I was pondering about random things the other day and I was thinking about what it might feel like to do a bungee jump.
Has anyone here done a jump? What does it feel like when you bounce at the bottom and you go bong-de-bong? Does it hurt? Does it feel like your body is all stretched out? How do they cut you down?
Has anyone done any research into the effect a jump has on our bodies in the long run? Say when you are 70 and did a bungee jump in your twenties, would that have any effect on your muscles (or your brain).
Don’t worry I’m not actually planning on doing a bungee jump until October, I was just wondering in advance.
Bungee jumping is a huge, huge rush but it can also be terrifying. I did one jump where I fell backwards flat on my back and it was essentially like falling out of a building. Very scary. But huge fun.
The bouncing part is a little violent but it doesn’t hurt at all: Your energy is absorbed over a relatively long distance and you go through several smaller bounces as the energy dissipates.
When you are done bouncing, they lower you down, cord and all, to the ground or waiting boat if over water.
When I did it, they didn’t lower you down, but pulled you back up to the bridge. They had a guy hanging down on a separate cord whose whole job was to fish back the jumpers once they were finished bouncing.
love
yams!!
I’ve done a few bungee jumps including what was (at the time) the highest year-round operation (the Pipeline down in NZ, 104m IIRC). I also used to skydive so I can compare the two.
Skydiving feels like flying. You’re too high up to have any real reference point that indicates you are moving (unless you go zipping by a cloud). There’s no sensation of “falling” unless you leave a vehicle that wasn’t moving to begin with (helicopters and hot-air balloons).
Bungee jumping feels like falling. My usual description is it’s like falling to your death and at the very last second saying “Just Kidding!”.
It’s very intense; I screamed like a little girl on every single jump and enjoyed myself thoroughly.
Exact setup will determine what you feel - if you’re using a full body harness (generally a mountain climbing harness with a torso harness as backup) you’ll tend to get flipped over suddenly at the bottom as your body rotates. With an ankle harness you can look straight down the whole way, you’ll see the ground getting big fast and then zipping away from you.
You’ll have a few bounces up and down - they’ll probably caution you beforehand not to grab the bungee cord as you go flying back up, which you will promptly forget and they’ll yell it at you again as you’re screaming and whooping it up. As you rebound you’ll slow down, stop and then start falling again, repeating the whole experience a few times.
All the places I’ve gone the cord is hooked at one end to a cable on an electric winch so once you’ve stopped bouncing about they just lower you down. If you’re over ground they’ll just take you down where an attendant is waiting to help steady you, get your feet on dirt and unhook the harness. The Pipeline jump was over a shallow creek and they had a jetboat for pickup - an attendant held up a long pole for the jumper to grab ahold of when they got low enough and they used that to guide you down the last few feet into the boat where they unhooked everything.
An experience well worth doing a few times. Go forward. Go backward. Yell a lot. It’s a mainstream activity these days (unlike back in the late 1980s/early 1990s) so I assume there’s no question of going with some fly-by-night operation.
ETA - nothing hurt, my head didn’t explode, spine go straight or other such nonsense. At most it was disorienting for a few seconds.
I have really bad knees and I thought that maybe my legs would rip off it I did it. When I was in Australia there were several places to do it. By the time I got to
the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown, New Zealand, I was really trying to psyche up, because that’s where it got all started. I was the only one on the bus who actually did it, surprisingly enough. The key to is it to not hesitate. If you don’t jump at the end of the count, well, some people never work up the courage to do it. It’s an unbelievable rush and at this one you can opt for a head dunking in the river. It’s also a beautiful canyon and a classic old bridge.
It’s kind of addicting, so I did it twice more in South Africa, including what at the time was the highest in the world at Bloukrans Bridge. I think they advertise it at 206 meters. This one is way sketchier than the one in Queenstown. The crew doesn’t seem as professional, and the bungie loops below the bridge so you can’t see if it is actually attached! Plus, the use a compression style knot which is pretty much a slip knot. This does not make you feel secure in the least. To me, it seems like your feet could slip out when you are rebounding. However, I don’t think they’ve lost anyone yet. You also leap from the structural arch below the highway which is sketchy in itself just making the climb out to it.
It was scary as shit. I can’t remember how long the freefall was, but it was pretty damn long. There, they use a winch to pull you back up. If I recall correctly, they lower a guy who clips you to a rope which pulls you back up.
I did this back in the early 1990s at the original A.J. Hackett site (the Kawaru Bridge near Queenstown NZ, mentioned by D. Lict). The operation was a lot more primitive back then, but quite safe (or so the evidence suggested).
It is kinda cool to go off backwards and watch the bridge recede between your feet. With an accurate report of your weight, they could tune things so you just touched the water, or your whole head went under, or everything up to your waist.
Having done several hundred freefall parachute jumps, the experience probably wasn’t as intense for me as for many. I did two bungy jumps - and enjoyed them - but then put this into the “been there, done that” category.
The bungy is made up with a bunch of tiny elastic fibers. I believe that that the operators claim that the individual fibers will break individually occasionally and that the bungy will stretch as it gets more fibers get broken. They claim that once the bungy has stretched a certain amount it will be replaced as it is no longer reliably safe. I have no idea if they are telling the truth. I assume that you can use empirical data and stress tests to actually support this theory, sort of.
I’ve never bungee jumped. Personally, I’d rather ride a coaster as my faith in steel and Newtonian physics is higher than in rubber and materials science.
I can’t swim, but I think I’d be more comfortable jumping over water. If the cord failed, I’d be at risk but at least there’d be a chance for someone to save me, instead of smashing into the ground and just dying.
I bungee jumped in '90 or ‘91, can’t remember exactly. It was from a crane in Myrtle Beach, about 185’ (I think) over an air bag. It was terrifying standing at the edge of the cage, leaning out, and everyone in the stands on the ground shout “3—2---1—bungee!”, and you let go. Standing there was the worst part. Then you’re in a swan dive.
Falling was cool- just being in freefall was a great feeling. Then before you know it, you bounce. Once I was at the full extension of the cord and was springing back up, I was shouting “Yeah!!! Woooooooooo!!!” until I was back on the ground. It was awesome, invigorating, exciting. I was so pumped with adrenaline the rest of the night. The only downside was the force of the bounce caused me to burst a bunch of blood vessels in my eyes, so for a couple weeks I looked really bloodshot.
About 10 years later I went skydiving. Also awesome, but I think bungee jumping was both scarier and more exciting.
I dont’ really remember my first bungee jump. I remeber getting into the lift. I remember getting hooked up and standing at the edge of the platform. I remember having a little internal conversation with my brain.
My brain was telling me, “I know what you’re planning. You are planning on jumping off this ledge. This will kill us both. I advise against it.”
I was telling my brain, “It’s OK, I’ve got this bungee cord n shit. We’ll be ok.”
Brain - " I don’t see a bungee cord. I see a fall to certain death"
Me - " 3-2-1 Bungee!"
Brain - “Fuck you!”
::brain shuts down::
I completely blacked out, but the video showed me flailing around and stuff, so I was technically conscious.
The rest of the times I went were much more fun. I guess having survived the first one was enough to convince my brain that I wasn’t out to kill us.
To answer the OP. No, it doesn’t hurt.
Where I went, the bungee cord was attached to a platform that ran up an archway. So, to get down, they start lowering the platform until you’re a couple of feet off the ground. Then, a couple of guys grab you, make sure you’re oriented feet first, then signal the lift operator to continue down. You get back on solid ground and they disconnect you once there’s enough slack in the cord.
