Since the subject is started, I’ll add my recent experience. Almost 2 months
ago, while on a trail ride with my son, I took the worse fall I have ever had.
Ironically, it was just after going down a steep and difficult (for me)
stretch, which had a relatively high risk factor. At the bottom of this
section, I was riding on a fairly flat stretch. Because the trail is poorly
maintained and we had had a lot of rain, the trial was eroded and had a fairly
sharp “V” contour. Because the tread is so narrow, if you get into it, the only
way to keep going is to keep the wheel real straight. If the wheel turns, it
usually kicks me off. No problem, that has happened probably hundreds of times.
However this time I must have been in the exact “dead spot” with my pedals and
my balance must have been just off enough that I suddenly got pitched off my
unicycle. It happened so fast! One second I was riding normally, and a half
second later I was crashing into the ground with all of my weight on the back
of my right shoulder. I was wearing helmet, wrist guards, knee and elbow pads,
but they didn’t help because that’s not what I landed on. As I lay crumpled on
the ground, I thought “Oh, Oh.” I have never broken a collar bone, but I
thought maybe I had this time. Although in a lot of pain, I gingerly found out
that I could still move most of my moving parts and nothing was moving which
wasn’t supposed to, so I thought maybe I didn’t actually break something. But
the pain was severe enough that I couldn’t really move my right arm and
couldn’t do something basic like shift the gears on the car going home. I don’t
go to the doctor easily, but I did go to emergency (it was a Sunday late
afternoon). The good news was that nothing was broken; just a severe contusion.
Prognosis: 4 to 6 weeks. I was in extreme pain for several days, have had
improvements, then setbacks as I get more aggressive with using it then hurt it
a little more. Now almost 8 weeks and still only about 85% healed. I haven’t
been muniing since (although I have been riding in the street for the last 2-3
weeks). I couldn’t even run for the first couple of weeks because the bouncing
from the running sent shooting pains through my shoulder.
I hate to admit to non unicyclists that I got injured unicycling, because I
don’t really consider unicycling (even off road) to be that dangerous. I get
lots of scratches, and some minor bruises. I have ended up in the bramble
bushes a time or two and landed on my bottom a few times as well. But you get
used to being able to bail out and pick your spots for landing. To have an
accident where it all happens so fast and there is no time to react at all is
pretty sobering.
Call me HURT, but not discouraged. Just waiting for my new Telford and a little
better weather to hit the trails again!
Scott Arnold Springfield, Oregon