beng1

Crashing on bicycles is an inevitable part of riding them, so it makes sense to study and even practice what to do at that point of no return, when you know you and the bike are going to hit the ground/pavement. Over the last 55 years of actually riding bicycles, I have crashed a lot and hard, mostly while pushing limits of how fast I could go or how far I could jump over ramps, but sometimes human error or laps of judgement plays a part. Unfortunately the older you get the more slowly and less completely the body heals, so with age the bicycle crash aficionado needs to change tactics from relying on the body to relying on the mind to deal with these situations.

For older crashists like myself, I recommend as a first strategy not crashing in the first place, which entails using a little more forethought and judgement about the near future. But in the event of an imminent meeting with the surface of Earth, developing the ability to stay calm and relax, and react to the situation instead of panicking, freezing up and bracing the body rigidly against the coming impact has the most merit.

For riders of any age it is important not to get in over your head in any type of riding. Peer pressure, or pressure from your own ego to move to quickly into styles of riding without adequate preparation and training are a recipe for crashing. If you are not 100% confident about riding a certain way then doing it anyway makes crashing much more likely.

It is a good idea to study the stund techniques of hollywood and martial-arts techniques on dealing with falls and throws. If you can prepare your mind and change your attitude about crashing, then you will be more relaxed when riding at limits and less likely to crash in the first place. If you have fear while riding then you need to stop riding in that way until you can change your mind about it.

In some cases if a crash is foreseen and inevitable purposely bailing off the bike in a controlled manner can be preferable to letting coming obstacles or terrain throw you off.

Of course I am not a professional or expert in stunt work or martial arts or bicycling, so do not take anything I say as official or sound advice, I just want to get the subject rolling and compile real information on the best way to crash a bicycle and escape serious injury.