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Inverse correlation between where people WEAR extra armor and where they NEED extra armor? Is there data?

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snow snakes

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Discussion starter · #1 ·
In my anecdotal experience, it seems to me that the number one factor in what causes riders to add protective gear beyond the basic half-shell and gloves is rocks, which I can totally understand. Hitting a rock with bare skin isn't a lot of fun, even if it's pretty slow. However, it seems to me even though getting scraped up isn't nice, the biggest multiplier of serious injury on a bike isn't what the terrain is made up of, it's how fast you're moving through it.

We'll take a little detour here. Without even addressing the main 4-wheeled reason that road bikers are seriously injured/killed more frequently, the physics of deceleration + a hard surface + riding in a thin layer of lycra make incidents like this horrific crash at Itzulia Basque Country a few days ago easy to understand. That being the case, it's difficult for me to understand why the vast majority of riders near me on jump/drop heavy, hard-packed, high speed gravity-fed flow trails are wearing no more than the baseline protective gear I mentioned earlier. With that style of riding, there is no bailing when things start to go sideways - more often than not you're riding and then you're on the ground wondering what happened.

With the exception of park/downhill riding, where most everyone is armored up, it seems to me that there is an inverse correlation between riding where you're likely to have a high-speed crash with no chance of bailing and wearing any additional protection. I have no personal interest in a rock to the face, but I've personally never crashed suddenly enough in Arizona or the like that I couldn't just jump off the bike. Here, the seemingly most common mechanism of injury is a poorly landed jump or washing out in a berm (again, at high speed), and unfortunately I have crashed that way more than I would like to admit. Based on the injuries I see locally, I think more people should be gravitating towards additional chest/face protection.

Have you observed this relationship near you, or is my local scene just an anomaly? What am I missing (I'm sure there's something)? Have there been any studies on this that would provide concrete data one way or another?



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#3 ·
I have not really noticed what others wear, I can only speak for myself. I raced motorcycles since I was 6 and I never wore any body armor. On either bikes or motorcycles, I almost never hit the ground, I go 3-5 years between crashes. I still dont own any knee or elbow pads even when racing MTB enduros, but I do have a TLD Stage helmet that I wear when I do a race or go to a park, otherwise its a half shell. Having said that, I'm 56 and I have decided I need to invest in some knee/elbow pads and some kind of body armor for the park. I still wont wear knee/elbow pads for trail riding.
 
#5 ·
I washed out twice in gravelly flat turns in AZ this winter. The time I didn’t wear knee pads I had a bruised/scraped knee, would have been a lot worse if my knee hit an embedded rock. I went down mostly on my knee the second time but my knee pads prevented any injury, I didn’t even know I hit my knee until I saw the scratches on the knee pad cover.

Hard to just jump off the bike when you’re turning and then you’re down.

After those incidents I switched to a full-face helmet because there are a lot of big rocks near pretty much any turn and I figured I might as well get the full-face before I actually needed it.
 
#6 ·
For me, my protective gear choices depend largely on the character of the trails — and mostly how fast I know I’ll be going. Fast gnar is a lot more dangerous than slow gnar.

Some of the most difficult trails I ride are not terribly fast, they are just stupid-steep with some tricky moves. Since I’ve cleaned all the moves many, many times, I don’t worry that much anymore— I dress for the ride, not for crashing.

High-speed DH riding is another matter. There, I wear my heavy duty knee pads and a full face.

What surprises me the most is how many people on YouTube ride without gloves. It has seemingly become the “cool” thing to do. In actuality, I would argue that injuries to your hands are near the top of the list in terms of likelihood in a crash. If you scrape the skin off the palms of your hands, I hope it was worth it, considering you might be off the bike for weeks.
 
#8 ·
Is this another statistical thread??? :rolleyes:

I am seeing a trend toward over protection if there is such a thing. More and more riders are wearing FF and pads everywhere they ride.

In truth, one cannot be too careful. Especially with a dangerous activity such as mountain biking. I am currently researching for a helmet with more coverage but Im not ready to go FF.
 
#9 ·
They just haven’t wiped out yet, I assume. People…mostly younger ones…look at me like I’ve got a screw loose (that wide eyed “WTF is up with this guy?” look) frequently when I’m riding off-road with a full-face helmet.

I saw another guy last weekend without a helmet on at all. Likely a MTBR member, as he was only the second person that I’ve seen that underbiked on the trail (gravel bike). I felt bad for the guy (he was having a bad day for a range of reasons and was the most interesting trail interaction I’ve had yet).

You push yourself hard enough and/or get distracted and/or have a bad day, you’re going to wipe out sooner or later even if you “know” the trail. Ex. Fall time in my area (a ton of leaves)…you get people wiping out (myself included). I spoke with a guy a week or so after I wiped out that…as he described it…wiped out at roughly the same spot as me.
 
#10 · (Edited)
The EWS did a study on common injuries for pro enduro racers. They found hand and shoulder were the most common injuries. Anyone who has watched a Friday fails can see how hand and shoulders are commonly impacted with amateurs too. I'm perfectly aligned with this data haven broken a metacarpal, and an AC joint separation in addition to multiple other less severe hand and shoulder injuries over the years. Unfortunately, protecting our hands and shoulders is pretty tough. Other than protecting the skin, there's not a whole lot we can do. Shoulder pads will do little to nothing for something like an AC joint separation unless they were stacked like 80's football pads.
 
#13 ·
slimat99 said:
The EWS did a study on common injuries for pro enduro racers. They found hand and shoulder were the most common injuries. Anyone who has watched a Friday fails can see how hand and shoulders are commonly impacted with amateurs too. I'm perfectly aligned with this data having broken a metacarpal, and an AC joint separation in addition to multiple other less severe hand and shoulder injuries over the years. Unfortunately, protecting our hands and shoulders is pretty tough. Other than protecting the skin, there's not a whole lot we can do. Shoulder pads will do little to nothing for something like an AC joint separation unless they were stacked like 80's football pads.
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I really appreciated that study. It (and my brother in laws shoulder separation) is why I've started doing more shoulder exercises lately. My BIL's surgeon told him that he may not have had his shoulder separated if he had more muscle mass in his shoulder, stating it was essentially like built in body armor. I've taken that to heart, and am doing more work on that lately.

The one caveat that I'll mention about the EWS data... is that is on EWS racers. And EWS races have protection requirements, like a full face helmet, spine protector, and I believe knee pads are a requirement.

With that lens in place, you can see why hands/shoulders are more common, because they are some of the few places that are not already protected in some way.

Personally, I pad up, all the time. Its not so much the worry about pain of the injury that makes me do it (although some), its more the inconvenience/long term effects that I'm trying to avoid. I broke some ribs, and shattered a toe into 5 pieces a few years ago. Yes it was painful, yes I do now wear shoes with more armor on them, and no I don't wear ribcage protection on each ride. But the main thing was missing work, family stuff due to being injured.

I wear a full face, knee pads, elbow pads, gloves, and armored shoes (impact pros) on every single ride. For park, I add chest/back/shoulder, and recently acquired a neck brace. I'm thinking of armored gloves too.
 
#14 ·
phantoj said:
View attachment 2090141


(joke)
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I wish I had a better memory of the details, but I recall reading about the British analyzing the bombers that returned to base during WWII. They would inspect the damage and beef up the armoring for new planes where the holes in the returned plane weren't located. They figured that the ones that went down over Germany were likely hit where the returned planes weren't. Or, something like that.
 
#15 ·
I wear the FF helmet and knee pads, sometimes elbow pads too, when I ride the steep, black diamond trails. I go pretty minimal on protection for the easier trails. Guess which trails I crash on the most?
 
#16 ·
snow snakes said:
Without even addressing the main 4-wheeled reason that road bikers are seriously injured/killed more frequently, the physics of deceleration + a hard surface + riding in a thin layer of lycra make incidents like this horrific crash at Itzulia Basque Country a few days ago easy to understand.
Click to expand...
You mean the crash caused by Remco overcooking the corner, causing the Lidl-Trek rider to grab a handful of brake to avoid a collision and wash out, blowing his tire off and spilling sealing all over the road? Notice how Remco flies off course even though he was in front of the downed Lidl-Trek rider.
 
#17 ·
Curveball said:
I wish I had a better memory of the details, but I recall reading about the British analyzing the bombers that returned to base during WWII. They would inspect the damage and beef up the armoring for new planes where the holes in the returned plane weren't located. They figured that the ones that went down over Germany were likely hit where the returned planes weren't. Or, something like that.
Click to expand...
Sort of. IIRC, the grounds crews wanted to armor up the areas where there WERE holes and they did a study and some nerdy guy actually figured out that they needed to armor up the spots that weren't being hit because damage to those areas was what was causing crashes.
 
#18 ·
ocnLogan said:
I really appreciated that study. It (and my brother in laws shoulder separation) is why I've started doing more shoulder exercises lately. My BIL's surgeon told him that he may not have had his shoulder separated if he had more muscle mass in his shoulder, stating it was essentially like built in body armor. I've taken that to heart, and am doing more work on that lately.

The one caveat that I'll mention about the EWS data... is that is on EWS racers. And EWS races have protection requirements, like a full face helmet, spine protector, and I believe knee pads are a requirement.

With that lens in place, you can see why hands/shoulders are more common, because they are some of the few places that are not already protected in some way.

Personally, I pad up, all the time. Its not so much the worry about pain of the injury that makes me do it (although some), its more the inconvenience/long term effects that I'm trying to avoid. I broke some ribs, and shattered a toe into 5 pieces a few years ago. Yes it was painful, yes I do now wear shoes with more armor on them, and no I don't wear ribcage protection on each ride. But the main thing was missing work, family stuff due to being injured.

I wear a full face, knee pads, elbow pads, gloves, and armored shoes (impact pros) on every single ride. For park, I add chest/back/shoulder, and recently acquired a neck brace. I'm thinking of armored gloves too.
Click to expand...
Good point about the mandatory protection. I still think hands and shoulder would be the most common with no protection. The latest Friday fails vid is on PB right now and basically every single crash involves hands and shoulders. OTB is likely the most common crash, and when we go OTB we often end up putting one or both hands out in front and when we hit the ground either shoulder is prone to impact. Collarbone fractures are fairly common too because of how OTB slams tend to go.

Totally agree on building shoulder muscle for protection. You'll also increase bone density lifting. As far as adding protective gloves to your gear I'm not convinced they do much. I still like padded pinky and ring finger protection for bar end impacts, but all 4 of my hand injuries came from bending the hand back. No amount of glove padding is going to help with that. When I see a deal on some D30 gloves I'm all over it though. They are great for cool weather riding and why not have some bar end impact protection too.
 
#19 ·
slimat99 said:
Good point about the mandatory protection. I still think hands and shoulder would be the most common with no protection. The latest Friday fails vid is on PB right now and basically every single crash involves hands and shoulders. OTB is likely the most common crash, and when we go OTB we often end up putting one or both hands out in front and when we hit the ground either shoulder is prone to impact. Collarbone fractures are fairly common too because of how OTB slams tend to go.

Totally agree on building shoulder muscle for protection. You'll also increase bone density lifting. As far as adding protective gloves to your gear I'm not convinced they do much. I still like padded pinky and ring finger protection for bar end impacts, but all 4 of my hand injuries came from bending the hand back. No amount of glove padding is going to help with that. When I see a deal on some D30 gloves I'm all over it though. They are great for cool weather riding and why not have some bar end impact protection too.
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Gloves are a good idea in this area because of the brush.
 
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#20 ·
skankingbiker said:
Sort of. IIRC, the grounds crews wanted to armor up the areas where there WERE holes and they did a study and some nerdy guy actually figured out that they needed to armor up the spots that weren't being hit because damage to those areas was what was causing crashes.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's a much better explanation than my old and fading memory could come up with.
 
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