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Old 06-20-12, 08:39 PM
  #13  
carpediemracing 
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Tariffville, CT
Posts: 15,405

Bikes: Tsunami road bikes, Dolan DF4 track

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I just got Fight Club to watch but haven't watched it yet, so I'll bite.

For 5 years (83-87) I crashed yearly in training, 1-2 times a year. I'm sure I crashed 3 times in a year at some point but I don't remember. I do remember that I crashed 3 times on one corner alone (the 2nd and 3rd times were when I intentionally went and did laps with that turn in order to get over my fear of crashing there). I was entering races this whole time but didn't crash in any of them.

The next 5 years (88-92) I crashed yearly in races. In one bad year I got caught up in 4 crashes in 5 weeks or so, I think in 1992. All of them were crashes where I was going into a turn near the front of the field, someone would come smoking up the inside, slide out, and take out a bunch of guys. Most of my crashes in other years were similar - I was in good position (typically sitting 3rd-8th in a single file field), someone would fly up the inside, lose it, and take out a bunch of guys including me. This is one of the reasons I tailgun when I race - I prefer to be away from the fighting if I can help it.

(From 1989 to about 1995 I mountain biked regularly and crashed on it regularly, but I'm not counting those.)

Then, except one crash (in a race, due to a problem with my cleat, in something like 2002), I didn't crash for 17 years, in training or racing. I was doing up to 55 races a year, focusing on crits (because they're normally a lot safer than road races, because the last thing I want to do is descend at 60 mph with a bunch of guys who are scared of group riding so all they do are road races and they don't know how to ride in a group in a crit...), dicing it out at the front in the field sprints, and the only time I went down was when I was sitting dead last, sprinted out of a turn, and unclipped.

In 2009 someone pulled an intentional move and took me and a bunch of other guys out. About 30 mph tumble. I broke my pelvis (first ever broken bone, and I managed to fracture two bones), another guy broke ribs, and there was a slew of other less severe injuries. Ironically I'd have been okay had I just fallen - my pelvis got broken when another rider hit me while I was tumbling. It took about two months before I could work, about 4 months before I could ride without too much pain, and about 7 months before I was fully healed (due to soft tissue damage - the bone was fine in 4 months).

In 2010 I made a careless error and fell at about 30 mph. This one took only 5 days to heal completely - I fell on Tuesday night and removed the last of the Tegaderm on the following Sunday.
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