As mountain biking as a sport and recreation continues to grow, develop, and become ever more popular, so too does the perception that it is “dangerous”. More people biking inevitably means more crashes and injuries occur, in absolute terms at least. The word dangerous is a highly emotive term for many, often implying something more than simply saying it’s a sport and activity which comes with its own set of inherent risks. Certainly, there are plenty of more “dangerous” sports when you look at the statistics.
Here in New Zealand, the mainstream sports of rugby and netball, on injury rate per 1000 hours played, would be considered far more “dangerous” than mountain biking, and I am sure the case would be the same for similar sports in North America. On a pure statistical basis, getting into your car and driving even relatively short distances, is likely more “dangerous” than biking, particularly in terms of the seriousness of injuries given the higher energies involved. The perception that mountain biking is “dangerous” isn’t helped by the endless number of crash reels played on social media and video streaming services.
Truth be told, mountain biking is probably the safest it has ever been. Everything from bike design and construction, to geometry, tires, suspension, brakes - all come together to make for calmer, easier to handle, safer bicycles that can be ridden through a much wider variety of terrain. Then there is the safety equipment. I started riding bikes off-road before helmets were compulsory, and when they did become a mandated item of safety equipment, they were basically a hollowed-out lump of polystyrene with a thin Lycra cover over the top. Like our bikes, the helmets of today are light years ahead of what many of us started out with.
Protective body armor, originally the domain of hardcore downhill riders (which left them looking like ice hockey players), has evolved to become lightweight and all-day wearable, yet still very protective for all but the biggest of spills. Knee pads, elbow pads, good gloves, and tough technical clothing are simply amazing these days. Perhaps most importantly, the culture within mountain biking circles has shifted such that you are more likely to be frowned upon for not wearing such safety equipment than for wearing it, as has been the historical case.
Given the capability of both bikes and the equipment we use to enjoy them, this really is the golden age of mountain biking. Because of the popularity of mountain biking, more research is also being done, not only to look for ways to reduce risks and enhance safety even further, but to put some numbers around where the main injury risks are and their prevalence. One such recent study, released right at the end of 2020, looked at the specific injury risks for over 2000 riders racing in the Enduro World Series events. This study caught my eye for two reasons:
It highlighted to me just how safe our sport actually is.
By showing where the main injury risks are, it allows us to work toward mitigating these.
We need to keep in mind that the study was conducted on racers and interpret and extrapolate the results with caution. On the one hand, racers are very skilled riders, so perhaps they crash less? On the other, they ride extremely fast and in terrain that most of us mere mortals would not venture in to. Given the speeds they travel and the terrain they are in, when they do crash, you would expect injuries to be significant.
For the 2000+ riders tracked for 2 years, the racing injury incidence was 38.3 injuries per 1000 hours of riding. Their practice injury incidence (with practice riding potentially being a bit closer to how the rest of us might ride), was 3.6 injuries per 1000 hours of riding. I don’t know about you, but I find such low numbers reassuring, and, anecdotally, they are on par with the injury rates recorded in mountain bike park operations.
As you might expect, shoulders tend to bear the brunt of mountain biking crash injuries, followed by the hands and the head. A broken clavicle (collarbone) was the injury which caused most participants in the study the biggest burden in terms of time off the bike. Knowing such information should not put people off riding. In fact, it should do the opposite, with such knowledge giving focus toward mitigation strategies, which, for shoulders, primarily means working to strengthen them and make them as robust and durable as possible. We’ll touch more on ways to achieve this over the coming year.
Yes, some big crashes and serious accidents do occur in our beloved sport – it is important not to gloss over this fact. We probably all know someone who has been involved in one, or we might have our own war stories (buy me a coffee one day and ask me how I hung myself upside down on a barbed wire fence while riding my mountain bike down some steps). The risk is low, but it is not zero. This is, in part, where some of the exhilaration comes from – doing a thing with an element of risk to it.
Thankfully, there are several key risk-reducing steps we can take, with the following being my top 5 tips to prevent crashes and the injuries which may occur from these.
1. Minimum Safety Equipment
No matter how good a rider we might be (or think we are), or how good we think our bikes are, accidents will still happen. If not caused by you, then by someone else who isn’t as skillful or safety conscious as you are. So always wear the correct safety equipment, no matter what:
A modern mountain bike specific trail helmet, which includes good coverage to the base and side of your head, and a peak, which helps to protect your face. Make sure it fits properly, is always done up, and you are wearing it the correct way around! Erica has a great Tech Tuesday video on making sure your helmet is worn correctly. On more open mellow trails, I will wear a standard trail helmet, but on steeper, more closed in terrain, such as in tight forest trails in the bike park, or anywhere that the average speeds are much higher, I will wear a full-face helmet. I always wear glasses or goggles with my helmet to protect my eyes and face.
Full-finger gloves. If you are going down, then it is instinctual to extend your hands out in front of you and risking losing skin off your hands. Even minor grazes on the palm of your hands can be very painful and prevent you from doing a lot of things until they are healed. Having good full protection gloves is a must to save the skin on your hands. After a helmet, full-finger gloves are my next minimum requirement.
Knee pads. The stone-chip scars on my kneecaps attest to many years of mountain bike riding without wearing knee pads (they just didn’t really exist when I started). These days, my older, more sensible self, always rides with a pair of knee sleeves or knee pads. These aren’t like the full hard-shell armour knee guards of old, but rather, think of them as full-finger gloves for your knees. You can wear them all day and they give that crucial abrasion protection in case you do hit the ground.
2. Coaching
Well of course I was going to say that! But in all seriousness, all of the skills we teach at Women in the Mountains are aimed at increasing your safety and confidence. This helps with not only teaching you to how ride more difficult features and terrain, but also in teaching you where your current limitations are in terms of your skills and your bike. Eager family and friends might be a bit too quick to take you down that trail you are not ready for yet, at pains to tell you how easy it is and how much fun you will have! Coaches have a better eye for helping you define where you can ride to keep building your skills and confidence.
3. Strength & Fitness
Your physical capability plays a very important role in both preventing a crash, but in protecting you in the event of one. Again, we will discuss this in more depth in future Tech Tuesday’s, but in short, modern mountain biking is less about the all-out aerobic capacity of old, and now requires a bit more brute strength to hang onto the bikes in the terrain we ride them in. From the out-of-the-saddle hinge position to the wide shoulder stance of the bars, these positions offer us more balance and control, but also require more muscular effort (as you will attest to if you have only recently been introduced to them).
Not only do we need the strength to produce the force needed to guide and control the bike, but we need it to absorb the many forces and vibrations coming into us from the trail via the bike. If these forces overwhelm us easily, we run the risk of coming off the bike faster than we would like. If you do have the misfortune to crash, strong muscles covering our bones gives them an extra layer of protection. Far better to bruise a big glute max than to break a hip bone!
5. The Bike
I’ve already mentioned how good modern bikes are, but I’ll add a caveat here: as long as they are well-maintained and set up for the rider, their skill and confidence levels, and the terrain where they will ride. I’ve seen a lot of women turn up to clinics on great bikes. Great bikes with incorrectly set suspension, brake levers they can’t reach, or worse, completely worn pads, and cockpits set up in such a way that they can never get weight on the front tire (thus having no grip and constantly feeling that the front wheel will wash out).
It’s great that your partner has got a new bike! It might even be great that you get their old one – as long as it is specifically adapted to you. Suspension set for a heavy person will soon throw a light rider off. But if there is one thing I would recommend you do, that would be to get the grippiest tire you can afford, put it on the front wheel, and make sure the tire pressures are set correctly for the weight of the rider. The vast majority of novice crashes I have seen (and experienced) is the dreaded front wheel washout because the tire was ill-suited to the terrain, and/or over-inflated.
5. Nutrition & Knowing When to Call it a Day
I have a golden rule when riding – finish the day with at least 1-2 more laps left in the tank. When you are in the zone and the stoke is high, it can be tempting to just keep riding until you drop. But that is exactly what can happen – you will drop (crash) as a result of being tired, fatigued, losing focus. That feature that you have been owning all day will finally catch you out as you let your guard down and your mind begins to wander.
Not taking snacks and eating early and often to keep your energy levels up, or not drinking and quickly becoming dehydrated in the hot and dusty climates we often ride in, will see fatigue creep in (as quickly as 60-90 minutes into a ride), and your risk of a crash begin to climb exponentially. I usually aim to have one carb-dense bar, and one 500mL water bottle per hour that I am riding to keep my energy and hydration levels up. Big days out will include plenty of rest breaks and will see the introduction of some protein-rich foods and the use of electrolyte drinks, especially if it is hot. And if I am having a day when I am just not feeling it, I am quick to shut it down, or at the very least, keep it pretty chill on easier trails.
So, there you have it. Mountain biking has its own unique risk profile, but, on the whole, it is a fun and safe activity, which, with a bit of extra care and caution, and a healthy dose of respect, will see most of us continue to enjoy it with only a few minor bruises and scrapes from time to time.