Off Road = Much harder than on road!

[derrick]

You have to love them both, did 9 miles this morning with freinds on the mtb, took 2hrs but we did stop for a beer, a quick 10 miles last night with the other half 40 mins, and a whole lot less effort.

 

[Hacienda71]

Its easy to quote isolated or individual cases, but surely you agree that it is much more dangerous to ride on road. I think a fair chunk of people know someone who has been seriously injured or killed by drivers on the road, not many know someone who has broke their neck on a forest trail.

I think each discipline has risk and I agree that you can't rely on isolated incidents. I just don't think without seeing anecdotal data you can make the assumption that one is substantially more dangerous than the other. I know more people who have done themselves serious injury (requiring hospitalisation) or died riding mountain bikes than on the road. I should probably add that I ride on road more than off road.
I am not saying my view is correct it is just an observation.

 

[Red Light]

Its easy to quote isolated or individual cases, but surely you agree that it is much more dangerous to ride on road. I think a fair chunk of people know someone who has been seriously injured or killed by drivers on the road, not many know someone who has broke their neck on a forest trail.

That's primarily because there are a lot more people riding on the road. There are some 200 million cycle journeys a year in London alone. Glentress as one of the busiest mountain biking centres sees about 200 thousand visitors a year - a thousand times less. Those 200 million London journeys lead to about 10-15 deaths and about 400 serious injuries compared with Glentress sending about 500 people to hospital a year.

Despite the massive disparity in numbers I don't know anyone who has been seriously injured or killed on the roads but I do know a couple that have been seriously injured mountain biking - one is now paraplegic having broken their back.

 

[rollinstok]

I,ll concede the point that it is much more likely that you will fall off the bike when riding off road. In the vast majority of these cases, the rider gets up and back on the bike with nothing more than damaged pride. Some will break bones. A very few may die ( though I havent heard of any ).
If you want statistics on cyclists killed or severely injured on the road the government releases them every year.
If you want a representative sample, compare the experiences of the off road and mtb crowd with those of the commuting crowd on this very site.

 

[Doseone]

Did 30 very hilly road miles yesterday, and about 15 very hilly off road miles today. I am far more tired after todays ride than I was after yesterdays, although a part of that could be the cumulative effect of having ridden yesterday.
We also got lost in the hill fog and hail today and strayed in to the military training range, and only realised when we saw an explosion of pink smoke about 200m away. So that is conclusive proof that off road is more dangerous than on road.

 

[DRHysted]

Worse is doing the road section between two offroad routes into howling wind and rain, that resulted in me dropping to the middle crank ring and middle rear ring of my mountain bike, wishing I had my road bike (well maybe wishing I was at home). At this point a roadie crusies past call "good afternoon", gurrrrrrrr.

 

[Red Light]

If you want a representative sample, compare the experiences of the off road and mtb crowd with those of the commuting crowd on this very site.

To repeat what I said earlier you need to take into account the very different numbers in the two groups. Otherwise unicycling on the motorway appears to be the safest form of cycling.

Is there much of an off-road crowd here? Can't say I've noticed them much if there is.

 

[derrick]

On another note it takes so much longer to clean the mtb, road bike a quick wipe over with a cloth, mtb hose down dry of lubricate, but took longer today because of hose pipe ban.

 

[Peteaud]

Ive found cycling "off road" its the trees that jump out in front of you and not Busses, cars, HGV

 

[screenman]

Is not 200 watts the same off road as it is on road.

 

[rollinstok]

To repeat what I said earlier you need to take into account the very different numbers in the two groups. Otherwise unicycling on the motorway appears to be the safest form of cycling.

Is there much of an off-road crowd here? Can't say I've noticed them much if there is.

I live in Morecambe where we have one of the best traffic free path systems in the UK, the vast majority of Morecambe to Lancaster commuters use one of these paths.
The vast majority of commuters from Lancaster centre to the university use a network of paths and quiet roads.
The only deaths I read about are with riders who have been hit by vehicles on roads that are not part of the cycle network.
There is a reason why these cyclepaths are being introduced all over the UK.. its to try and keep cyclists off dangerous roads.

 

[doctornige]

I can also add that hitting tarmac hurts a lot more than hitting grass, mud or sand.

Friend saw someone go over handlebars MTB'ing at weekend and she got up with a slightly hurt ankle, me hitting road and trying to brake with face and teeth hurts a lot.

I do MTB and road. I feel safer with roads (rural) than with MTB. Grass, mud and sand are soft, but rocks are not most technical descents feature a fair bit of rock, and pointy ones too, not flat road.

Granted, a road bike accident is usually pretty serious, but then chances of an MTB accident are probably higher, and can also be pretty nasty.

 

[Red Light]

Have a read of the views of John Franklin - the author of Cyclecraft and someone who gets called as an investigator or expert witness in many cycle accidents. There is little to no evidence of cyclepaths being safer than the roads and quite a lot that they aren't.

 

[simon.r]

I fall off quite a bit when riding off-road, generally it doesn't hurt very much. I don't fall off very often on-road, but when I do it hurts quite a lot.

When something large and metallic hits you it hurts. This is more likley to happen on-road.

 

[rollinstok]

Have a read of the views of John Franklin - the author of Cyclecraft and someone who gets called as an investigator or expert witness in many cycle accidents. There is little to no evidence of cyclepaths being safer than the roads and quite a lot that they aren't.

Thats because he couldnt interview the 100+ riders who are killed by vehicles every year.
Please explain how it can possibly be safer to ride on a busy road with vehicles trying desperately to get past you, than it is to ride on a trail or cyclepath.