FW: Shoulder protection

Unicycles and Equipment
1

Hi David.

I don’t fall often, but when I do, it’s spectacular. I was attempting
to catch the leader of a relay race last summer in Toronto and pedaled
too fast. I discovered how little time there is between the point of
losing control and impact. I was leaning right and thought I could roll
out of it. Instead I stopped cold on my shoulder.

Surgery was required to reattach my collar bone. My favorite therapy
was the many ping-pong matches with my 13-year-old son Casey. I have
about 95% use of my shoulder now and I’ve become a much better ping-pong
player, but I can’t beat Casey anymore :wink:

In retrospect, I wish I’d taken the fall on my stomach, and slid. This
item, which I’ll likely wear at the races this year, would have
prevented road burn:

http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=534

Best regards,

John Drummond
www.Unicycle.com
1-800-Unicycle

-----Original Message-----
From: rsu-admin@unicycling.org ["]mailto:rsu-admin@unicycling.org] On
Behalf Of David Straitjacket
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:52 PM
To: rsu@unicycling.org
Subject: Shoulder protection

Hi all

After a recent injury, which is proving to be quite severe. I now have
a
lifetime lump on my shoulder from a permanently shifted collar bone, as
well
as maybe 3 months of recovery to do. So I wonder if anyone here uses or
has
given thought to shoulder protection.

When I work on stilts I always wear knee protection. This is because the
knees are very easily shattered in a stilt fall, and people falling off
stilts very often fall on their knees. I am thinking that there might be
a
similar phenomenon in uni falls, with people mainly falling onto their
upper
bodies/shoulders?

My experience, limited though it is, of Muni and trials, but in
particular
most off road stuff, is that a great deal of falls happen when
travelling at
speed, and the wheel gets stuck or slowed suddenly for any reason, I.e.
a
unseen rock or shallow depression, and the resulting upd is similar to a
Bicycle crash involving hitting the front brake to hard at speed and
getting
pitched over the front handlebars (Did this not happen to everyone, at
least
as a kid?) the crash causes you to be pitched off forwards and down.
Most
anyone will tuck their head out of instinct and usually roll to one side
or
another. Often this results in a nice natural breakfall, but if gravity
is
too fast then the person lands hard on the upper body, usually a
shoulder.
This is exactly what happened to me, I am pretty good at breakfalls and
usually roll out of most anything safety but on this occasion simply
could
not act fast enough and landed fully on the top of the shoulder.

Is this a fairly normal scenario? Or just my own dumb luck. If it is
normal
then I would suggest that shoulder protection might be at least as
important
as any other, with the possible exception of helmets. And that some
research
into suitable armour might be useful.

I would be very happy to test any armour anyone suggests and give my
views
I will certainly be looking into it myself for when I am healed up
enough to get back on the saddle.

Regards

David Straitjacket
www.straitjacketcircus.co.uk

rec.sport.unicycling mailing list -
www.unicycling.org/mailman/listinfo/rsu

2

'I discovered how little time there is between the point of
> losing control and impact. I was leaning right and thought I could roll
> out of it. Instead I stopped cold on my shoulder.’

Hi John

This is pretty much exactly what happened to me, both the type of fall and
the fact that I was also pedalling too fast. I think that was only saved
surgery by the fact the I do a lot of shoulder flexibility exercise in my
job, indeed the physio pointed out today that the main ligament in the
shoulder, and the one I expect you had repaired, was just a couple of
millimetres from being completely torn and requiring surgical reconnection.

That armour looks great! I wish I had been wearing that at the time, I would
have just bounced along happily :slight_smile:

‘In retrospect, I wish I’d taken the fall on my stomach, and slid’

You are probably lucky that you didn’t. Due to the angle of fall you may
well have caused serious back injury, and perhaps even resulting paralysis.
The ‘over the handlebar’ type fall that I think this kind of upd mimics is
known for causing those types of injuries in mountain bikers and road
racers. Because you are coming down at an angle you will tend to land on
your chest rather than your stomach, your legs are meanwhile still in the
air and going forwards. Result, the legs are carried by their own weight and
momentum over your head and back/neck injuries are caused. Very nasty.
Whatever you do, stick to rolling over your shoulder, it will save you 99%
of the time.

Anyway, the main point of my post was just to find out whether this injury
is common. I simply was not aware of it having seen nothing written, and
being a relative newbie still rely heavily on this group for my info. People
point out the necessity of wrist guards and the like all the time and
newbies like me go out and get them (although we don’t wear them quite as
much as we should :slight_smile: ) and if we add a note about shoulder protection to
those bits of advice we might save people some nasty knocks.

Regards all, I am not sure if this thread is still on topic, if it isn’t, I
didn’t mean it to happen. Please don’t take my license away!!!

David Straitjacket
www.straitjacketcircus.co.uk

3

Apologies if this is double posted, I am having some trouble with my email
and news accounts.

Hi John

'I discovered how little time there is between the point of
> losing control and impact. I was leaning right and thought I could roll
> out of it. Instead I stopped cold on my shoulder.’

This is pretty much exactly what happened to me, both the type of fall and
the fact that I was also pedalling too fast. I think that was only saved
surgery by the fact the I do a lot of shoulder flexibility exercise in my
job, indeed the physio pointed out today that the main ligament in the
shoulder, and the one I expect you had repaired, was just a couple of
millimetres from being completely torn and requiring surgical reconnection.

That armour looks great! I wish I had been wearing that at the time, I would
have just bounced along happily :slight_smile:

‘In retrospect, I wish I’d taken the fall on my stomach, and slid’

You are probably lucky that you didn’t. Due to the angle of fall you may
well have caused serious back injury, and perhaps even resulting paralysis.
The ‘over the handlebar’ type fall that I think this kind of upd mimics is
known for causing those types of injuries in mountain bikers and road
racers. Because you are coming down at an angle you will tend to land on
your chest rather than your stomach, your legs are meanwhile still in the
air and going forwards. Result, the legs are carried by their own weight and
momentum over your head and back/neck injuries are caused. Very nasty.
Whatever you do, stick to rolling over your shoulder, it will save you 99%
of the time.

Anyway, the main point of my post was just to find out whether this injury
is common. I simply was not aware of it having seen nothing written, and
being a relative newbie still rely heavily on this group for my info. People
point out the necessity of wrist guards and the like all the time and
newbies like me go out and get them (although we don’t wear them quite as
much as we should :slight_smile: ) and if we add a note about shoulder protection to
those bits of advice we might save people some nasty knocks.

Regards all, I am not sure if this thread is still on topic, if it isn’t, I
didn’t mean it to happen. Please don’t take my license away!!!

David Straitjacket
www.straitjacketcircus.co.uk