> can't imagine a mountain biker wearing a bunch of bulky padding

XC or recreational trail riding, probably not, but if you're into enduro, freeride or downhill, you can (should) already be wearing a lot of really bulky gear. Heavy duty boots with toe protection, pads for your knees, hips, elbows, gloves, spine and chest protectors, neck braces, full face helmets with MIPS

I believe some kind of airbag solution could actually be really helpful, but here's the thing about falls in MTB: they happen quite often and they're usually harmless, sometimes you even toss the bike on purpose when you realize you've messed up or miscalculated a feature.

And you probably don't want to replace an expensive gas [generator] cartridge or suffer burns or just have to endure loud pops every time you make a mistake.

Yep definitely agreed on the existing padding, it just seems that, given the article, more is needed in some fashion.

Aren't there materials out there that can change from "fluid" to "solid" based on electrical signals? Or maybe something like Oobleck instead. Then you could have some sort of spine-protector, that outlines/protects your back and is flexible by default, but if it can tell you're falling through the air somehow/rotating around, it starts being inflexible to protect the structure of your back.

I dunno, just brainstorming and have no experience building protective wear/devices.

That actually exists already!

The brand name of the material is D3o, it's used in products like the Fox Baseframe.

From personal experience this helps quite a bit, but i never had a crash where my spine took a hit.

Issue is, many people don't wear torso protection, just like a lot of people ride motorbikes in a T-Shirt/

I'm not a doctor, but I think most spinal injuries are caused by impact or compression from the axis of the spine (from one vertebrae to another). Not puncture injuries perpendicular to the torso.

> but I think most spinal injuries are caused by impact or compression from the axis of the spine

Yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking something that when expanded, would protect the bottom somehow + the top (maybe helmet is connected to this imaginary "spine protector"), so compressions would be really difficult on that axis.

Downhill mountain bikers do indeed wear a "bunch of bulky padding", often including spine protection. It'd be nice to see how much that helps.

TFA says most of the injured people were wearing pads and they went head-first over the handlebars. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they landed on their heads and the forces on their spine caused injury. Much like CTEs in football, you're going to have a hard time protecting yourself against inertia.

The article has most were wearing a helmet, but less than 10% other pads. I'm not clear on what other pads are, but they seem to include things like knee protection which I wouldn't expect to help in this type of accident (but probably help is much more common falls).

Those helmets are not safe, were recalled, and the company is going through a bankruptcy.

Assuming you're refering to Hövding, the recall was overturned on appeal, back in 2023, but the company went bankrupt anyway:

https://discerningcyclist.com/hovding-bankruptcy/

In some types of crashes, the Hövding had better crash performance than ordinary helmets. In others it performed worse.

More generally, it may be that someone comes up with a design which incorporates inflatable sections which is more successful.