Is the cost of MTB injuries worth the risk? I’m beginning to reconsider, and other riders are too.

As a full-time mountain biker and part-time rock climber, whenever I chat with a diehard climber over a drink, they inevitably drop the longstanding joke, “The only time a rock climber gets injured is when they’re mountain biking.”

It’s funny because rock climbing is considered by the general public to be an insanely dangerous sport. But when you actually get into the sport and realize how robust and overbuilt the safety gear is, you learn that, with basic training, you can climb vertical cliff faces with little fear of injury.

Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said for mountain biking. Whipping down narrow trails filled with rocks and roots at high rates of speed, often framed by a sheer drop-off on one side, is a recipe for an inevitable disaster. Even if we don’t think we’re taking unnecessary risks, freak accidents inevitably happen, dashing us to the ground.

While riders do occasionally die in crashes, mountain biking still isn’t as deadly as backcountry skiing or mountaineering. Normally, when things go wrong, you don’t die — but it’s awfully easy to get injured.

My own injury story

Tearing my ACL was one of the worst injuries that I’ve had in my life, requiring not one but two surgeries over the course of two years to finally fix it. But that happened while downhill skiing, not mountain biking. While mountain biking, I’ve suffered numerous smaller injuries, including:

• Concussions, including one ambulance ride to the ER.
• Back injury, causing daily pain for over 9 months.
• Nerve damage, which prompted a doctor to say, “Maybe you should take up surfing instead.”
• Numerous sprains, including both ankles, wrists, many fingers, and probably more.
• Torn ligaments in both ankles.
• Partially torn rotator cuff.
• Hip injury, including torn labrum, which I was told I’d need surgery for some 7 years ago. (I still haven’t had surgery.)
• Ligament damage in right hand resulting in chronic arthritis.
• Sprained intercostal space between ribs.
• Additional knee injuries, including blunt force trauma. (Torn MCL and meniscus from snowmobiling as well.)
• Several wounds requiring stitches.
• Untold skin loss, bleeding, and scabs.
• …and probably more that I’m not thinking of (or can’t remember from hitting my head one too many times).

As you read through the list, you might think to yourself, “Hey, this guy has gotten off easy! He hasn’t even broken a bone, and the only surgeries he’s had were for ski injuries, not bike injuries!” (As I knock on wood.)

But as I sit here in my mid-to-late 30s, reflecting back on these bangs, bumps, and bruises, it doesn’t feel like I’ve gotten off easy. Indeed — even so-called minor injuries can leave you with a host of long-term challenges to deal with.

Nine years after tearing my ACL, I still have to work every day to combat knee pain. Almost once a year, tendinitis in my knees flares up to the point where I can’t ride for some time.

Unaddressed shoulder injuries mean that while I can ride mountain bikes, rock climbing is difficult or painful, as are certain types of weightlifting or working with my hands above my head. Neither of my ankles work quite right anymore, requiring orthotics, exercises, and custom shoe fits to cope. Working at a computer (my daily profession) is often made difficult by arthritis from the hand injury. And my neck and back need constant maintenance to keep both moving properly.

Am I the only one held back by injuries?

Over the years, I’ve read countless stories about bikepackers covering epic distances in foreign lands with no sleep, and have watched endless videos of freeriders ripping down vertical mountainsides at breakneck speeds. I always find myself inspired: I want to go do those things myself! I want to perform at the elite level.

But my life has felt like an endless stream of injuries — injuries which, it seemed, were the main things preventing me from performing at such an elite level. Oh, I know that downhill racers routinely get injured and are in and out of surgery and still manage to come back to the top, but to me, it felt like I was the only one being held back from my true potential by being hurt.

“Am I just not badass enough?” I’d ask myself. “Do I need to just try harder, push harder, and tell the pain to fucking go to hell?”

The dialogue around MTB injuries may slowly be changing

As I’ve learned the hard way, even so-called “minor” injuries can have long-term effects — and major injuries, even more so. Broken bones and plates can cause regular pain for life. And, of course, more traumatic injuries can cause paralysis, which has far-reaching lifestyle implications.

Martyn Ashton is one of the most famous mountain bikers to have been paralyzed in a crash, yet despite these famous examples, I personally wrote them off as freak accidents. However, recent studies have shown that mountain bikers broadly suffer “staggering” numbers of “devastating” spinal cord injuries. Serious paralysis is a shockingly common injury, especially when compared with other impact or extreme sports.

Slowly, we’re beginning to even see some pro racers speak up about the devastating effect that injuries can have. This awareness is reflected in multiple arenas, such as professional riders striking at Crankworx Rotorua in early 2024, in part to ensure safe competition conditions, including medical coverage in case riders are injured while competing.

More and more individual competitors are also speaking up about the long-lasting impacts of injuries. After suffering a severe concussion, Rebecca Rusch made a movie and conducted numerous podcast interviews to bring awareness to the “invisible injury” — traumatic brain injuries – which plague many mountain bikers.

Professional downhill and enduro racer Miranda Miller, who was recently on the Singletracks Podcast, has also begun speaking out about the impacts of injuries on riders and how we talk about them. And she’d know: she once broke both her arms in a crash, requiring three surgeries. She’s had numerous wrist surgeries over the years and even a broken neck.

In our interview with Miller, she said that she’s stepped back from downhill to enduro because “I just had these injuries that [I] wasn’t able to get on top of, and […] trying to race downhill when you are not 100% healthy is kind of scary, you know?”

Miller went on to explain that there’s a fine line between pushing to the limit and risking an injury where “I’m actually not going to be able to ride my bike for a year.”

Miller recently published an opinion piece on Pinkbike saying, “It’s time to change how we talk about injuries in mountain biking.”

“In 2024, I joked (in a dark way) that this was the year of ‘normalizing breaking your back,'” Miller wrote. “The threshold for what is considered ‘okay’ has also changed over the last few years.”

In her article, Miller argued that professional riders need to stop downplaying their injuries and instead acknowledge how serious they can be: “How can younger riders learn to navigate their setbacks without open conversations about the reality behind injuries? Downplaying the severity of a broken back or a concussion won’t make you stronger — it will only lead to young riders underestimating the risks.”

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Recent injuries making headlines

Just days after Miller published her article, practice began at the inaugural Red Bull Natural Selection bike event in Queenstown, New Zealand. The event “blends big mountain terrain with freestyle features across intersecting lines, redefining traditional formats,” according to Red Bull.

The event has been designed as a stepping-stone competition for freeride mountain bikers trying to make a name for themselves. In addition to established pro riders being invited to the event, up-and-coming riders who qualify at Natural Selection’s Proving Grounds event were invited to compete in the main event.

But before the official competition even began, five mountain bikers were knocked out of contention by injuries incurred while practicing the course: Lucy Van Eesteren, Thomas Isted, Dylan Stark, Barb Edwards, and Thomas Genon.

Thomas Genon suffered fractures to his T2 and T3 vertebrae. Thomas Isted suffered a head injury. Lucy Van Eesteren fractured her fibula. Dylan Stark had a severe concussion, resulting in brain swelling and a helicopter ride. Thomas Genon didn’t specify his injury on social media. And Barb Edwards had one of the most serious injuries of all: a broken femur, also requiring a helicopter evac.

All this before the competition even started.

I’ve realized that I’m not alone — and my injuries could have been far, far worse

Through all this recent dialogue around mountain bike injuries, I’ve realized that I’m not alone. Even professional athletes have their hopes and dreams shattered by injuries and are held back from rising to the level of greatness that they once hoped to achieve.

But it was the hundreds of comments on Miller’s Pinkbike story that gave me a glimpse into what the average rider deals with. Dozens of commenters shared stories about how mountain bike injuries have impacted their lives for years to come.

Tommy Wilkinson shared an especially poignant story of injuries incurred over several years as he competed in downhill World Cup races. He suffered a broken scaphoid, dead leg syndrome, hematomas, and acute compartment syndrome — several of these injuries requiring surgery. “And now, I sit here typing with a complete brachial plexus injury, unable to ever use my right arm again,” he wrote.

“I now have to face a reality that I have probably knocked 20 years [off] my life expectancy, will live with phantom pain daily until I die (I have learnt something – I manage this drug free with meditation) and for all my endeavours to be a ‘hero’ no-one knows who I am as I never amounted to much,” he continued. “With hindsight I was utterly stupid and in too much of a rush to join my peers as top athletes in our sport, when I probably needed to slow down.”

Do we need to rethink our mountain biking risk tolerance?

Look, I have a hard time saying “no,” too. I’ve built up a pretty capable skillset over 20 years of mountain biking — I enjoy charging gnarly lines at high speeds and even pushing myself to jump better.

As I mentioned, I’m in my mid-to-late 30s, and I want to keep riding my mountain bike as long as I live. So, when I face down bigger and bigger tabletop jumps, requiring that I go faster and boost higher to clear them, I keep coming back to the question, “Is this worth it?” When it comes to jumping, there’s only one way to get better and progress: go bigger and take more risks.

More and more often, I’ve begun to answer, “No, I don’t think it’s worth it. I’m going to skip this one today”

Ultimately, I want to live to ride another day, and preferably every day. I don’t want to have to take time off because I’m injured. And I don’t want to fuck myself up so badly that I’ll never be able to do what I love again.

I know what some of you may be thinking: “Greg is just getting older and doesn’t bounce as well as he used to. It’s natural to get more conservative as we age.”

But as Wilkinson’s comment — and dozens of others — highlight, injuries happen at all ages. When riders get hurt at a young age, it can have serious ramifications for many decades to come. This isn’t a debate between old versus young. It’s a debate about whether or not the risk is truly worth the reward.

The different types of mountain biking

With this reality in mind, I’m slowly moving my mountain bike aspirations away from sending bigger jumps and drops to a more endurance-oriented version of mountain biking. While I still have a hard time saying “no” to gnarly tech lines, I’ve also begun to wonder: do I really need to hit every drop and roll the steepest slabs? Do I really need to test myself and push myself here? Or can I push myself in different ways?

This is one of the beautiful things about mountain biking. This sport is incredibly dynamic and boasts numerous facets and disciplines. While there is an inherent risk every time you throw a leg over a bicycle (just ask Howard Grotts), certain types of riding are just less risky.

In the BC study about spinal injuries, 36 percent of all the injuries recorded occurred at the Whistler Mountain Bike Park alone (and likely some of the other injuries took place at other bike parks across the province). Pedaling all day on cross-country trails that don’t have massive jumps, huge drops, or intentionally-challenging rock gardens and root webs is simply less dangerous. It’s an inherently safer version of mountain biking.

And a big part of me thinks that maybe I can choose to enjoy this type of mountain biking instead.

I haven’t phoned in the technical mountain biking entirely, and when I show up on some of the world’s gnarliest trails in places like Moab and Whistler, the thrill of the challenge still courses through my veins. That’s why this article opens with a question — I don’t have all the answers. But I think this conversation is one worth having more often and more openly.

What about you? What is your mountain biking risk tolerance like today, and how has that changed over the years? Share your stories in the comments section below 👇