weeks probably.

Mountain biking, 3-6 months or thereabouts.

12 weeks would be my guess.  You can probably ride earlier but the bone will not be as strong as it should be

Could you use a turbo, on a very upright bike setup?

People do vary greatly how much pain they get from a fractured collar bone.

Also of all the shoulder injuries to do falling off a bike, fracture collar bone is probably one of the best in terms of long term recovery  and rehabilitation.

I did mine last summer. At the 8 week check I was told it was “quite a complicated break” so they insisted on another month off the bike. 12 weeks total. Bit of a chore.

Road riding peed off mine. I think a combo of narrow bars, hunched over and no give at all between the road surface and me, so I went with MTB’ing along the canal and back on well surfaced and not to rough paths/tracks.

I think it was 6-8 weeks before I was back on the bike.

Sorry to hear this, creatine will help minimise muscle loss while recovering.

Did mine on the 6th June (along with my shoulder, ribs and back). Gentle rides on quiet roads and well maintained bridleways after 8-weeks.

X-ray last week and about 90% healed, told to carry on taking it easy for another 4 weeks and stay away from ‘serious’ mountain biking until Xmas.

Depends massively on how broke yours is. Broke mine in 2 places July 2022. They didn’t want to operate, and it never healed. Operation on 5th November, which took another bunch of time to get anywhere close to being useful…. Add in frozen shoulder due to it being out of action for so long…

I’ve also been suffering with a chest infection and orders not to break myself again before the family holiday earlier this month. So it’s been 13 months since I rode my bike…..

Thankfully, I’ve just built a new bike to play with, so things are looking up!

Hope you have a better time of it than I did.
Three years + on from it and still get pain from it every day.
Was off the bike for nine months which I found pretty hard to deal with.

Depends…

I did mine on 2nd July. 8 weeks ago today.

I’ve been back on the bike for 4 weeks now, gradually building up. I started off using the gravel bike on road (big tyres, low gears, relaxed position), progressed to the roadie, then 10 days ago got back – gently – on an mtb (and it was amazeballs). The bone is solid (but messy), although it won’t take much of an impact at the moment and if I knock it wrong, I know about it.

I was pretty lucky in that it never hurt that much (I wasn’t even sure I’d broken it at first – the giveaway was the big gap when I prodded it) and I didn’t get operated on. Initial hospital advice was near useless. “here’s a sling, piss off” was about the extent of it and it was 2.5 weeks before I could see anyone else. I managed to get an appointment with a physio 2 days after doing it who offered laser and magnet therapy (possible snake oil alert*!), but the advice I got on posture, how to set the sling up etc was worth the entry fee. Basically try and keep your forearm along side you rather than across your front; and keep the sling short enough to keep your shoulder elevated to a normal position; try and spend as much time out of the sling as comfortable/possible with the aim of minimising shoulder muscle wastage; keep moving – I did a LOT of walking. Sleep wise – the missus moved into the spare room and I basically learnt to sleep on my back with that arm straight out sideways, palm up. All the above aimed at keeping my shoulder rotated out which pulled the bones into best alignment.

As much vitamin D as you can face!

I started physio 10 days ago – which is mostly about rehabing my already a bit rubbish shoulder and getting the rotator cuff working again.

I’m 49, so not spring chicken, but not quite as venerable as you are.

*the lasers/magnets/voodoo/chicken-sacrificing was something I’d tried previously with a broken wrist that needed fixing quick. There used to be a guy called Brian Simpson/physioclinic.net in Ipswich who specialised in fixing up Moto GP and MX riders very quickly. He’s now retired, but I saw one of his ex-employees at Mid Suffolk Physiotherapy. In both cases I’ve had quick healing and a successful early return to riding. Your shout if it’s effective/placebo/snakeoil/other. As I said – in this case the general advice from someone actually willing to talk to me about how to manage the injury was worth a lot to me.

Thanks for that, JonEdwards.  Mine hurts like ****, but it’s a clean break, which will heal slightly overlapped, making me even more misshapen!  I think MTBing might be out of the question this year, but I’m hoping to be out on the road bike in a month or so.  Motorbike?  Not sure about that.  There’s a lot of force through the bars when you brake hard.

Another depends…I was almost 4 months first time (46) but that one came with an AC separation and range of movement was minimal early on. I was doing a little on the trainer after a couple of weeks but as I couldn’t put any effort in I got quickly bored and resorted to drinking in the garden instead.

Second time last summer at 50 yo, same side but more straightforward…plate changed next day….1 week on the trainer, 5 weeks outdoors.

All road riding….good luck!

I started riding off road after 3 weeks, could tell ends had joined. I couldn’t wear a rucksack for about 18 months as it went over where the break met but the ends didn’t quite match up. I was told this was quite normal and the bone will slowly reform and smooth down. Never had much pain, I think the pain comes from soft tissue damage and muscles/ligaments and tendons that get damaged at the same time.