Bike Forums - Not using your hands to break a fall?

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- - Not using your hands to break a fall? (https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycling/1087927-not-using-your-hands-break-fall.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by woodcraft (Post 19194439)

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.

Now we are all doctors. Thank you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wphamilton (Post 19195893)

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.

I don't know. Things sometimes happen, oh so quickly; and you don't have much time to think about how to react in any sort of rehearsed way. We like to think that we can train for any exigency.

I'm pretty good with horses, having grown up with them. One Spring day about five years ago I went out to exercise one of my Mom's horses--a philly with kind of a difficult disposition. It had been raining for a few weeks straight and the animal had not really had a lot of exercise during this period and I hadn't realized this. I got astride her and set off and before I knew it I was flat on my back on the muddy ground in front of her and practically all I remember now is how her rear hooves landed on the ground just a few, short inches from my head.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rpenmanparker (Post 19195146)

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.

This of course depends on what caused the crash. What you do when going over the bars, washing out with the front or rear, or whatever is not going to be the same.

Being fluid is important for avoiding injury when falling. People who've had a lot of practice falling will have an easier time getting their bodies to do what they need to do.

One thing that skeptics of the idea that knowing how to fall is a skill might not appreciate is that this ability is typically learned in other contexts. Many of us are multisport. If you do martial arts, getting thrown hundreds of times is normal. People who ski or paddle in gnarly stuff go over a lot (particularly if there are large jumps/drops/waves), and there are plenty of other sports where being able to manage your body in motion before impact is relevant.

Experience in other areas most definitely transfers over.

So.. I'm going to hedge my bets.. If I ever crash, I'm putting one arm out, and tucking the other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by banerjek (Post 19196417)

Having decades of experience can help in many situations, but it can also be a double-edged sword.

I usually walk away from road wrecks with minor injuries, but due to the technical difficulty of the areas that I mountain bike, their are no minor wrecks.

I've had more wrecks than I can keep track of in the past 40 years of racing/riding, and the only time I broke a collarbone was after being hit by a truck traveling at 50mph.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wphamilton (Post 19195945)

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

:roflmao2:

I hope that day comes soon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grolby (Post 19195203)

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.

I agree with the risk-compensation theory.

I also fully agree that riding carefully in the first place is very important for safety. Watching your surroundings, planning next move, planning worst-case scenario escape route.

Where I don't agree is this: not all the falls are out of one's controll when the crash starts. At least not totally. And one can help themselves in a crash with good falling techniques, strong muscles and bones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grolby (Post 19195203)

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.

Interestingly, "seems like you're itching for a fight" is exactly what I though upon your first response to me. While I don't really feel like making this a war of words, I do realise that intention is often hard to convey in written communication.

Back to the point at hand. Your statements, as written, beg to be interpreted as "Since crashing is a crapshoot, learning technique is next to worthless and you might as well just go into it passively and what ever happens happen." While you have now made it abundantly clear that's not what you really think, this was not the meaning your original words clearly conveyed. For someone untrained, they could serve to confirm that all crashes happen way too fast for any meaningful reaction to occur, even though that's patently false for anyone with some experience and training.

It is quite similar to how "Don't let go of the handlebar" doesn't have to mean anything bad once it's expanded upon, but by itself is incomplete and has some bad implications. Nuance, as you say.

Let's try to put it a different way. People here are saying things that amount to "I've been in a fight once, and I was flat on my back before I knew what hit me. It all happened so fast that I doubt knowing martial arts would have been of any help." You then come in and say "There's a lot of chatter about martial arts being useful in a fight. Fights are wild, unpredictable things. Professional fighters are highly trained in martial arts, yet they also get beaten or knocked out in seconds despite that. Once a fight 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." While what you might have wanted to say was "Fights are dangerous no matter how good you are", do you see how easily it can be interpreted as "Martial arts are useless in a fight", especially under confirmation bias?

Instinct will govern your fall reactions in the moment of truth, and most of those instincts were developed through "practice" during our youth sports when we were more invincible, pliable and healable. But even without much practice, most folks natural instincts will be use their limbs first. Our limbs are our only natural shock absorbers to protect our critical head and torso, and are frankly completely expendable.

I have a lot of fall practice. My parents started me downhill skiing from 5yo, which instilled a lean-to-turn/speed bug that lead to ice hockey, skateboarding, rollerblading, bicycling and motorcycling, and I was also a high school gymnast. I fallen countless times from all sorts of speeds and heights, and on all sorts of surfaces. I've lost a lot of skin to road rash, but knock-on-wood, never had a concussion or broken bone and I attribute that to having a strong instinct to use my hands/feet to break my falls.

I think my most painful injury was one fall where I made a conscious decision to NOT USE my hands. I was ice skating backwards with no gloves, hands in pockets, and caught an edge/high-sided while transitioning to forwards. High-siding launches you upward, and with a bit of "hang-time" to contemplate, I thought it might be rather unpleasant to slap my freezing cold bare hands on the ice so I kept them in my pockets and landed square on the corner of my shoulder. I probably chipped a bone, or maybe even slightly fractured a bone, but I never went to a hospital for an X-ray.

I'm still into all these motion sports into my mid-50s, and as crazy as it sounds, wearing gloves tends to be more important than a helmet for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reppans (Post 19197237)

as crazy as it sounds, wearing gloves tends to be more important than a helmet for me.

With you on that. :thumb:

Quote:

Originally Posted by reppans (Post 19197237)

+1. I also think that the experience that comes with knowing when to ride something out knowing it can be saved or when to bail early when not....something that can only be learned over time, is vital. Commitment and confidence and when to hang it up and self preservation.