Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

Was looking for bike-related stuff for this week's internal e-mail and came across this gem (original 1998 article also attached).

Sir

Last year you published our report on subcapsular liver haematomas caused by bar ends in mountain-bike crashes.1

This publication was followed by a broad and extensive response from the local and international press in various newspapers and journals. All German cycling magazines and many other popular sports and lifestyle magazines published our recommendations. Even Time magazine, Newsweek, and the world's largest cycling publication, Bicycling, referred to your report.

Our recommendations were followed by the industrial factories, and most of the dangerous bar ends vanished from the market. As a result of this broad response, in 1998 we observed only one case of a subcapsular liver haematoma, despite an increase in the number of mountain-bike accidents.

This result represents a tremendous success in trauma reduction made possible by The Lancet. There are not many publications that have had such an immediate and distinct impact on saving costs and lives.
References

1
H Nehoda, BW Hochleitner
Subcapsular liver haematomas caused by bar ends in mountainbike crashes
Lancet, 351 (1998), p. 342

1 Attachment

• Lancet MTBs.pdf