Road cycling causes more serious injuries than mountain biking, new study finds

The study, which assessed 149 cycling-related emergency care visits, found “injuries from road cycling are less frequent but more severe than those from mountain biking accidents.”

Road cyclists also demonstrated a higher proportion of serious head injuries and severe lesions. One patient from the road cycling group died of a head injury.

The findings, published in Scientific Reports, show that road crashes accounted for 33% of all cases, but had a median Injury Severity Score (ISS) of 6. In comparison, the mountain bike crashes accounted for 67% of all cases and had a median ISS of 4.

Road cycling-related accidents recorded a higher percentage of the type of injuries in all places except the upper extremity. Prevalent injury locations were the upper extremity, followed by lower extremity, face, thorax, head, spine, neck and abdomen.

The study also revealed that “age appears to be a significant risk factor in cycling accidents, particularly among road cyclists.” The older the cyclist was, the more likely the injury was to be severe.

The study attributes this to “a longer reaction time, which makes it more difficult to avoid obstacles, bone fragility, acoustic or visual loss or higher presence of pathologies, which can determine the association between age and severe injuries.”  between ISS and age for both types of cycling.

Also, most road and mountain biking injuries in this study resulted from a fall or loss of control, with a total of 71% of accidents.

However, this was higher for mountain bikers, with 79% of accidents being due to falls or loss of control. 30% of the road-cyclist accidents involved a motor vehicle drive. road.cc