Tyler Gibbs Takes Us through His Crash and What’s Next for Him

Tyler Gibbs Takes Us through His Crash and What’s Next for Him

By Billy Rainford

#221 Tyler Gibbs from Mission, BC was racing the 250 East class in the 2024 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series on the CREO KTM team. While training at Robbie Reynard‘s place in Oklahoma, Tyler suffered a broken collarbone that will sideline him for the rest of the SX season. We gave him a call to have him take us through it all and let us know what he’s got planned next.

Direct Motocross: Hello, Tyler. Sorry to be talking to you under these circumstances, but I was hoping you could take us through what happened?

Tyler Gibbs: I was just having a good day of riding Supercross doing our sprints and all that stuff with Robbie (Reynard). I went back out and went to go hit this triple on and my bike, unfortunately, cut out at the bottom of the lip so I didn’t make it. I nose-picked it and I went right over the bars and it wasn’t good. 

I didn’t know that my collarbone was broken, I was more concerned because I could’t breathe. I winded myself so good that I couldn’t talk or anything. I pulled my shirt off and Robbie was like, “Ya, you broke your collarbone.”

They didn’t want to do surgery. I was trying to get surgery done but because of insurance stuff it was just too complicated and so I came back here and now I’m just healing up. 

So, I crashed, they took me for x-rays, I waited around for about 3 extra days trying to figure out what to do. I called Jeff (Crutcher) and he told me my season was done. 

Looking back, yes, my season is done, but I had hopes that I could still get surgery but that’s how this sport is. You get hurt and they’re already looking for another rider. Jeff was awesome but I was a little bummed out about that part. 

I was supposed to be the only rider at St Louis, the other 2 teammates didn’t have to do it, which I didn’t think that was very fair. (Guillaume) St Cyr was going to be my fill-in teammate for the weekend. But I feel like I could have got the surgery, missed St Louis and be back for Foxborough or even without surgery I could be back after Foxborough. 

But it hurts because I put a lot of work into it and just for it to get ripped away like that is a bummer, but that’s just the way life goes. I can’t dwell on it. I have to look at the positives and move forward. 

Robbie and I tried to figure some stuff out insurance was a headache and…

Were you covered for the x-rays?

Yes, I was covered for all that. Basically, I can’t go get surgery if I ask for surgery. And my insurance didn’t work at some these little places. I couldn’t go to the smaller place that helps Robbie’s riders out because they didn’t carry my insurance. 

It’s a bummer but I guess I know for next time. It’s tough because there are only so many companies that will cover what I do because it’s such high risk. 

OK, so where are you now?

I’m in Manitoba at my girlfriend’s place. I’ll be here trying to figure things out. I went to see a sports doctor here. They said my break is really common with kids under 14. Usually, it breaks all the way through and mine sort of bent and broke a little bit. You can tell it’s broken really good in one spot. It cracked all the way down but it didn’t go all the way through. 

They wanted to take an x-ray of my other collarbone to make sure everything is aligned properly so that when it grows back there’s no discomfort.

I have another check-up in 2 weeks and we’ll go from there. 

So, no surgery.

Ya, no surgery. I’ll just let it heal. The doctor said that if I did get surgery I could be back sooner but if I ever do crash on it again it can make a mess. You end up bending the plate or you break around it. There was a 99% chance that they weren’t going to do surgery anyway.

I tried everything I could. I wasn’t like, “Oh well, I broke my collarbone, that’s it.” There were a lot of things that went into it. People are always saying that Coty Schock did it or this guy did it…

I’m happy I didn’t have any internal issues because my side swelled up really bad and my ribs are really sore but I didn’t break any. I’m happy that for how bad of a crash it was that I only ended up with a broken collarbone. I’ve never broken one so I knew I would eventually. It doesn’t take much to break one. 7 pounds of pressure is all it takes to break one, so the fact that I hadn’t done one yet was pretty crazy. I’ve had some good get-offs.

My brother (Travis Gibbs) broke his collarbone like 2 1/2 months ago so now we’ve got matching collarbones. Matching femurs and matching collarbones. 

OK, well, I have to ask you…what’s next as far as racing goes for you?

Right now, I want to race some outdoors, but I can’t afford to buy a bike. That’s the big thing. I raced outdoors last year, I raced Supercross this year and, sure, I made some money but I’m already down like $8000 from Supercross. Even though I had help from Jeff, stuff like hotels, fuel, training, all that stuff, so I’m trying to figure out how to clear some of this off and get back to even and go from there. 

I’m just looking for a bike. Preferably, I’d like to ride a Yamaha 450. That’s what I would like to do. I DM’d Kevin Tyler on Instagram and we talked about who to talk to at Yamaha. I even asked him if they had a bike I could just ride, a practice bike or something like that, but he helped point me in the right direction as far as people to talk to, so thank you to Kevin for that. 

As of right now, I just can’t afford to buy a bike. It’s too expensive. I want to race. I plan on doing a couple races. I’m not going to do the whole series, obviously, but I’ll do the races I want to do.

I’m just going to try and get a bike and be at some of the Nationals. There are a couple on my list that I want to hit. As of right now, it’s looking pretty slim that I’ll be doing it, but I’ll figure something out in the next week or two and then I’ll announce it on Instagram when I have it all figured out. 

I want to go back to Supercross again next year. I don’t want to make excuses, but a lot of things happened that were out of my control, leading up to Supercross: weather, I got sick, I hurt myself, bike issues, having no bike… So, I didn’t really ride a whole lot.

Indianapolis, I didn’t make it, but that’s the best I’ve felt riding Supercross at a race. I was finally starting to feel comfortable and like, “Alright, let’s get this ball rolling!” I was just bummed that it had to end with a bike issue because I was finally starting to feel good on Supercross.

East coast was stacked! There were some really good guys out there, so that definitely made it a lot harder. The West coast, there’s a lot of good guys, but there aren’t as many as there are on the East. 

I’ll definitely go back next year and have another go at it and see what happens after that. 

Unless you get a ride offer, it sounds like 250 West would be the easier one to make happen next year.

Ya, 250 West would probably be the easiest but I don’t know. Usually the West is the stacked coast but maybe all these guys will hop off the band wagon and go West next year, so who knows. 

West coast would be cool to do but I have a feeling that all these guys are going to jump back to the West and then I’ll wish I’d done East coast. We’ll see. 

Well, thanks for the update and I’m sorry you had your SX season ripped away from you like that with an injury.

It sucks but at the end of the day you can’t be mad about it. It’s life and I’m going to dust myself off and try again.

Just get yourself super fit in the meantime and be ready to go when you’re healed.

Robbie and I had some good stuff going and I’m going to continue with that. I’m tired of people saying I don’t work out. It’s a little frustrating because people that say it don’t even workout themselves so it kind of fuels me a bit. And there’s a couple people who sort of rub me the wrong way and I just want to, obviously, do it for me, but kind of, you know, show them that I’m the top guy and you ain’t shit, sort of thing.

I’ll just keep working and doing my thing and go from there. I’ll hopefully have something posted in the next 2 or 3 weeks. I could ride in 3 weeks, so we’ll see if I have a bike by then

and I’ll have something posted up on Instagram sooner or later.

You’ll just have to do a few clicks on Ciel’s (Ferguson) bike and you’ll be good to go for Pilot Mound!

Ya, just make a couple things stiffer and I’ll be good to go. (Laughs)

OK, thanks for filling us all in, good luck, and we’ll stay in touch. 

OK, thank you.