Originally Posted by
grolby
There is a lot of chatter about the importance of "learning how to fall" off a bicycle, and tucking and rolling, and there are pretty regularly stories about how great pros are at it. Yet, a lot of pros every year are involved in crashes and break collarbones, wrists, hips, vertebrae, shoulder blades and even femurs. It is possible that tucking and rolling really does have some benefit. It is possible that riders can develop skills to improve their chances to avoid injury. But that the experts nonetheless do suffer many of the same injuries that we do should really emphasize to anyone thinking critically that a bicycle crash is basically a crapshoot with a ton of variables. Even if technique helps, dumb luck and other external factors are probably much bigger factors in whether you come out unharmed or with a broken bone or two.
To me, this part of the post is at least as irresponsible as simply saying "Don't let go of the handlebar when you crash." If technique helps even a little, is it wrong to practice it or advise others to practice it? Even if other factors are more significant, does that make technique worthless?
Professional riders break their bones because they crash often and hard. Also, from what I've seen and read on the subject, I highly doubt that an average pro spends any time practicing falling other than when they actually crash, so using them as an example how various falling and tumbling techniques don't work on bicycles really makes no sense at all.