ACUTE INJURIES IN CROSS-COUNTRY AND DOWNHILL OFF-ROAD BICYCLE RACING

This study was conducted to investigate injury patterns at three major off-road bicycle races in the western United States in 1995. All cycl ists forced out of the cross-country (CC) and downhill (DH) competitio ns due to injury were examined and interviewed. The overall injury rat es were 0.49% (20/4074) for the CC and 0.51% (11/2158) for the DH even t. In the CC there were 0.37 injured cyclists for every 100 h of racin g time versus 4.34 injured cyclists/100 h in the DH (P = 0.01). Injury rates in the CC were higher for women than for men (1.05% vs 0.40%, P = 0.04; 0.75/100 h vs 0.31/100 h, P = 0.01). Injured CC cyclists who fell forward over their handlebars had higher mean injury severity sco res (3.0 vs 1.3, P = 0.01) and required more emergency room visits (6/ 10 vs 1/10, P = 0.02) than cyclists who fell off their bicycles to the side. Women injured in the CC fell forward off their bicycles (5/6 vs 5/14, P = 0.05) and were taken to the hospital (4/6 vs 3/14, P = 0.05 ) more often than men. These data suggest that 1) the risk of being in jured during a race is similar in the CC and DH events, 2) the long-te rm risk may be greater to DH racers than to CC competitors, 3) the sev erity of injury is greater when a CC cyclist falls forward off the bic ycle, and 4) women CC competitors are more likely to fall forward off their bicycles and be injured than men.