BRAIN versus TERRAIN
GOING DEEP CONCUSSION SENSOR
BRAIN versus TERRAIN
AS SPEEDS CLIMB AND HITS STACK UP, NEW TECH IS REVEALING WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON INSIDE YOUR HELMET – AND WHY “JUST CRACKING ON” MIGHT NOT CUT IT ANYMORE…
Modern bikes are more capable than at any point in mountain biking’s unruly history, allowing riders of all abilities to cover ground faster, tackle steeper terrain and ride increasingly tougher trails. From cross-country to downhill, we’re hitting bigger features and gobbling up the rough stuff at higher velocities than ever before.
The result is a sport that’s stimulating peak adrenaline. That’s a good thing. But the downside is that the forces firing through a rider – and their heads – can be significant. While bike technology and geometry have evolved dramatically to crank up performance and control, our understanding of what happens to a rider’s brain when hammering through obstacles – and inevitably having the occasional crash – is less advanced.
That’s where the new and potentially game-changing Connect device comes in. Developed by head-impact monitoring company HIT, the sensor mounts to the back of a helmet and records the forces acting on a rider’s head.
Used by World Cup racer and 2020 downhill world champion Reece Wilson and his AON Racing team, the gadget not only measures individual impacts, but also – and, as we’ll discover, importantly – the cumulative forces endured during sessions and race weekends.
HEAD IMPACTS MATTER
Concussion has become an increasingly visible issue in gravity disciplines such as downhill and enduro where speeds and impact forces are off the scale, with a number of high-profile riders speaking publicly about the challenges of recovering from head injuries.
In April 2022, DH World Cup star Tahnée Seagrave flipped over her handlebar after coming up short on a jump in Wales. She told the BBC that she’d suffered crashes “10 times worse”, but while her body was unscathed, her brain wasn’t. Concussion left her petrified of the future. “The only way I could explain it to people, it was like drowning,” Tahnée reflected. “My whole body was underwater and I had just enough air to breathe, but not enough for it to be comfortable.”