Manly Dam Fat Elbow

Though coincidentally I just repeated the same injury today... only a little bit worse, did it at 9-ish this morning and was gushing a little with the rocks being a little bit sharper when they're dry! I may be persuaded to invest in elbow pads at least.

Will post a pic when it dries up, nice ;@)

Yeah, where was this? We were still wondering round at that time, shame we didn't see it first hand.

I know you're keen on accidents - trying to climb up that rock today I had an over the bars moment... almost. The Boys got a little too close to comfort to the headset but no damage done luckily! Made it up the part top of boardwalk just after, but failed to make it 4 for 4 on the following lap. Doh!

Think it was Neil(???) that also had a nice moment - scraped his arm down the bridge near the playground. Geeze, would have had an arm full of splinters if not for his pads!

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~sunnyl/acromioplasty...

well, thats not a result from biking, but from shoulder surgery last year. Thats my right bicep tendon the surgeon has holding out there in the bottom left picture.

yay

I read this just now, made me laugh (the writing style I mean - the accident sounds nasty, I don't like the surface there at all)... thought you re-did the elbow at the Dam, but as these boys tell it, you were ending the Oxford Falls XC loop:

The ride down the XC track was ultimately led by Matt... Tragically, that rush came to an abrupt end when Matt slid out at the bottom of the XC track on the nasty loose gravel - giving him a very attractive spurting red blood fountain where once his elbow had been.

Sounds nice, hope Doug got a pic

Here is a nice bedtime story.

I had a really bad stack in Dec'05 at the lower section of Oxford Falls XC loop. Just on the fast downhill section that ends the loop, about 200m away from the water dam (on the approach side) at the very bottom. Matt, yours sounds like a similar area.

There is this pesky rut that runs across the entire width of the trail, only about 1 foot long. Pretty innocuous. Some fiendishly clever person put a little 1 foot tall dirt ramp across the front of it. Well, being brave but obviously stupid, I thought I would give that little jump a go, irrespective of how fast I was going.

Having pulled too much front air off this little ramp, I wheelied about 5m down the trail, with my front tyre getting higher and higher with each passing split second. Having that extra split second to think to myself, "oh shit, I think I should bail from this potential catastrophe", I jumped off it to save my neck.

Sliding down that sharp rocked, gravelly trail, I opened up my right elbow pretty good, with other decent lacerations to my left elbow and left knee. Forgive my stupidity, but this must have happened before armour was invented, because I wasn't wearing any. A bit like walking out to face Courtley Ambrose without a helmet or hector.

Laying sprawled on the ground, not feeling any pain yet, my other two mates (who had been left far behind) came barrelling across me lying on the ground, with a rising cloud of dust signifying my demise. Taking one look at my arm, we all thought in unison "oh f*ck" as we could see blood pumping / dribbling out like from a small hose.

The standard reactions occurred at this point, like dizziness, wanting to be sick, and probably shock. A totally spun out feeling. My mates thought it was very serious, but still kind of funny. As mates do, there were plenty of ribbing going on, despite the drama. Just sitting there on the ground collecting my strength, my vision blurred, then turned a brown colour, if you can believe it. I think I sat there for about 15 minutes just resting. It's amazing how tired such a massive adrenaline shock will cause to your system once it starts fading away.

With bent handlebars, we walked the 20 minutes out of there back to the cars. It is not the easiest thing to do driving yourself to a hospital in that state. My favourite T-shirt was ruined because of all the blood.

The final bill was a 2 night hospital stay with elbow surgery, 8 stitches, and an old man in the next bed making flirting comments at all the nurses. They were cute, as I suppose all nurses are. Who doesn't like being run after? Pity there was no bed bath for me.

Hence... the arm and leg armour.

The moral of the story (at least that I learned)? It is pretty hard to hurt yourself if you don't take any risks. It is pretty easy to kill yourself if you ignore the risks.

my stack at exactly the same place was nasty http://nobmob.com/node/379 I obviously got outta this one quiet easily in comparison. Lesson I learnt was two fold, don't let your ego control the cockpit and secondly don't bunny hop rocks you could ride around especially when the landing is loose gravel. I don't feel so bad now I realise I'm keeping excellent company.