stopadoodledoo – or someone who understood what little you are actually paying for.

The general principle (since 1733) says that rescue services in the mountains and sea in France are free of charge.

Sorry to hear the OPs story – sounds like the accident could have occurred anywhere with 50m of elevation + rocks and a bit of bad luck.

The number of crashes here are all down to the shear amount of descending you can get in if you’re just riding the lifts all day for a week – it must be equivalent to a years worth of riding in the UK if you climb everything you descend – it’s simple probability really. Plus riding at inappropriate speed on inappropriate bikes for the trails – (generalising here, nothing about the OP’s tail).

I never understand why people come on holiday here on their 5 / 6 inch trail bikes and do nothing but ride the chairlifts + DH trails. Surely one run of the Chavannes is enough to put them off rattling their bikes to pieces! If you do a bit of exploring, it not only prolongs the life of your bike, it increases your chances of making it home without a big stack! Safety first and all that.

Someone asked for some statistics on the PPDS and somewhere like Afan

We used a guide last week who is part of the PPDS organisation team and he told us that there are typically 15 to 25 people each day who need to be extracted from the course due to injury

There were 2,000 riders each day, so we’re looking at approx 1% of riders needing

He said its much worse when its dry because people were going much quicker

Afan – sorry – no idea