Had my worst UPD to date on Sunday. Out riding antelope island again, I had just gotten through telling my friend in front of me that the best way to get buffalo to move out of the way is to insult them (I am not joking) when I rode through a dip and slammed my wheel into a softball sized rock. Had I been paying attention I could have rolled it fairly easily, but of course I was preoccupied with talking and observing some upcoming buffalo.
The rock stopped my wheel cold, and threw me a few feet in the air, then I promptly landed on the trail where I skidded a good 6 feet through the sand and rock.
I came out alright though. After checking to make sure nothing was broken, I noticed the only scrape I had was on my knee. Not to bad, but my shorts look like a crime scene on the inside of the leg.
Was only wearing a helmet and gloves for protectionā¦
Went on my first āmuniā adventure today. 2km on fairly easy trails, was happily riding down a hill and hit a bump, started to go off in front of the unicycle when the damn thing hit another bump and tossed me to the side.
Bruised back. Iāll probably live. Got the fun of telling myself not to panic in the first 20 seconds of laying in the dirt though. Nice learning experience though.
broken achilleās tendon.
Missed a free mount on my Coker, the saddle handle bumped my Achilleās tendon.
Doctor said I was just bruised so walked 3 weeks with broken tendon (yes you can!) then ended up in emergency ward in the hospital (phlebitis) the physician could not āmendā it (too late!) ā¦
But after 3 months in a plaster the thing auto-repaired itself.
side-note: when they took out the plaster around my leg the physician noted that my leg-muscles were as before (no thinning! )
so what is left is a psychological fear of free-mounting my Coker (the only Uni where I often miss free-mounts)
I broke my heal bone a month ago and had surgery with some screws to put it back where it belongs. I made a thread for it here and will put up my CAT Scan.
As was mentioned, one of the worst things is that a lot of people act like itās your fault when you have a serious injury on uni. Not understanding that I have more miles on my uni then most of them do on a bike, and to me it was a totally random unexpected accident.
But ignoring other people, Iām really just worried about my foot making it back to normal ever and being able to ride again. I wear all my pads and have fallen at speed countless times and didnāt even think i COULD break my heal. Is there soemthing I can wear to protect it in the future?? I wear 5-10s usually and they are very thick.
Bad UPD put me into a head-over-heels free fall, landing on my back against a large, protruding rock. Huge āwater balloonā hematoma lasted for several weeks. I totally stopped doing extreme ridingā¦for two days!
I agree. If I had saw this thread a year ago I probably wouldnāt have started unicycling. When I did see it I had to keep telling myself that unicycling is like downhill skiing. You have the ones that take the easy to moderate slopes and others that push it to an extreme. Either way, like skiing, there is some risk of injury, but is a small fraction of the total. I have been skiing for 45 years - no injury yet, but I donāt jump off cliffs. Yesterday I drew blood for the first time on my uni with some road rash, but I can live with that.
Well, thatās an interesting article but Iām pretty sure if heād been unicycling at the time they would have called attention to it. They used the word bike, but as pretty much every unicyclist knows, people often call unicycles by that name.
My worst UPD was when I was first learning. I broke my left, pinkie.
Yesterday I had a bad one on my new 36 that could have been much, much worse. I was riding with my family in the road (no traffic). No helmet, hand/wrist protection. I started going fast. My laces got caught in the crank and I flew face first into the road.
Somehow I only scratched up my hands, elbow and hip. Nothing broken, no stitches. That was really scary. I then realized how much higher a 36 is, and how much faster you can go (127mm cranks).
I highly suggest always wearing a helmet and at least wrist/hand protection. I like the Hillbillies. I have long-fingered and cut-offs. Yikesā¦I promised myself that I will no always wear a helmet and gloves. Better to ride another dayā¦
Split the skin on my nuts, not pleasant at all, Will teach me when not wearing underwear on this particular day, and also have broken my foot after hopping off a ledge and foot hit the ground first.
With the advent of faster unicycles and with the great increase in the number of people doing muni, street, and trials, Iāve been happily surprised that we havenāt mourned one of our brethren or sistern yet, but some of the injuries that weāre getting are a new breed of ouchie, so to speak.
My list:
After preparing for and riding in the Lobster, I needed arthroscopic surgery on both knees (in each case, shaving away about 20-25% of the medial meniscus).
The same training and racing gave me tendinitis in the elbow of the arm that I held my extension with. I may have had the only case of unicycle-induced tennis elbow. Pathetic. I now use a different (two-handed) extension, with excellent results.
Iāve had some nasty full-leg scrapes from high-speed UPDs. Luckily, while the worst of these happened on a flat dirt-and-gravel road, I was only going about 15 mph. Iāve never fallen off at higher speed, but after reading this thread, I do worry about my daily rides (I typically hit 22mph on my g36 on a few hills).
My g29 briefly lost gear some years ago; I fell backwards like a bowling pin. My helmet broke, and I felt a terrible ooziness flowing around my lower back. I had landed hard on my water bottle. I recommend wearing some type of back protection when riding any geared unicycle, and Iām glad I was wearing some that day (in the form of a plastic bottle).
This thread is useful for a learner like me, especially since I live in the US and my employer -well, my union, actually- stopped my health insurance coverage in February. Itās especially helpful when commentators say what they were doing at the moment of injury, so that I can avoid that behavior.
At the very beginning I once slightly skinned my elbow fron a UPD and also got a few pedal bites to the shin here and there, but other than that, and some abrasions from a low-quality saddle, my 20" starter uni has been very gentle with me. I bought some soccer shin guards, but stopped wearing them because they hadnāt taken a single hit, though I will probably put them back on when I buckle down to learn free mounting. Maybe once I get a lot more advanced, I will want to attempt dangerous stunts, but for the moment, unicycling seems to me like a relatively safe sport. Knock on woodā¦
Right now Iām laid up. Coming back from shopping with some bags in hand behind a strip mall I was enjoying the ride a bit much and clipped a manhole cover that had a couple of layers of asphalt built up around it. Went right down sideways and rolled my foot. In addition to a good ankle sprain (whoopdiedoo), it seems I cracked the 2nd and 3rd metatarsals (bones on top of the foot) so Iām booted for a month. The wrist guards worked well, the steel toed shoes, not so much.
Got the fun of telling myself not to panic in the first 20 seconds of laying in the dirt though. Nice learning experience though.
ā¦ does that count as an injury?
