Does bulk help in a crash?!

LPH, I don't want to worry you or be grim, but have you thought about early onset osteoporosis? PM Northwind if you have any suspicions.

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From personal experiences, it's a double edged blade really. I am 5ft6 and weigh in at 85kg and have played rugby and bodybulit for nearly 8 years. And yes my impact trauma resistance appears very high. However I lost a car on a patch of frost at 40mph straight into a big wall! And while none of my bones broke, they did flex heavily transferring energy to my ligaments in my forearms which is almost certainly worse due to the healing time involved

[Fallout]

Reading everyone's input in this thread, I've concluded it's best not to crash at all.

Only had a slow speed off but my 17st backside seemed not to play much of a factor other than being able to easily hump the bike off myself after kissing the tarmac.

[littleoldman2]

Originally Posted by Fallout

Reading everyone's input in this thread, I've concluded it's best not to crash at all.

Right, but when you do (and we ALL do)..............

[littleoldman2]

BTW crashing at 17 was a lot less painful than crashing this year at 57

[Fallout]

I remember my DAS instructor saying he'd never crashed in over 30 years of riding, but I do think he's the exception to the rule!

Originally Posted by Fallout

Reading everyone's input in this thread, I've concluded it's best not to crash at all.

The conclusion I only came to a couple of years ago. I used to take the approach that I loved biking so much that I could cope with a few weeks in hospital and so long as it didn't disable me or kill me the risk was acceptable. So long as none of my crashes were really bad ones, that was OK.

I now realise that was young naive stupidity.

The reason being, there's no such thing a 'good one', or a 'bad one'. Any crash on the road, at any speed, can be a 'bad one' as you can't control what you hit after you come off, or how/where you hit it. A fence post, a road sign, or a piece of armco can kill you, and if you hit something solid there's no piece of leather or body armour that's going to save you. Even your helmet won't save you if your head bounces off something hard enough, and 30mph is easily hard enough.

Forget body bulk, riding gear, etc, the only thing that's going to guarantee your health/life is keep it rubber side down in the first place.

I know a 22 yr old (good friends little brother) that hit the back of a transit van on a push bike, closing speed couldn't have been more than more than 10mph, he's in a wheelchair paralysed from the neck down. He went over the handlebars and hit the crown of his helmet on the back of the van and that compressed his spine damaging the vertebrate. There's no bit of motorbike riding gear that would have stopped that had he had the same accident on a motorbike.

Originally Posted by Fallout

I remember my DAS instructor saying he'd never crashed in over 30 years of riding, but I do think he's the exception to the rule!

It's what we should all be striving for though. There's no more successful biker than one that get's too old to ride without any serious injuries, and the only way to achieve that is to keep crashing to an absolute minimum. The more often you crash the more likely you are to disable or kill yourself.

I can't be bothered to read whole thread tbh but bone density will play a part in any accident not just an off on a bike, dense bones are less prone to breakage than 'normal' ones.

I have dense bones but a lot of padding round them too

Oh Btw, Im with ralph on the above, not crashing in the first place is the best protection.

[Littlepeahead]

I think my bones are strong it's just on both occasions I fell awkwardly. I eat so much cheese and drink milk that my calcium levels are good. I recently had a third bone spur removed from my heel. I think I've got so much calcium I'm growing bones where I shouldn't. I'll be sprouting horns next.