Study analyses role of handlebars in children’s cycling injuries, finding widened protective caps afford best protection

A study from Austria has analysed the role played by handlebars in injuries sustained by children when cycling, concluding that properly moulded bar ends can help reduce the number of such occurrences.

Christoph Arneitz, senior physician at the Department of Paediatric and Adolescent Surgery in Klagenfurt, was quoted in a press release from Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) as saying from that each year some 8,000 children and young people in Austria are injured in bike-related incidents each year.

Of those, some 600 casualties arise from what is described as direct contact with the handlebars, with 19 per cent of those cases resulting in hospitalisation.

Half of those injuries relate to the victim’s abdomen, including bruising or tearing of the handlebars, pancreas or spleen, says Dr Arneitz, and usually happen when the child falls onto the handlebars of their bike when it is on the ground, or when the bars turn suddenly when the rider is rear-ended in a crash.

Previously on road.cc, we have reported on one incident from the United States in which a six-year-old boy was killed when he was impaled on the exposed handlebar of his bike, which according to his father had turned 90 degrees.

> US father’s warning after six-year-old dies after being impaled by his bike’s handlebars

Another case we reported on involved a teenage cyclist in Oxford whose penis was ‘degloved’ and scrotum ripped open by his bike’s handlebars following a freak crash.

> Oxford teen’s penis ‘degloved’ by his bike’s handlebars in freak crash - doctors urge ensuring bars have grips to avoid similar cases

For his Master’s thesis, TU Graz Institute of Vehicle Safety postgraduate student Maximilian Schinagl used a virtual human body of a child to produce simulations of the effects of a blunt impact to the abdomen from different angles, using six bar ends made by various manufacturers as well as one with no bar end, leaving the bare metal exposed.

He found that the design of the bar resulted in a significant difference not only in the likelihood of the child sustaining an injury, but also its severity, with his analysis addressing issues including the force of contact, depth of penetration, and the loads to which the abdominal wall and organs were subjected.

Schinagl concluded that handlebars with widened protective caps afforded the best protection.

TU Graz has subsequently launched a follow-up project in partnership with Austria-based children’s bike brand, Woom, to further examine the relationship between bar ends and abdominal injuries in children.

The bike firm already equips its bikes with widened bar ends to reduce the risk of injury, but is aiming through the project to make them even safer.

Woom CEO Paul Fattinger  said: “Cycling safety is our top priority. By working together with research institutions, we can optimise the design of bicycle components on the basis of empirical evidence.”

Nico Erlinger, from the university’s Institute of Vehicle Safety, said: “In the course of our simulations, we have seen that handlebar ends with a larger diameter can reduce the risk of injury by up to 20 per cent.

“As there have only been a few studies on injuries in this type of accident so far, there is still a lot of potential to reduce the risk with further research,” he added.

Detailed findings from the project were set out in a paper presented at the conference of the International Research Council on the Biomechanics of Injury (IRCOBI) in Cambridge last September.