As well as answering the question in the title, please also say:
Amazingly no breaks or serious injuries in circa 175,000miles (20 years). Ive had spills on ice but thankfully other than cuts and tears its not been too bad. The closest I have got to something that took a bit longer than a few days was after a speed wobble sprinting on a TT finish. I took of a layer of skin on my fore arm (no bruising) and after a few days it wasn’t healing, so I sought medical advice.
Broken bones from cycling I’ve had:
four ribs in a fall on a mountain bike about 18 years ago, on a ride among friends caused by overconfidence and lack of concentration. After 15 days I was already cycling, but with pain whenever I shuddered at even the slightest irregularity in the road. I had no rollers at the time. I don’t remember exactly how long it took me to get back to 100%, but I’ve never forgotten the pain when I fell and the thought that I was going to die of suffocation because I couldn’t breathe, nor will I ever forget the following nights when I slept badly and woke up every few minutes because any movement hurt;
an elbow in a fall on a mountain bike but on tarmac riding straight when I was working on the GPS about a year and a half ago. Once again, lack of concentration. It took a long time to recover because I had to have surgery twice to insert and remove a metal plate and a lot of physiotherapy, but the arm is almost as good as new.
As for other cycling injuries, I had a difficult problem with the Achilles tendon in my right foot. It happened during one small fall to the side on my MTB, when my foot twisted on the pedal. I felt the pain but carried on. After several weeks in which it sometimes hurt and sometimes didn’t, and I was just using ice and ointment, I started to feel more pain and my foot started to fail when I put it on the ground, as if I couldn’t control its movement any more. I started physiotherapy and it took a long time and it was only after several months of shockwaves to destroy a calcification that I began to feel significant improvements. It was about two years before I considered the injury resolved.
I’ve been cycling for sport since 2005, when I was about to turn 20, and in competition I mainly do mountain biking, more ultramarathons and marathons, but I’ve also done 24-hour races and multi-day crossings. On the road I’ve only done one or two granfondos, but I’m not a fan of riding in a peloton in the middle of 1000 guys zigzagging and elbowing each other.
No broken bones or concussions. Handful (4 that I can recall, there might be more!) of fairly serious injuries that have stopped just short of broken bones (I.e. Badly bruised bones, lot of road rash, contusions, body being knocked out of alignment) and have taken a month or more to fully recover from.
Been cycling for sport or at least serious fitness for 25 years. Between commuting and training would guess I’ve amassed well over 100,000 outdoor miles in that time. Racing has included everything from crits, TTs, road races, triathlon, mass participation sportives. Never crashed in a race (
). I’d say I come off my road bike on average once every year or two, usually somewhat my own fault (e.g. Slide out because of ice, oil, wet leaves) and usually fairly minor - bruising and a bit of a road rash only, no time off the bike. Come off the bike offroad much more often than that but usually pretty slow with soft landings and no damage other than to my pride and maybe paintwork. The major crashes and injuries have all involved cars, in all cases the driver was at fault but I’d also say in all but one of those cases there was more I personally could have done to avoid or at least mitigate the impact.
Recovery wise if it’s a significant impact I always get myself checked out by my osteopath just to make sure everything is aligned before I ramp up the training again too much. Have learned from bitter experience that my body seems to be quite prone to getting misaligned and if not dealt with quickly will eventually show up in injuries (often though not always knee pain) that then end up having a significant impact on training while I get them resolved. I think staying on top of things like that and also being consistent with a pretty good strength and mobility program off the bike has been a big factor in minimising the impact of crashes. I have friends who are super lean and don’t do much or any strength work and seem to break a bone every time they hit the tarmac, though I’m also open to the possibility that it might just be blind luck!
15 Years
152,603 km / 94,823 miles logged on Strava.
Road, commute, bikepacking, gravel, sometimes single track. Some periods of crits, velodrome and CX racing. The bulk of my riding is solo and or long distance commuting.
2x sprained wrist and bloody elbow. One was ironically on a casual ride to the shops - bag slipped off my arm into the front wheel, the other I wasn’t paying attention and clipped a curb looking over my shoulder. Both unforced errors, both times over the bars.
1x road rash, went down on my side on a corner at speed and injured every contact point on that one side. For one week I was unable to put on socks, about 3 weeks before riding again. Before the adrenaline wore off, I managed to ride home via a freind who I knew had the perfect first aid for such a thing (now stock my own!). It was a solo ride, another unforced error, not reading the conditions and poor skills after lock down and riding indoors.
Here is my list (during adulthood) from three accidents over 25 years:
Several of these injuries were concurrent.
I have had several really close calls, though.
Started riding with a friend in college in the mid 90s. Quit and started again a few times depending on the city I was living in and how much I was partying, but only as a weekender. Got serious about 15 years ago.
Road, mtb, gravel
Only major injury was when I broke my wrist mtb’ing. Did it when I went endo off a small (24”?) drop that I had done dozens of times before…just a stupid accident.
I finished my ride, feeling pain, but having no idea it was broken. Got home, sat down to watch some football, and knew I had a problem when my wife pointed out that one wrist was twice as big as the other. Had to wear a cast until it healed. Still had pain there for years when I bent it at the wrong angle, but realized recently that I couldn’t tell which one had broken any more. My wife remembered (yeah, she remembers EVERYTHING) because I had to learn to write with the other hand.
how long you’ve been cycling for sport
5 years
what kind of cycling you do
Road and gravel
what your falls or injuries were like or because of what
2 crashes, one because I was dumb and rode my road bike late October on wet leaves… and one because my friend insists on never having routes on his head unit, and he misunderstood my directions on the route, so when we came to a turn, he rode left, when we were gonna go right… So we rode right into each other.
First crash was elbow, second crash collarbone. Both left side 
how you recovered from them
Surgery with plate and screws both for elbow and collarbone. Elbow was a nightmare, super painful and took awhile to get back to normal. Collarbone was fine, 5 days after the surgery I could mow the lawn and ride indoors.
Broken wrist, dislocated shoulder.
Started racing BMX at the age of 5, switched to MTB at 15. Both injuries occurred in my late 30’s (I’m 42 now) while racing enduro.
The broken wrist was my own fault. I came over a blind knoll on a ski slope at the bottom of a stage assuming the course continued straight. It didn’t. I was in the air and saw that the course tape swung right. I landed and 2 wheel drifted my bike to try and make the turn. Ended up laying it down sideways and my hand clipped a rock. I was tired and had made a mistake earlier in the stage so I was in “make up time mode.” Great lesson in identifying tame but crucial points of a course to remember.
The shoulder was a collision with a tree. It popped back in socket when I stood up and I kept racing. The same shoulder had dislocsted catastrophically before. This time it wasn’t too bad though.
Edit: I forgot there was photo evidence of the wrist incident. Sorry about the watermarks, but you get the picture.
Cycling on and off since 1970. Was a roadie but have gone over mainly to mtb and some gravel over the past 10 years. Broke a collar bone in a mass crash at a crit. Three significant concussions (2 road, 1 mtb). Broke nasal septum that required surgery (mtb).
Collarbone on BMX as a kid. Remember being more scared of my mum than the injury.
As a grown up no breaks but I had a really long lasting hip injury from being ran over by a car and flipping over the bonnet. Basically sprinted into the side of a car. Couldn’t walk for weeks but nothing was broken so the NHS were not interested. Paid for private physio and stuck to that but it has never healed properly and even small falls set it off. Like when I crashed on ice on it.
That has caused serious psychological changes to my cycling. I used to drag my knee on the motorbike and could corner really well on a road bike but now I can’t and I haven’t been able to fix it. I have the utmost respect for those who return to high level sport after big injuries.
I guess I’ve been lucky. I’ve never broken a bone or had a head injury. I got my first good road bike at 13 - 45 years ago. In those years is 7 years of racing - full seasons of like 50 races per year.
I’ve certainly had a few crashes and close calls but I’ve been lucky.
2x here. Focus on races is on high levels. Usually on casual rides shit tends to happen more easily.
Damn. Big list there.
Usual bad comunication issue with friends on casual rides 
Ouch that looks a very hard crash. Hope you got to 100% after that.
33 years of riding grown-up bikes, both road and mountain.
1 skull fracture and broken collarbone in a single crash.
The other collarbone in a separate crash.
Stitches a few times.
This could be from my elbow.
Haha yeah, it’s also the dude I’ve ridden the most with. I honestly prefer to ride alone, or at least with people who try to have the route on the head unit and not just cruise along.
