Originally Posted by
Ogsarg
I started riding bikes after a serious motorcycle crash that prompted me to give it up. I've been tempted to try some mountain biking but I've held off mainly because the people I know that do, are often not riding at all because they're recovering from some kind of crash; broken collarbones, bruised or broken ribs, concussions, etc. As we get older, recovering from broken bones, etc. is just a lot more difficult and I find I have less tolerance for risk than i used to.
At the moment, I get all the enjoyment I need road biking so I'm content to stick with that. Naturally it has it's own risks, and I do my best to minimize them.
FWIW, after many decades of both, I'd say that the serious injuries were about equal between the two. I think that would be true even if I tried to factor in how much of each activity I did. I think risk of death is much higher on the road though. Both are fairly safe activities if practiced sensibly.
I remember my coworkers asking how I could do such risky activities all the time (ww boating, mountain biking, and so on) when I had a family. I ras pretty much never nursing injuries serious enough that they affected my job. The funny thing was these guys were injured all the time from playing softball and hobbling around in braces and casts. That may be because they seemed to think alcohol was a necessary part of any recreational activity.
Edit to add:
FWIW, if I spent enough time ay any fun outdoor activity there were some injuries. Perhaps a bit surprisingly I didn't find trail running to be that much different than trail riding when it came to number of injuries. At least for the kind of trails I ran. I guess if you ran flat well groomed trails...