mountain bike injuries down 56-percent

sspomer
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Edited Date/Time 8/18/2014 12:24am
bicycle retailer has an interesting article about mountain bike injuries declining 56% over the last 14 years.

do you think better bikes and design mean less injury overall?

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON BICYCLE RETAILER

here's a snippet about injury specifics:
According to the study, appearing in the February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine, the most frequent diagnoses were fractures (27 percent), soft tissue injuries (24 percent) and lacerations (21 percent), while the most commonly injured body parts were the upper extremities (27 percent), shoulder and clavicle (20 percent) and the lower extremities (20 percent). Falls (70 percent) or being thrown off the bike (14 percent) were the most common mechanisms of injury.
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kidwoo
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2/7/2011 9:49am
Yeah I kind of agree with the obvious answer.

I mean THIS used to be something people would tell you was safe to go ride at high speeds down rough trails.

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Hubbard
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Felton, CA US
2/7/2011 11:07am
I think is has more to do with mountain biking isn't JUST for the hard core adrenalin junkies any more. I see a shit ton more 50 something year old fitness riders on the trails today then I did 14 years ago.
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sideshow
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2/7/2011 11:21am
better equipment is to thank heavily. i'm sure there are plenty of other external factors, but equipment is #1 i think.
2/7/2011 12:29pm Edited Date/Time 2/7/2011 12:32pm
i think more people wear armour than before....why?...its cheaper and better fitting than its ever been...
also everyone's realising that injury = downtime...

bearing that in mind..
I just busted my left collarbone in the weekend into 3 bits!!
Super hot day here (southern hemisphere, NZ) 35deg C...anyway chose to take off body armour...landed badly on jump...came off onto shoulder....

v.stupid
IJB
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South Dennis, MA US
2/7/2011 2:16pm Edited Date/Time 2/7/2011 2:17pm
Haha I remember those stumpjumpers, my Klein Pulse is still kicking it too. And out here in the North East some of the old guys are bad to the bone! I don't feel any safer on a FS bike, it actually just makes me go faster.
sspomer
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2/7/2011 2:28pm
the softride stem on that stumpy is awesome! "suspend the rider, not the bike" LOL.
mxnate
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Sarnia CA
2/7/2011 4:49pm
Probably not a coicidence but I ride 56% less than I used to, clearly Im making the whole industy look better, theres should be a free bike in there somewhere and maybe some armor?
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sideshow
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2/7/2011 7:56pm
nice nac-nac. just had to pass that along. i think the proper fit (and more comfortable) padding/armor has played a big big role too. that was a good call on A-M's part.
diatribe69
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2/9/2011 10:24am
In unrelated news, the number of trails closed to mountain bikes has increased 56% in the last 14 years.
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bturman
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Durango, CO US
2/9/2011 10:58am
diatribe69 wrote:
In unrelated news, the number of trails closed to mountain bikes has increased 56% in the last 14 years.
Ha! Likely true...
Big Bird
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2/14/2011 10:07am
My friend broke his collarbone this weekend too. We not so jokingly told him to say he tripped down some stairs of something. In this day, with 56% more money hungry lawyers, it doesn't help anybody to become another statistic. I think more people just realise that injury figures mean trail closures.
1
10/11/2023 4:47am

I guess it's mostly compositional: the higher the number or riders the more riders doing easier kind of riding. Where I am from, light e-biking/touring has grew tremendously. I also second the consideration of willful underreporting of how a injury happened (being there, done that). 

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Yoda
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IT
10/11/2023 5:20am
sideshow wrote:
better equipment is to thank heavily. i'm sure there are plenty of other external factors, but equipment is #1 i think.

I agree. Specifically, I'd expect the radical change in weight distribution further back, combined with much higher average suspension travel (vs. trail difficulty) and lower stand-over heights is helping to reduce OTBs amongst riding groups of all ability levels and reducing the frequency of injuries. 

In terms of composition, I would bet that increased bike park traffic offsets (to a certain extent) the many new riders we've welcomed to the sport. Last year in Leogang after blowing up, Austrian red cross which cleaned me up confirmed I was case #17 of the day needing medical treatment on just a quiet mid-summer Tuesday. 

The odds are not stacked in our favor regarding injuries (ex. broke my scaphoid mid-september), but I'll take that risk everyday vs. riding/training in the road. Hope to keep seeing improvements in safety technology, specifically helmets and protection jackets.

 

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sspomer
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10/11/2023 8:16am

the original discussion in this thread is from 2011, but stats aside, still a relevant discussion.

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