The Search for the Secret of not getting Broken

I wanted to find out how you can reduce your chances of busting yourself when you bite off more than you can chew and absorb it with the side of your face. I don't expect there is one thing that works for everyone all the time and freeriding and freestyle must have different issues so lets just break down the component parts, firstly you.

Mentally, it seems, you need to be in control during a wipeout. Experience will help you do the right things, practice is better than trial and error. Somehow you need to get that experience before you start going big.

At some point in a run, your board is no longer between you and the ground and you have a nano-second to consider the very near future, pain is coming. At this point in your life the most important thing you need is physical strength and flexibility, and for your muscles to be warmed up and ready to absorb a whole wad of energy. Being flexible means that you wont get muscle damage from hyper extension on impact.

In that nano-second before you make touchdown, what do you do? Do you throw you hands out? Go limp? Start to roll? Every time is different but I think you need to be thinking one thing, I can fly this, baby! Learning how to control or fall from (the major causes of freeriding pain) speed wobble and the highside, can save you plenty of skin. They're a basic you'll need however good you get.

Speed wobble is so often blamed on the board but if you are relaxed and you've got your stance right you can ride the loosest setup on any terrain. Think about it with some science, you weigh 70Kg, the board weight what, maybe 7Kg, who should be telling who where to go in that relationship? To start with, work on your foot position and weight distribution and tune it until sweet and try holding a slight turn. If you can't tune it in time, the natural instinct should be to go into a toe-side powersilde, if you haven't practiced these...you'd better...

Highsiding has pretty much the same effect as catching an edge on a snowboard. You face plant or worst of all, heel side, over the top. Snowboarders use two techniques, firstly, if your stance is slightly compressed, when you feel the board start to go you can pull the front of the board up, while dragging the tail and the board will straighten up. If that fails then go into a tuck and roll, aiming to land on the shoulder blades, whether going heel or toe side, and then by extending the body and legs they can control the spin/cart wheeling. This helps to reduce injury from sticking your arms out to absorb the impact, not a good idea- slamming on or pivoting round your extended arm leads to all manner of potential pain (broken wrist, broken arm, snapped ulna nerve, etc.). Basically, learn to sliiiiiide, with your head up.

Which brings use nicely to terrain and protection, I think they should be considered together because the idea should be to use protection fit for the terrain.

I think wearing too much padding for the situation can give you a false sense of security: you think its ok to bail. But so much of avoiding getting hurt is in not-giving-in to gravity when it comes for ya. And it will come for ya.

The legendary mountainboard photographer Paul Taylor once said "it's not what you can do on a board, it's what you can get away with that makes a good rider" and you have to agree the best thing to keep between you and the ground isn't some kinda space-age padding but your board. Failing that, you need pads and a helmet.

Pads need to fit you well or they're just gonna pay interest on your account at the pain bank. I've seen as much skin removed from pad burn as would have happened if the unlucky soul had been naked at the time of impact, although maybe in different places. That said, even the best fitting pads aren't gonna stay in place without some help.

Most of the pads mountainboarders use were designed for skateboarders. The best example of their use for our purpose is in skateboard vert, have you ever wondered why they always seem to slide out on their knees when it all goes wrong? Well try it yourself, put on a pad, bend that limb and see how much more secure your pads are. Once you bend at the knee or elbow, the pad will lock into place. That goes for knee and elbow pads. If you think about it, that fits quite nicely with how a snowboarder tries to fall.

So it seems that as well as learning how to land like Lee Majors in the Fall Guy (google it, kids), you need to learn how to use your pads effectively so they work for you and choose the right pads for the terrain you are about to ride. That said, just because you have full body armour, can you ride anything you meet? I think not. I would say the first rule of mountainboarding should be to ride within you limits.

Start with soft dirt, free from rocks and the like and move on from there as you gain the experience to deal with what you're dealt if or when it goes wheels-up. This goes for when you charging down a track or a new line through the trees.

Half the fun of mountainboarding is rolling the dice and pushing your comfort limit, after all this how we learn and improve our skills. It's just it always pays to stay in some form of control and not let your board run away with you as this can lead to a whole world of pain. After all it's much better to stop and stay fit to ride another day than take a big stack and spend a couple of months in plaster.

What ever you do, sometime you are going to hit the dirt and not in a nice way; some crashes will be bigger than others. But as the Boy scouts say "be prepared" and with a bit of luck you should ride away with nothing more than a bruised ego and live to shred another day.

Happy landings ;-)

Words by Daz Murphy