My usual crashes are (thankfully) generally slow speed topples rather than at speed.

Last relatively serious one was a couple of months ago, Was out with the dog (on an extending lead – he can’t always be trusted to come back otherwise). He was flat out on a grassy track and I was riding with one hand on the grip normally and the other near the stem holding the lead. Dog suddenly saw an imaginary pheasant and dived rightwards through a gap in a hedge. I instinctively grabbed a handful of brake – the front one in this case. The resulting shift in weight distribution coupled with a one handed position caused a mildly spectacular high side and down I went. Couple of obvious sore bits but jumped back on, untangled the dog and carried on. Getting changed when I got home discovered that one of the toes on my left foot was a bit red and had a bend in it that wasn’t there previously… No idea how I broke a toe falling off a bike but there you go.

Prior to that my last proper crash and burn was at BPW a couple of years ago. Top section of Coal Not Dole. Popped off a little rock on a downslope but landed of line and the front wheel clipped a rock on the edge of the trail and massively OTB I went (mate riding behind me – who sadly didn’t turn his GoPro on at the top – said at my highest I was about 6 feet above the downslope where I landed). Never been in the air that long when crashing before – long enough to consciously think ‘this is going to hurt and i reckon it’s going to bust my collarbone, I’d better do something’. That something turned out to be sticking both hands out superman style and landing on them. Bit sore but everything was still working. Finished the run slowly but felt OK enough to try another uplift – turned out to be the slowest descent of blues in history since my right arm wasn’t really working in any meaningful way. Came home from the riding weekend early (following 8 hours in A&E with a mate’s hole in his knee where I didn’t get the arm looked at as ‘I’m sure it’ll be OK’). Two days later when i’d pretty much lost all mobility in my elbow I thought I might as well get it checked out. Turned out to be a radial head fracture and I was off the bike for 8 weeks…