Lemme rephrase that, should I worry about possible face plants going down a flight of stairs? Guess the answer depends on the skill leveI and the steepness. I suppose the curb is lesser chance. Going down it not much of a problem because I can easily step off when I UPD. Good reflex and constant fails with variations always helps… I think I’m pretty good with falling now. Its the mind block that sets me back sometimes. Thats why teenagers can be so darn good. Its their fearlessness and their ability to heal quick.
I only imagine jumping off in the middle ways and tripping my way down the flight…and thats bad enough to not try it…well… at least not yet, maybe in a couple a weeks or so. Im still at the single step hop down, almost there.
Thanks for the ideas on riding up curbs guys…I will try them out on my next outing and report back.
Well, I might be overstating it a bit. Really just UPDs. I can normally run out basic UPDs and had lots of practice hitting steep inclines and declines on the BMX bumps at the park and UPDing but landing on my feet. However, there are some things like riding over tree roots and trying to ride up a curb that do have the potential to throw you off forward quicker than normal. When I experience these or if I’m just going too fast to run out a UPD I normally just tuck in my shoulder and go for a roll…judo style, which seems to take all the energy out of it.
So don’t worry UPD, I’m just trying to make myself seem tougher than I really am by making a UPD sound like something dangerous
“However, there are some things like riding over tree roots and trying to ride up a curb that do have the potential to throw you off forward quicker than normal. When I experience these or if I’m just going too fast to run out a UPD I normally just tuck in my shoulder and go for a roll…judo style, which seems to take all the energy out of it.”
Ha…ha…judo style,I really gotta see that:p
For me hitting something unexpected is like landing on my feet running (really fast), hands straight out very low ready for the crashlanding, but luckily havent smashed my face into anything (yet). Couple a times I slid like in baseball, doesnt hurt though. I just say its really good practice to really get it down, with many UPD’s. I really enjoy the art of recovering from a fall ( im a beginner, my stunt arent that radical, so are my falls cannot be that bad) Call me crazy, but it really enjoy it and it takes alot of deliberate practice. I only really fear faceplants, and true to a good extent, it is a good thing to have in holding me back.
There probably wouldn’t be a lot to see. It would just be a roll. A part of martial arts is about turning your opponent’s energy into something that doesn’t hurt you (like diverting what would have been an impact and road rash into a roll) or which, even better, can be used against them. Obviously, a UPD is not a thing that you can hurt (your username notwithstanding), so the first bit is what we are going for. You cannot defeat it, but you can thwart it somewhat.
I also have not actually landed on my face yet, but I have come within inches of it. Literally. Saved by my hands, of course, but the very nature of a UPD is that something went wrong. Something could go wrong with your hands saving you as well. It should be a rare event, but rarity doesn’t help you if you get zapped by the time that it happens. I also have not landed on my head, but I know that it could happen at any time, very quickly, and with little or no warning, and the results could be life-changing, hence the helmet. The helmet doesn’t do much for my face, though. That’s just risk management. The likelyhood is pretty low, but it is nonzero.
I, too, survive most UPDs without injury. Most, if not all, of us do. Falling off and landing on one’s feet is one of the first things one should learn, even before basic riding. Developing the skill even further, as you have indicated, to make it more automatic and to handle more extreme crash scenarios, can only be useful for handling future crashes. If the practice comes almost free with frequent UPDs, which were going to happen anyway, that’s great. There are, however, still cases where I and others wipe out despite our best efforts at recovery.
I wouldn’t depend on baseball-style sliding. Bruising a hip still hurts. Clothes will wear through or just plain tear if you’re going fast enough. It’s better than some ways to land, of course, but at some point, you may be doing things that make it not really a go-to landing. If it comes to that, I’d rather roll. UPDs such as what Uni Lateral describes aren’t going to lend to such sliding, anyway. They will dump you off forward when your wheel stops and you don’t. If you don’t get your feet off of the pedals, your face is quite possibly en-route to the Earth. That is a reason why most of us don’t use clipless pedals.
If fear of facial injury is holding you back more than you want it to, you could get a full-face helmet. They tend to be hot, but would seem to be just the thing.
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