It seems that the better I get at riding the more often I fall. I have certainly had my fair share of falls lately as I have been pushing to do more and more technical tasks at higher speeds. This seems to be true for some of my riding buddies as well.
Although, the injuries have been relatively minor (abrasions, sore shoulder, etc.), after my most recent fall I thought I may have broken a rib. (It turns out that I only knocked the wind out of myself for a few seconds).
At any rate, it got me thinking about the possibility of sustaining a serious injury while riding. At the least, I should have a first aid kit in the car.
You can buy ready-made first aid kits, but it probably is cheaper to buy the supplies separately and build the kit from scratch. So I started surfing around and found a few interesting sites regarding mountain bike injuries, treatment, and safety:
- UtahMountainBiking makes the point that it is worth having some basic medical supplies on you during the ride as most injuries are nuisance injuries and if treated immediately allow the ride to continue. They also have a ton of injury and treatment information.
- About.com has some basic information on mountain bike safety.
- You can buy ready made first aid kits from Adventure Medical Kits.
- Vodaphone in the U.K. is starting a campaign educating mobile phone users to store emergency contact information in their phones in an obvious way.
I think I have concluded that it is probably best to buy a ready-made kit as it would be too much to buy boxes of various supplies when only a few are needed.
So am I overreacting? Does everyone else already do this? Have you ever had any serious riding injuries that needed attention right away?
