Getting hurt sucks. Weather you did it on your bike, just walking down the steps or while canoeing it sucks. Best case scenario, you were having fun when it happened or you’ve got a good story to go along with it. For me it’s not the accident that was the bad part, it is the recovery: the days, weeks, or even months of ice, Ibuprofen and watchin everyone ride off without you because you are still takin it easy.
So I have had more than my fair share of crashes: all types of them. From a seemingly minor pedal bite to the shin that turned into a huge hematoma leaving my leg black and painful for a month, to diving into the dirt and waking up in the hospital after being back-boarded out of the woods and getting a cat scan, to seeing my femoral artery thanks to a shiv of a broken brake lever. I have broken my ankle 3 times, broken countless fingers and toes, fractured my hip, lost some teeth, broken 6 ribs (thankfully not all at once) partially torn a few muscles and gotten more concussions than a pro linemen. OK I’m definitely not bragging. Just establishing credibility because I’ve recovered from all of these as well (except the concussions). OK, here are my tips for avoiding too many vacations on the couch:
1 Prevention: Yeh right that sounds like riding slow and cautious, they say don’t ride above your skill level, but then how will you ever land that trick or hit that corner just right or catch the break away. The fact is you have to push yourself to get better. You’re not just born with the ability: it is developed by means of practicing and crashing and doing it again. The trick is mastering all the basics so you have a solid base of skill which makes the next step up a lot safer to go for. If it’s road riding, good skills are knowing how to pedal (push & pull) and draft. On a mountain bike it’s all about bike handling skills, knowing how to pump through corners, jump over rough sections, how and when to use your brakes. Then Cyclocross is a solid combination of mountain and road mixed with the desire to get muddy and bloody. Now if you really want to have top notch handling start riding skate parks that will force you to make that bike your bitch take control of your bike. Pushing your bike through berms and bowls, over jumps and off ledges, all while dodging skate boarders really makes you control your bike or die, and if that’s not challenging enough for you then dirt jumps will not only test your ability to be smooth but will also make you commit.
2 Learn to crash: You are going to crash, so learn to do it right. Just get away from your bike — it’s got lots of sharp points and shit to get tangled up in so ditch it! Haha and that’s all I’ve got for you on this topic there’s nothing I can tell you that you will actually think about and act on in the half second you’ll have before you hit the ground. I think it is a muscle memory kind of thing which means you have to do it a lot before you’re good at it. So have fun practicing.
3 Get up: Assuming you can do this on your own, remember what your little league coach said: “Quit crying and walk it off.” I like to try again; go back to the start, take a deep breath and do it better this time.
4 Recovery: Ughh…..I fucking hate this part but it is the most important part so here are the two Matt-approved ways of getting through it.
Method 1: Keep in mind I don’t see doctors unless I wake up in the ER so this advice is mostly for the like minded. The key to a speedy recovery is rest, ice and Ibuprofen, these three things are essential. By rest I don’t mean sleep I mean stay off of it. With bone and muscle injuries the less you use it the better. Lots of ice; ice is great for swelling. When the swelling is down, you get proper blood flow and that speeds healing. I tend to ice 4 times a day if I can. Ice feels pretty good, and 800mg of Ibuprofen in a prescription dose 3 times a day helps too (I applied for an honorary medical license; it’s pending).
So, I used method number 2 a lot in college and it has no advantage except that you get to keep riding and partying. Get drunk and stay a little drunk pretty much all the time. If you’re drunk you just don’t feel the pain, so “if it don’t hurt thenya aint hurt”… old Chinese proverb. In the off chance that this method works you will be a stronger person and only your liver will show evidence of lasting damage. The problem with this technique is that your actual healing time is at least doubled since the booze is robbing your body of valuable nutrients and you’re not getting the rest you need… and since you’re riding drunk all the time there’s a good chance you’re going to hurt yourself even worse and end up using the first method of recovery regardless.
So in summary: either don’t crash, or get better fast. I’m going to go ice my knee, take some vitamin IB and find my leg warmers before the ride to work… it looks chilly out there. Oh and a friendly word of caution: your tyres don’t stick as well when the roads are cold, so watch those fast corners.
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on the “learn to crash” topic, there is a “right way” to do it, but it takes a lot of practise. You can actually practise without too much trauma, it’s called “tumbling” and/or “gymnastics”. When I was learning to ride horses as a small kid / elementary schooler, my grandpa taught me “vaulting”, which is code for “how to fall off a fast moving horse and not die”. Basically he ran the horse around on a long line and I practised jumping off and rolling at all speeds. You quickly learn the coordination of how to tumble / roll away from the danger zone (hooves, etc.). I thought my mom was gonna kill him. He learned this in the Cavalry back in the ‘teens. (that’s 19-teens in case you wondered). Those dudes were hardcore back in tha day, don’t let the natty ‘staches and wool hats in the tin types fool you.
This translates to the bike. Back when I was a young twentysomething, Aldo Ross had me do some “front rolls with an old pair of drop bars” as a precursor to learning cyclocross. In MTB your first impulse should definitely be to throw the bike away from you and/or learn how to walk out over the bars on an endo. BMX helps with that for sure.
On the road, you will tend to break less bones / lose less skin in sliding if you’re able to hang on / go down without sticking your arms out, and by rolling / tumbling to break the fall & disperse force on large well padded areas (hip/shoulder/back). Road bikes also are so much ligher and less pointy than your typical MTB that they can go along with you without anywhere near as much damage.
I broke my arm badly when I got doored due to not having both hands on the bars; had I been holding onto the bike I prolly still would have gotten hurt but maybe rolled better and perhaps not to the tune of multi-thousands of dollars worth of surgery and a lot of time in casts and braces.
oh and: wear your frickin helmet.
Beth awesome advise thankyou. Iv’e got a 2 year old who is starting to get around pretty good on his balance bike, but I like the sounds of teaching him to tumble to stave off some injuries….. and thanks for the helmet plug I can’t believe I didn’t stress its importance.
good blog dude. Those scooter bikes are awesome for kids learning to ride. And yea, I believe any kid involved in active sports (biking, hockey, soccer, skate boarding, etc…) would do well to crosstrain in something like gymnastics and/or martial arts to reinforce skills like coordination, reaction, agility, timing and balance.
I’m 42 years old, and when I endoed on some big pointy rocks a couple weeks ago on Kenosha pass, I could still hear old Gramps hollering “tuck that shoulder down and ROLL!” at six year old me. Got a sexAY bruise on my hip and a scraped calf from my “leg”beaters, but nothing permanent or even very traumatic. I was frankly just going too fast for the combo of my skill level and a 4″ travel bike, but as you said, that’s how you learn where the skill limit is.
as far as helmets, I can tell you first hand from 20+ years of being an idiot on a bike (and a lifetime of being an idiot on skateboards and horses), they only matter when they matter… and then they REALLY frickin matter… if that makes any sense. I’ve broken 3 helmets in the last 12 months on a bad string of luck and didn’t even get a mild concussion out of it, just a lot of crap from my friends. Stupid fixed gear tricks are Stupid.
I just wanted to add that another step to preventing injury is to make sure your bike (particularly mountain) is set up right for the conditions your riding in. About a week ago you told me to buy some knobby tires, and that winter riding is sketchy. “Theres leaves on the ground and its damp and stuff” You said. Being the first year mtn rider that I am I bought one rear tire, decided to leave my fast rolling, slick as snot wtb tire on and put as much air in both tires as I thought I could get away with. Ok, everything sounds good, now I’m off to the slickest, most leaf covered, recently rained on trail I can find. Yeah, I’m lucky to of came out alive. My b-hole was clinched the hole time. Luckily my brain had stopped thinking about cheetos and race cars and told me to take it easy. I did end up on my side once, and another time my bike completely came out from under me, I instinctively flew off the bike (which I had learned from my million other crashes this summer), grabbed a small tree which broke, and somehow landed on my feet. Anyways, when your bike shop guy who obviously knows more than you says “Buy knobby tires cause winter times comin” and ” Air down so you get more traction and you wont end up on your ass”, Listen.