Originally Posted by
stapfam
If you know you are going over- Tuck in the head- and keep hands on the bars and feet on the pedals. May bruise a bit and depending on speed- some blood may occur.
Most of my falls- In fact all of them- have been on the mountain bike and mostly at speed downhill. I knew nothing about most of them till I found the bike on top of me and something somewhere hurts. In that situation it has been get out of the pedals and carefully move the bits that hurt. If they don't hurt more then get up and inspect the bike- Helmet and clothing in that order. Gotta Get the priorities right.
From your reply and others, sounds like perhaps the mistake I made was not just focusing on "Don't stick that left arm out," but "Keep both hands on bars even after hitting ground until momentum is gone." I am not quite sure how I hit the side of my left shoulder first and then had such a violent collision, but it makes sense that it could have been avoided if the hands stayed on the bars. I'm not sure what momentum would have done then, but certainly my right hand wouldn't have given the pavement a karate chop.
I pretty much followed your steps, I inspected the bits that hurt, then inspected the bike. Didn't think the helmet was hit (and still don't think it was), probably should have checked it immediately anyway. Didn't notice the one problem with the bike until after I got on it -- the handlebars slightly out of true, but not worth fixing until after the short 2 mile ride back home. Only after seeing handlebars out of true did I notice pain in the broken hand.
Since my immediately checking the bits that hurt didn't reveal the serious injury, I would suggest checking even bits that you don't think hurt before inspecting the bike.