This is exactly why I think advocating not putting out one's hands isn't just dumb, it's irresponsible. There's a reason we have such a strong reflex to do it.

I'm not sure where the idea that landing on an outstretched arm transmits force to the collarbone and breaks it got started. It's nonsense. The reason collarbone breaks are common in cycling is the same reason they're the most commonly type of fracture in the general population: in accidental falls, whether off a bike, a ladder, a stool or a deck, you're likely to rotate and land on your shoulder or upper back. If you really do catch yourself with your hand, you might break your wrist, or elbow, or sprain your shoulder. But you physically can't break your collarbone by landing on an outstretched hand. The bones aren't hooked up to allow that to happen. People assume they broke their clavicle because they put an arm out, but just putting an arm out doesn't guarantee you'll absorb enough energy to avoid breaking the bone if you land wrong. So you can do both, but that doesn't mean putting out a hand caused the break. It's the energy involved in a fall from that height.

As I noted, this is B.S. Landing on the back of the shoulder is precisely how most people break their collarbone. Advising someone to "take the blow on the back of your shoulder," to decrease the odds of a fractured collarbone is absurd. It should go without saying, too, that higher speeds significantly increase the likelihood of a serious injury like a fracture.

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.

This guy:endo fail.jpgis locked to the handlebars, and may land on his feet.
This guy: 052215endo.jpg is going to protect his face from the ground, as is
This rider: falling_off_bike.jpg
And this guy probably wishes he had stuck his arms out:MTB_over_the_bar_crash.jpg

I'm in the 'keep hands on the bars' camp for side falls,

which tend to happen quickly.

Endos & other big air have a bit more time to improvise

& try to spread/ absorb the impact force.

The motorcycle crashes are mostly high speed slides so they put their arms out to prevent tumbling.

Random chance and luck is definitely a factor. If you strike some obstacle and you're moving fast, there's not much that technique can do for that. But people tend to way over-emphasize it.

[MENTION=23594]grolby[/MENTION] brings up a point, and I think it's a great illustration of the thread's question. A sharp impact on the back of your shoulder is in fact a good way to break a clavicle. But if you believe that's part of a forward roll or break-fall, you are mistaken. And one of the differences there is what you're doing with your arms.

I'll pose a hypothetical. You're just walking briskly, not paying attention and step on some ice or skateboard. Your feet fly out in front and you're going down, back first. What happens? Does it happen too fast to react, too fast to plan out and do something if you do react? Is it random chance how you'll hit, whether you're hurt or not?

If you turn it into a break-fall, your shoulder will take some of the shock. Also your arm, slapping the ground at about a 45° angle from your torso which also tenses your shoulder muscles to absorb shock. Additionally, your hip, thigh and side of your foot at the same time, while the other is bent knee and foot flat on the ground. The arm and opposite leg reduce the impact prior and during the time your body hits the ground. There is no risk of injury unless you do it wrong, and not much random chance involved.

Any time I've done this on the bike, or even part of it, on a low-side or front washout, it's been a non-event. However when I've been too spaced out or otherwise not altogether in the moment and just fell, that's when I've wound up with bruises, road rash and worse. FWIW.

Correct. The issue is not so much about the positioning of specific body parts as it is about how the impact is borne.

Stiffening up and sticking an arm straight out as I've seen some people do is one of the easiest ways to turn what should be a minor fall into something serious.

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.

You pretty clearly either didn't read what I wrote or didn't understand it.

Since Fiery seems to have struggled to understand the nuance of the point I made, I'll re-state it.

Technique may help, and it's perfectly fine to practice it if you like. I'm only saying the benefits of said technique are overblown. I usually tend to land pretty well and have come off lightly in most crashes. I've also broken my collarbone twice, once quite severely. I went over the bars descending on my cross bike. I tucked. I rolled. My clavicle broke like a dry twig. I did it "right," yet I suffered the worst injury I've ever had in my life. The point isn't that this stuff is useless. The point is it can only do so much, and not very much at that if things don't go your way.

There are a lot of variables in any crash. The fact is, the combination of speed, height off the ground and mass mean you have a lot of kinetic energy that needs to go somewhere. You can try to redirect it, and that can help, but it very often isn't enough and often for reasons that aren't in your control. That's what this really is about: the illusion of control. Once a crash has started, many of you wish to believe that much or most of what's going to happen next is still under your control. You're wrong, but I suppose it's harmless enough to believe it. But it's still a delusion.

As if this doesn't apply to the "durrr - there's only two choices: break my fall with my hands or break my fall with my face" crowd.

I don't have any control over gravity, but I might have some control over the way I hit the ground. I don't think that's a delusion.

Emphasis on some control.

I know where you're coming from. In my youth I spent a lot of time off-road on motorcycles, a lot on the road also, and I would have told you that I was pretty good at avoiding injury. I'd lay it over at least weekly usually more, and 20 mph would have been an unusually slow spill. I never had worse than road rash so maybe I was. I would have agreed with you. But honestly, I didn't have a clue then about what was possible, and the more I learned the more I realized that there was more to it than I'd thought.

I'd say that about half of the time now I could have just about complete control over what happens, and that's accounting for age. That's from experience, not imagination. Someone who's really good at it will have control in almost any situation. Don't sell it short.

Thanks to this thread I have decided to add a weekly falling-off-my-bike interval session to my training schedule. Love you BF, never change.

I have a friend, now deceased, who said that he practiced crashing in his youth-

riding at increasing speeds onto a front yard lawn.

He died from MS. Don't know if related, but I doubt that doing a lot of crashing is good for you.

I think it was Friedrich Nietzsche (or was it Ray Nitschke?) who said "Failure to fall with grace is a fall from grace."

First I'd note that I find your post quite offensive towards poster Fiery. Maybe it's just me, but that's my impression.

While you believe putting trust in falling techniques is an illusion/delusion, I believe putting it all into luck/faith is a delusion. I believe so because of my previous, rather vast experience. Having ridden bicycles on and off road and raced motorcycles - all after having trained judo as a kid.

When a fall happens, adrenaline pumps and time perception slows down - I often feel like it's all happening slow motion and I can choose what to do. It doesn't stop, but I have often had quite enough time to make my body do what I've trained to do before.

The fact I've had 0 fractures after countless falls has lots of luck involved, of course. But knowing how to fall, doing always the right thing does contribute and makes a difference.

I could be wrong and delusional, but it will be hard to convince me otherwise, since the previous experience and my interpretation of it has really made a strong impression. My kid is now almost 3 and I've taught him forward and back rolling. He tucks his head in now when tripped to fall backwards now, making a difference - not getting hit, injured.

Nah, reading your re-iteration of the statement I'd say I understood you quite well, even gave you more benefit of a doubt than was really necessary. I stand by my impression - your sentiment is at least as harmful as simply saying "Don't let go of the handlebar when you crash."

Now, I really, really hope this won't turn into a helmet discussion, but I do wonder: do you also think helmets provide an illusion of safety since they can only do so much when a crash is hard enough?

As with many things, there are people who KNOW stuff, based on research and evidence way beyond anecdotal. Then there are people who just noodle out something in their own minds and think it is a fact because it sounds good to them. Here is another link describing how parachutists should fall. I'm pretty sure that the folks who design training for our military prefer their charges land with the least chance of injury. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_landing_fall Then again, this could be BS

Try not to fall in the first place.

Speaking of parachutists: isn't touching first with your feet and the impact transmitted to the pelvis analogous to breaking a bike fall with your hands and the impact transmitted to the clavicle. Bending the elbows would seem to be as important in a bike fall as bending the knees is in a parachute landing.

Again, you're responding as though I've said technique is irrelevant and you should trust to faith. That's not what I said.

I know this is Bike Forums, and trying to make a nuanced point is anathema here, but so help me I care about nuance. I've been racing bikes for eight years. I've seen a LOT of people fall down. The people who don't get hurt are the people who don't crash. Work on the tumbling, sure, because it could save your butt. But you need a certain amount of luck simply to be in the sort of situation where it can help you. If people are interested in controlling their risk of injury, the stuff you do before a crash is way more important. After that, as I said, it's sort of a crapshoot.

Oh, please. Explain exactly how it is "dangerous" to have an accurate understanding of the real-world benefits of knowing how to fall. Be specific - no more of this hand-waving.

Next point - seems like you're itching for a fight. Why else would you raise the question? You know how this goes around here. The answer to your question also has some nuance, and the BF record on nuance is poor.

Anyway, there's evidence to suggest people may adjust their behavior to be less careful when they feel more protected, and vice versa. This theory is called risk compensation. It's definitely plausible that wearing a helmet makes riders more willing to engage in risky behavior. Plus, we've all seen how many people really do overestimate the benefits of wearing a helmet. Just look at all the posts all over the internet who cracked a helmet in a fall and claim it definitely saved their lives. The general population is totally misinformed about how much helmets help, and avid cyclists if anything seem to be more misinformed, thanks possibly to all those cracked helmet anecdotes.

That said, helmets do help at least a little bit. The data suggests helmets may not reduce the rate of head injuries, but they do reduce the severity of head injuries and improve recovery. So of course I think it's a good idea for cyclists to wear helmets, at least if they have a lot of exposure and especially if they ride fast and/or in groups.

It's not a bad analogy for my feelings about the "learning to fall" stuff. By all means, do it! It could help. Just be aware that, realistically, a bicycle crash is a physics problem and when the contest is physics v. human body, physics has the advantage. Like a helmet, you can't rely on it to protect you. I await your explanation of how understanding risk is dangerous.

Back to the question, I learned this lesson well when I was 14. Falling off a horse, my arm braced straight out towards the ground, and snapping the bones above my wrist. For a long time after that, my motto was "don't stick the arms out".

I'd still say that's a good policy for those not wanting to learn how to fall, or who believe that it's mostly ineffective or subject mostly to chance. I'd hate to see anyone discouraged by those opinions though - just keep in mind that people giving those kinds of opinions are usually the untrained ones. The reality of the benefit is hard to imagine, unless you've done it both ways. As for how to use your hands and arms, there's not much point in explaining it. No matter how much you visualize it, or understand it, it's not really going to work without an expert training you in it, and practice - a lot of practice.

Kind of like Kato and the Pink Panther? I think you'd better stay on your toes and keep in practice for when he gets old enough to start tripping you back!

It's because we mock what we don't understand. That is instinctual. Make falling safely as much as an instinct as internet judging, and it might lead to understanding.