- That's a good confidence boost.
But first of all, I want to go to a rougher track
and get my bike set up.
Nevis Range opens tomorrow.
So we might be going there.
- [Offscreen] It's a science experiment today.
- The settings I got yesterday,
Taj shook his head. "Why have you done this?"
I was like, "don't talk to me."
Data said that I needed to turn that knob.
And he was like, "Don't put that knob there, that's wrong."
- [Offscreen] Do you think it'll be a balance
between like hearsay, feel, and numbers?
- So this is it:
It's like, I think feel is valuable,
Data is valuable, but the watch doesn't lie.
- [Offscreen] Tell us the V10 secrets!
- Is the feel right or is the data right?
Well actually data is not right or wrong.
It's just data. - [Offscreen] It's just data.
One of the things data has allowed me to do
is balance the front and back suspension.
But then Taj did say- Taj at first:
"is balance front and back suspension actually faster?"
which I thought was a very good point.
This will be the beginning
of the process of finding out what's fast.
(fast-paced instrumental music)
Next episode, episode six,
is just going to be twelve minutes of graphs.
(funky instrumental music)
- [Offscreen] How was it feeling?
- Um, hmm.
- Rough!
(funky instrumental music)
The timing, first of all, wasn't working.
I was trying to figure out how to set that up.
So I wasn't even bothering with the data first few laps.
Got the timing set up, did a timed run, and it was slow.
(laughs)
And then I was like, right, well, that's the end of the day.
I best go collecting the timer counts!
In terms of being productive today,
the main thing we did was I did five full runs.
Now I know how the timer works.
I know how the data works,
and now I can actually do more productive things,
at some point.
(suspenseful music)
(paramedics talking)
(helicopter blades whirring)
(paramedics yelling)
- Yeah. So just walk me through what happened with the crash
and then what happened afterwards.
- [Ben] Trail biking. In the hill, all I remember is going
"Right. I'll try this gap."
and then waking up on the ground
with everyone looking at me.
- The next thing, just right where I'm standing,
saying "Stop! Stop!"
Cath goes, fallen, was there holding his neck.
- "Oh, what's going on?
And they were like, "right. You were knocked out."
- Police, ambulance, mountain rescue,
organized the helicopter, coordinated with the police.
So weird and surreal. I was just on the ground.
Sore neck with the boys looking after me.
- [Fraser] And we got to here and we were knackered,
and then we got the news that he needs to go further up,
So we had to go up here, and he's so heavy.
We were going up there,
and we went right the way to the end there,
and then the guy came down with a winch.
Tied him in, and then took him away,
and he just started spinning.
(suspenseful music)
- So just had CAT scan of my neck.
- He's got a break going through one part of one column,
which identifies it as a stable fracture.
What are called your facet joints on your vertebra,
and these are what lock your vertebra in line,
and Ben's got a break in a bit called
your pars interarticularis,
which is just a small kind of vertical structure that goes
between the two facet joints on one side.
The worry is if you don't heal a pars fracture properly,
that you can end up with a spine
that doesn't quite sit nice and straight
- ... Found a crack in the collarbone.
It's only a small crack,
I can still move my arm and everything.
It's not too painful.
And they found also a small crack in my C7 vertebrae.
- Could've been way worse, to be honest,
because enough force to break a vertebrae
that's a serious amount of force.
It's only broken across that one point,
broken across two, it could have been unstable.
And at that point you're more likely
to have cord involvement and the C7 from there.
From there on you are quadriplegic.
- Pretty scary sounding stuff.
but yeah, prognosis is good.
- I think. Yeah, we'll be happy
that we've skimmed under the wire a little bit,
and we'll make sure we respect it.
- Anyway, I'm just happy everything's working.
Wife's coming down to pick me up in a bit,
so I've just been catching up on all the videos
and stuff they've been sharing.
What a massive response.
Pretty lucky to have friends like that,
and the kind of services like that in Scotland.
So yeah. Big thanks to all of them.
But anyway, that's enough talking.
Probably run out of my way.
I feel great, to be honest.
What are we, three weeks. Three weeks post-injury.
I'm actually quite pleased.
- [Euan] The reason you've stopped riding just now is
because you have a broken neck.
It's just as easy for you to have had the same degree
of traumatic brain injury without the broken neck,
and you'd just be back riding in that situation.
- No, this is the worst my head's ever been.
Two weeks of just feeling (censored)
Little wake up call.
- Take concussions a lot more seriously these days.
Because when I was growing up and mountain biking,
it was almost like you would go to the hospital
and you would come home and say,
"Oh, it's just a concussion."
It's good that we've made this amount of progress
and it is really starting to change.
- You only really get kind of one
or two shots at rehabbing your concussions properly.
And beyond that point it becomes much, much harder
to undo the damage done by coming back too soon.
So we'll make sure
that we don't have any quick spring backs too early
and make sure your brain's ready for it when it comes on.
- I do joke a lot, but yeah...
- [Euan] The thing with these recoveries is that
you never really know if you've done it right,
because things will just be normal,
but you will know if you've done it wrong.
And it's usually, unfortunately,
a few years down the line.
- For me, it's going to be a case of taking,
taking advice from the medical professionals.
You know that this isn't my area of expertise at all.
Between Ben and I,
we need to basically speak to people like you,
and to say what's appropriate.
- [Offscreen] Our man Euan's a doctor,
and a four-cross racer.
He's worked with some of the sport's top athletes
helping treat their injuries.
And he's kindly offered to help us
with Ben's situation.
- Well, unfortunately he's probably got as many points
in his symptom evaluation as he has UCI.
(all laughing) - [Offscreen] Sniped!
(soft electronic music)
So your balance isn't great, - No.
- but it sounds like something that's an existing issue.
- I can't balance unless I'm going fast.
- I think that's something that would be good to work on,
to be honest.
- We found out that Ben's kind of innate sense
of where he is in 3D space is not the best.
- [Offscreen] What's that called?
- It's called proprioception.
It's pretty common with taller people.
We want to see if um, raising your heart rate
and stressing you is making it any worse,
because if that's the case, then there's a...
- [Ben] It's concussion related.
- It's concussion related.
But if it's, if it's staying the same
even though we're stressing you a little bit,
then we know it's probably just that baseline.
- It's quite good when you can also walk the talk, you know.
Oh, he's getting low.
- [Offscreen] Getting low, getting low!
- Can't quite get the full test on it.
- (Both) To the window, to the wall!
- Compression damping.
- I need a steering down for my ankle! (laughs)
(Euan muttering) - [Offscreen] Nice!
(slow electronic music)
- (Ben) Let me just, let me transport you to the scene.
It was a Thursday evening, roundabout, half six.
Taj and Jules, the Fox world cup technicians,
who live in Dunkeld, and I'm friends with,
They were about to head away to EWS's,
So we got a group of guys. Guys and girls.
Dunkeld riding crew, we came up for a sprint of this,
just to kind of say "see you later,"
Little did I know! (laughs)
So I can't remember everything.
I don't remember the crash, which is really frustrating.
Cause anytime anyone hurts themselves
the first thing I want to know is how did it happen.
So we need to figure out how this happened.
So we're going to get some CSI, Crash Scene Investigation
on the go and see if we can figure things out.
- This is where we found the body.
- It looks like he came in...
at breakneck speed.
("Won't Be Fooled Again" - The Who)
This was it. Gapping into there.
So looking at it,
looking at the kind of down there, I have a funny feeling.
The track looks like you jump aiming for that low point,
but I'm sure there's actually a wiggle.
- [Euan] Just, just here, there's a sort of ditch.
Like I had no injuries to my hands, forearms or anything.
It was head, like cut here, impact here and impact here.
Nothing on my arms, which leads me to believe I'd just gone
like that. And I just hit the ground.
Nico Turner put a video recently of Mark Scott riding here.
And he does this jump,
and he lands on the edge of the grass.
- Did you see where I landed? Threading the needle in there.
- And his wheels go there,
And I saw that and I was just like, that's what I did,
Except I just was a little bit farther over.
It was really bizarre,
cause I felt like I came to and I was like,
"Whoa, what's been going on?"
And then the guys were like
"well, you've just been talking absolute pish
for the last 20 minutes."
I was like, "Have I? I've just woken up!"
and they were like,
"No, no, you've been awake for 20 minutes."
- [Offscreen] Whoa.
- No memory, brain reset.
It's really funny.
You just riding this track,
I would never ever have thought there's a high risk.
But it is those times when you just,
you're least expecting.
It's always when...
You're least expecting. (laughs)
("Won't Be Fooled Again" - The Who)
So we've got to finish on a bright note here,
so I'm just gonna be working on this rehab,
and doing a bit of training and everything,
just an X-ray to find out
if that crack in my neck is healed.
I do have a bulging disc and nerve pain in my shoulder
I've got to try and work on to get better,
but if we can get all this work in,
I might be racing the world cup.
I've just been awarded a GB Jersey, a national Jersey
to race the Mountain Bike World Cup in two and a half weeks.
(laughs)
So me and Max, were heading out to Europe,
We're hopefully going to stop
at world champs and do some videos there,
if we can get permissions.
Stay tuned for that, that'll be coming
on the Pinkbike YouTube. Hope it works.
Fingers crossed, guys.
I was in the hospital and they were like,
you come in, they wheel you in, broken neck,
and they're like "right, now can you feel this?"
I'm like "yep."
And they're like "don't move your head!"
"oh, sorry."
(all laugh)
(soft jazz outro)