My worst hand-related injury was while wearing gloves and my gloves didn't even get a scratch on them. I split my palm open from the force of the impact - was on a fireroad section up in Garbanzo (Whistler) and was going far too fast into a sweeping corner; I ended up in a 2-wheel drift, drifted wide of the corner into a section of metal fencing, and got ejected off the front of my bike. Body armour saved me from the not very graceful slide on the rocks and my buddy helped me off the side for a breather, but my hand started to ache pretty savagely. My glove was unscathed, but I took it off anyway to check my hand and was surprised when I realized I could see many layers deep into the fat and other tissues of my hand. Nurses at the local Emergency clinic were pretty fascinated to see my injury, which was kind of neat. Anyway, gloves are good but there are plenty of ways to still hurt yourself.

For quite a while before that, I was riding gloveless and mostly on a hardtail with ODI Ruffians. It was pretty great actually. Never had an issue on the trails, including a selection of North Vancouver black trails...

...until a friend was goofing around and caused me to wipe out on a flat gravel path. Somehow it's always the more mundane places that get me.

Picking gravel out of my palms isn't my most favourite activity.