How long

Animal100

does it roughly take for ribs to get better?
I have fallen off a fair few times, but this is probably my worst. Going down a track that I know last Tuesday evening, I forgot a real harsh bump which has nearly had me off before as you cant see it. Travelling along at about 15 MPH go to push my glasses up my nose, so one hand on handle bars and wham, next second I am flying through the air, waiting for the impact. I went down on my left side and my forearm, both knees, shoulder, head (in helmet) and ribs took a beating, I felt my ribs flex when I hit and the wind was knocked out of me. Managed to cycle the 8 miles home but felt pretty $hit. I had a doctor examine me who said I couild have cracked ribs, and if the pain does not subside in 48 hours I'll need an X-ray. Well the pain did subside so I didn't bother with an X-ray, but I tried riding my road bike round the block last night much to the dissaproval of my mrs. The first 2 minutes were ok, but the bumps soon started to agravate my rib injury which made me hurt. So rule of thumb how long do you reckon before I can comfortably ride MTB off-road again?

Helmet footnote - where my head hit my helmet outer was punctered by a stone so I was pretty lucky because I reckon it would have put a hole in my head if I was not wearing one.

cgarossi

About a month I would say.

I managed to bruise a few ribs with a pair of bolt cutters (long story) and they took ages to heal. Was off work for a good few days.

Pufftmw

I used to do judo as a kid and whenever I get thrown off a bike (be it a cycle or a motorbike) I instinctively duck my head and attempt to do a roll. It's saved me from a fair few bad injuries over time (or worse injuries anyway).

.blitz

Animal100 wrote:

Travelling along at about 15 MPH go to push my glasses up my nose, so one hand on handle bars and wham, next second I am flying through the air, waiting for the impact

That's exactly what I did. I was riding along with one hand on the bars, adjusting my glasses all cool like and then BLAM! *groan*

Animal100 wrote:

So rule of thumb how long do you reckon before I can comfortably ride MTB off-road again?

IIRC it was prob 4-6 weeks before I felt OK but still tender. I had a cough in the meantime which didn't help, so try and stay away from any germs. GWS.

Anonymous

Depends what damage is done really.

I came a cropper skiing in 2008 in France at high speed (measured thanks to Nokia Sports Tracker at 60mph :shock: ), coming down hard on my side.

Was in a lot of agony but just assumed I'd bruised the ribs like I've done twice before. Not much can be done for that basically so didn't go to the docs.

Anyway, 6 months later it finally stopped hurting! First 2 months I could barely lie down without being in pain.

Probably cracked the things.

Previous bruised ribs took a good month to fix up.

paul.skibum

No offence Deadkenny but I seriously doubt you were skiing at 60mph. DH racers do 80 in the flat out sections of courses such as Kitzbuhl and they are on simply massive skis designed for that speed. An average skier on average skis will never get close to half that before their bindings let go. As an additional point even attempting to straight line a perfect groomer is in my humble opinion about as irresponsible as you can get. Totally off topic but there you go.

Back on topic - my cracked ribs took 4 weeks to be ok for coughing and 6 weeks to be ok for exercise.

Daz555

paul.skibum wrote:

No offence Deadkenny but I seriously doubt you were skiing at 60mph. DH racers do 80 in the flat out sections of courses such as Kitzbuhl and they are on simply massive skis designed for that speed. An average skier on average skis will never get close to half that before their bindings let go. As an additional point even attempting to straight line a perfect groomer is in my humble opinion about as irresponsible as you can get. Totally off topic but there you go.

Again, no disrespect but you have no idea if the guy is an 'average skier' on 'average skis'. He could be an expert riding the right equipment. As for bindings - they can be set anywhere from 'fall off when you look at them' to 'break your leg'.

Personally, I'm not good enough to be hitting 60 on skis or a board but I know a few guys who are. Such speeds are rare of course - fast guys are hitting into the 40s pretty comfortably though.

...and as for ribs - yeah I reckon 4 to 6 weeks as long as they are not particularly bad.

paul.skibum

I agree I don't know how good he is - I am a ski instructor in BC in winter though and I know a lot of pretty damn good skiers and I am OK myself. Running flat out on race courses the best skier in our ski school was clocked at 120kph on the fastest part of the course. Now this guy is the best race skier in our ski school on proper world cup fisher downhill skis.

I don't disagree that deadkenny could well be Graham Bell posting under a pseudonym and I have assumed far too much.

I am guessing however that he fell at high speed (I dont doubt he can have been going quick just not that quick) means he either caught a ski in a gate racing world cup (in which case bad luck) or, more likely, was skiing beyond his ability level or skiing inappropriately for the conditions either of the later two are dangerous not just to himself but to other users of the slope.

Sorry - I have now started being all holier than though pontificating. I apologise and will humbly retrieve my coat and depart.

miss notax

6 weeks :?

I cracked a rib last year and everyone said the magic '6 week' recovery period which I thought was rubbish.... But I can confirm it's true

Tom Barton

If its cracked - 6 weeks
If your lucky and is just nasty bruising - less, your body will let you know when its comfortable.
If you know people with the flu or coughs at the moment - try and avoid them - its will hurt like feck if you get a cough with that.

Hope you heal quick :-)

Will_P

If you have actually broken a rib (or several) they can take over the usual six weeks to heal as the fracture can not be suitably immobilised. I.e. it moves everytime you breath!

As for x-raying, hospitals as a rule don't x-ray for broken ribs unless they suspect there has been some damage to the lungs (they basically want to rule out a pneumothorax).

Unless they're severely displaced and/or they've caused internal damage, they don't/cannot treat them I'm afraid. Take a few pain killers and try to keep your respiratory rate down.

Will

Anonymous

paul.skibum wrote:

No offence Deadkenny but I seriously doubt you were skiing at 60mph. DH racers do 80 in the flat out sections of courses such as Kitzbuhl and they are on simply massive skis designed for that speed. An average skier on average skis will never get close to half that before their bindings let go. As an additional point even attempting to straight line a perfect groomer is in my humble opinion about as irresponsible as you can get. Totally off topic but there you go.

To be fair the actual impact speed would have been slower as I was breaking at the time. In fact it was compression coming from slope to flat that threw me off (and no, it wasn't binding release that caused it. I have the bindings set properly for my ability).

And okay, 60 was an exaggeration . I can't remember which track it was now but checking back now, Nokia Sports Tracker clocked the two fastest at 45 and 52mph and I know it was one of them I came off.

Okay, maybe GPS tracking is not all that accurate, but you'd be surprised just how fast you go.

And responsibility. Well, the danger to myself is one thing, but whenever I've done this kind of thing, it's only ever been on a guaranteed empty slope.

But anyway

fivelittlefish

As posted by several - 6 weeks for cracked ribs...

wemac

deadkenny wrote:

paul.skibum wrote:

No offence Deadkenny but I seriously doubt you were skiing at 60mph. DH racers do 80 in the flat out sections of courses such as Kitzbuhl and they are on simply massive skis designed for that speed. An average skier on average skis will never get close to half that before their bindings let go. As an additional point even attempting to straight line a perfect groomer is in my humble opinion about as irresponsible as you can get. Totally off topic but there you go.

To be fair the actual impact speed would have been slower as I was breaking at the time. In fact it was compression coming from slope to flat that threw me off (and no, it wasn't binding release that caused it. I have the bindings set properly for my ability).

And okay, 60 was an exaggeration . I can't remember which track it was now but checking back now, Nokia Sports Tracker clocked the two fastest at 45 and 52mph and I know it was one of them I came off.

Okay, maybe GPS tracking is not all that accurate, but you'd be surprised just how fast you go.

And responsibility. Well, the danger to myself is one thing, but whenever I've done this kind of thing, it's only ever been on a guaranteed empty slope.

But anyway

I'm with you deadkenny
It's not that hard to get over 40mph - i've clocked myself doing over 50 with a garmin. You don't even require a particularly steep or long slope to achieve those speeds.
Everybody else - put your soapboxes away