Learning to fall

[ridenread]

Once again I fell when at a near stop. I had my left foot unclipped and was turning to the left and somehow the bike got away and I went tumbling down to the right. My first thought as I was going down was to not land on my wrist. I broke my left wrist 2 years ago in a fall and didn't want to go through that again. So no broken bones this time but I have a huge bruise on my hip and decent road rash on my knee and arm.

Is there a right way to fall when you know it is inevitable? I feel like I need to learn how to fall properly to minimize injury. Is this possible?

[jessmarimba]

Best I can tell you is go limp (relax), tuck, and don't brace yourself. Don't stick out any extremities to catch yourself unless you're trying to save your face. Larger bones take that kind of stress better. Hip bones take it best (shoulders will risk your collarbone). And the less tense you are, the less likely you are to break something (that's why a drunk driver always walks away from the accident).

[ridenread]

No it's not a matter of clipping in and out, I have done that thousands of times without incident. It has happened just a few times when I am stopping while unclipped on one side and lose control to the opposite side. Yesterday I hit a patch of sand.Just trying to figure out if there is a way to better control the fall. I think trying to relax and taking the hit to the hip is what I tried to do. I don' t think I was very relaxed or tucked though. The huge bruise on my hip tells me that took the most impact. Natural instinct is to extend the arms but I learned the hard way not to do that. I feel like I should be able to gain control of the bike moving so slowly,but once I start to go I am gone

[Pedal Wench]

One thing my BF told me is to fight the fall as much as you can.