Tips on Crashing???

Practice forward rolls, shoulder rolls, diving forward rolls and the like. When cyclist fall they have a tendency to put their hands out to break their falls which can lead to broken collar bones. You have to train yourself to transfer the pressure away from your arms.

I've had three crashes and in none of them did I have any awareness of what happened between the "oh [censored]" instant and then being down on the pavement. (And in one crash I flew over a parked car and landed ten feet in front of it, so I put in some good air time.) I'm guessing that my experiences are not unique. If that's so, there's nothing you can do other than trying to avoid crashes to begin with, and wearing gloves and helmet in case they happen.

Thank you very much. I guess the forward roll will help if you have time to react.

Best regards.

ailmd said:

Thank you very much. I guess the forward roll will help if you have time to react.

Best regards.

Rolling definitely. A lot of pros do tumbling work to 'get better' at crashing. If there's no way out of it, rolling your shoulder inward, away from the impact area so you land on your shoulder blade and then rolling is the best. But crashes are weird. Some people get up after hitting the deck during a 40 mph sprint, some have died from falling off their rollers.

ailmd said:

Thank you very much. I guess the forward roll will help if you have time to react.

Best regards.

i think it needs to be practiced to the extent that it becomes instinct. I was lucky in that I spent my youth as a soccer/football goalkeeper and learned the instincts of diving, falling etc without hurting myself. I am certain it has saved me many times from serious injury in crashes.

it seems hard but stay "relaxed" - don't tense up your body as you fall....of course the split second of intense fear makes this rather difficult, but if you can make your body "floppy" and not grit your teeth and brace yourself for the impact you're likely to come out of it with lesser injuries. Road rash you can't really change, but the chance of a broken bone and muscular damage and stiffness can be reduced by resigining yourself to the fall and going "floppy".