The thing with MTBing is that you can go balls out as fast as you can on XC and your life’s not really in danger. That’s one of the things I like about it in fact.
Not quite true, i vividly remember a friend of mine who went face first into a metal fence post as a result of highsiding out of a fast corner. His crash lid smashed into 3 pieces, and he had to have extensive surgery to realign his nose and mouth. His crash helmet saved his life. And the fact that the paramedics were miracle workers.
This was 15 years ago and he was on an RTS 3. Imagine the speeds we reach on todays machinery, and im talking about XC bikes. And the trails themselves have moved on so much to be so much more technical than back then!
You can still die on a bicycle. In fact you can still die doing just about anything!