Originally Posted by
wphamilton
They should, but it's not odd if many, perhaps the majority, do not allocate training time and money to better crashing skills, beyond bike handling to avoid them. It's a matter of priorities - and you can't be fixated on crashing in a bike race. Nor are martial arts and biking commonly associated. So it's not particularly surprising to me.
Could be. If this is the case for racers, it's even more the case for normal people.
Originally Posted by
wphamilton
It would be more surprising if it turned out that black belts in Judo and other martial arts spend years in practicing how to fall, if it really didn't matter. Or that it really has no obvious benefit when it's the most basic element taught in stunt training. Because bike racers don't worry about it? The most likely theories are that bike racers simply don't know any better, or they do realize it but for some reason aren't concerned enough about the potential of injury to take those measures.
Falling is a basic element of doing stunts (much like it's a basic element of martial arts). In neither of these are falls exactly a surprise either.
That something has an "obvious benefit" as a way of handling falls where falls are routine doesn't mean it has an "obvious benefit" in situations where falling is rare and typically surprises (or, according to some people here, mostly something that never happens).
People in martial arts already have to practice "falling". It's likely that none of them specifically practice "falling" with a bicycle helmet. It sees likely that they are satisfied with the training they already do to handle bicycle falls. That is, for them, there is zero cost to whatever benefit there might be in handling bicycle falls properly.
It would likely be hard to convince martial arts peole who also cycle to train to fall with helmets.