What speed do downhillers get up to?

Anonymous

Can say from experience that it doesn't require much speed for an off-road stack to result in serious injury. Can't say about pain as I don't remember. Well not the pain at the time.

Distance of airborne travel, or drop, is probably more of a factor off road. That and trees.

fingerbike

Sabrina Jonnier is the winner of the 2010 Tara Llanes Classic CCN Speedtrap!! It was an impressive feat considering there were both World and National Champions in the field. Sabrina herself is a UCI downhill World Champion and she proved to everyone that anyone had a chance to win. She came through at a winning speed of 32 miles per hour, which earned her an extra $250 from Phil at Cycle Component Network. Sabrina then turned around and donated it to Tara along with Phil from CCN doubling the amount for a total of $500!! A HUGE thanks goes out to the both of them and we have to say that we're excited for the speed trap to grow and grow.

http://www.tarallanesclassic.org/ccn_speedtrap.htm

bails87

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Shaggy_Dog, try telling your road bike crash theory to Josh Bryceland, or Dan atherton, or Myles Rockwell

Or Wouter Weylandt, or Jonny Hoogerland....

Anonymous

Hoogerland was eaten by barbed wire though - that can and does happen on and off road.
But Bails, i fear you're kind of missing the point.

TheNorthernTrain

I fear falling off on the road more. I suspect it may be to do with the last time I fell on the road I took a massive chunk out of my knee. Couldn't ride all summer, it was a good one too, and could barely walk for about a month.

That's not to say that I don't fear crashing off road. I still get the "fuck, I'm actually going to die if i come off now" moments. I just seem to panic whenever i'm on the road. Brain goes into overdrive.

Eyon

I fall off on road and off the road, and any day I'd pick off road. The difference between hitting a tree at 15mph and the road at 30mph is huge (obviously). MTB you just get a bit of a warning, then you fall off, hit some soft mud, maybe catch your hip on a nice rock sticking out. You get up realise what you did wrong, then carry on. My road crashes happen in a blink of an eye, one minute you're going well, next minute you find yourself in the middle of the road with no recollection of the incident.

I'd pick mud any day!

Anonymous

Sounds like someof you don't realise that speed is a huge factor in how sudden you crash, and the impact when it does happen :?

Have a crash on a rocky trail at 30mph, and a road at 30mph, and see which one leaves you in a worse state. That is this weekend's homework for you.

Thewaylander

Actually what Yee said here.

the other reason you often don't get so much injury on bikes, is unlike idiot road riders alot of mountain bikers are smart enough to wear appropriate safety equipment like pads gloves armour

Anonymous

Quite. Watch a MotoGP race, see how many riders come off at very high speeds during the weekend and walk away unharmed.
Lycra is just a stupid material. It's your own choice of "clothing" that causes problems.

Anonymous

Eyon wrote:

I'd pick mud any day!

Head first, big drop onto dirt (okay not mud but not rock hard like tarmac), serious concussion, whiplash, fractured vertebrae and concern about permanent spinal damage at the time.

Slow speed.

Fall off fast on the road and I'm going to get scrapes and maybe broken arm/leg perhaps collar bone mostly unless I hit a car. Still the possibility of hitting the head on the road but it's less likely you'll do a straight vertical drop onto your head. Maybe if you fall off a bridge

Raymondavalon

Injuries depend on circumstances off road. I've had walking speed offs that have resulted in a few days of pain, but have also crashed at decent speeds, got up, dusted off and no pain at all.

bails87

Fall off on the road and you're guaranteed to hit something as hard as rock, usually pretty quickly. Fall off off road and there's a better chance (a near certainty given where I ride) that you'll land on something relatively soft.

Hoogerlands one was tongue in cheek as that was an especially freak "accident", but Weylandts is 'valid'. Not sure what that even means as the numbers are so small and it would be very difficult to do any sort of meanigful comparison, so I won't bother.

All I'll say is, I'd rather fall off off road than on road. But I'd much rather do neither

Northwind

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Quite. Watch a MotoGP race, see how many riders come off at very high speeds during the weekend and walk away unharmed.

A racetrack isn't a road- if there were parked cars and lamposts round the edge of the track you'd not see so many walk away.

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Quite. Watch a MotoGP race, see how many riders come off at very high speeds during the weekend and walk away unharmed.

A racetrack isn't a road- if there were parked cars and lamposts round the edge of the track you'd not see so many walk away.

If they were wearing lycra, then I don't think any would walk away, at all.

Northwind

True dat. Though they might crash less.

Anonymous

Well, they'd certainly not crash more than once

Shaggy_Dog

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Shaggy_Dog, try telling your road bike crash theory to Josh Bryceland, or Dan atherton, or Myles Rockwell

Right after you explain your theory to the family and friends of Woulter Weylandt

Anonymous

Go on then, explain to me my theory.

Shaggy_Dog

I dunno. Say, the opposite to mine?

Anonymous

Shaggy_Dog wrote:

I dunno. Say, the opposite to mine?

nooo, not quite. That seems to be yours.
I'm saying that a crash hurts, regardless of terrain. A crash at higher speeds hurts more than a low speed crash, in general, than a crash at lower speeds.

Now, if you want to contest that, go ahead.

Northwind

Where has he said otherwise?

Anonymous

He's assuming, or claiming, whichever one you prefer, that my view is the opposite to his. I think he wants an argument, but frankly I can't be arsed.

Shaggy_Dog

Oh, no. In that context we agree. I'd have to be mad to say that crashing off road doesn't hurt. I just think that, through experience, crashing on tarmac hurts more than crashing on dirt. Sure there are things that you can hit off road like rocks and trees, but as another poster mentioned there are also parked cars and street furniture that you can hit on the road.

Anonymous

So would you say that crashing on road at say, 20mph hurts more than crashing off road at 40?

Shaggy_Dog

I don't know, don't think I've gone much more than 35mph and not even crashed at that speed. Fastest crash was about 25 in the Black mountains and ended up in a bush so walked straight out. Crashed at about 25ish on the road bike and it hurt like fury, lost a lot of skin and was very bruised.

Thewaylander

But off road you have far more chance of hitting sharp rocks and so on, mate crashed at 5mph maybe at cord, and a rock slashed his knee open and he couldnt walk properely for a month :S

Roadies big issues with crashes speed for speed is they where silly protective gear.

Shaggy_Dog

Let's put it like this, if you crash at a given speed on a road bike. it is guaranteed to hurt. Off road, it might not hurt at all, or it could end up far worse.

Thewaylander

Shaggy_Dog wrote:

Let's put it like this, if you crash at a given speed on a road bike. it is guaranteed to hurt. Off road, it might not hurt at all, or it could end up far worse.

Yarp because the person on the road is completely idiotic gear in reference the actual danger involved.

you can't say something is worse just because people are to thick to wear appropriate safety gear because it's not aero dynamic :P

Shaggy_Dog

No thicker than the people who decide to ride on dangerous terrain though is it?

Northwind

Thewaylander wrote:

Yarp because the person on the road is completely idiotic gear in reference the actual danger involved.

It's not just that though, you can find some amazingly soft landings offroad- perfect slopes that fall up to you gently, big patches of mud, etc etc. Course you can also get spiky death-rocks. Not sure how it averages out myself but it's not completely stupid- on tarmac you always land on something hard and abrasive, on dirt you don't always.

On dirt you're also less likely to have a bus drive over you

I'd rather crash at 20mph on my local trails than on the road, they're mostly made of mud. But I'd rather crash at 20mph on the road than at fort william or laggan which are mostly made of pain.