Originally posted by SamDaBikinMan
Riding at full speed around a gate and into a barbed wire fence which blended perfectly with the background.
So I'm not the only person to have done something like this... However, I didn't see the gate and ran right into it. I did miss the barbed-wire fence though.
About 12 years ago, I was on a night ride with this girl along an unlit trail (save for my meager Cateye 5W headlamp) that led around Fermi National Accelerator Labs in Batavia, IL where we both worked as college interns. She mentioned something about being able to see the stars (a rarity for the burbs of Chicago) and I started staring up and stargazing. By the time I heard her yell "look out!", the big 4" diameter roadblock/gate was upon me. It was just at handlerbar height. I didn't even have time to hit the brakes. I was doing maybe 16MPH. The bike came to a complete stop. I however, did not.
I went sailing over the bars (both my bike's and the gate's) and plunged headfirst onto the hard gravel. Luckily, my helmet did its job and absorbed the impact while leaving me with a bit of a headache. My date was both amused and concerned. And I guess I sorta soaked it up... Hey, sympathy attention is better than none.
The bike came out relatively unscathed (some scratches on the brake levers and barends) but it took us both a good 45 minutes to locate my bike computer which had ejected itself into the bushes.
Since then, I've learned that no matter how pretty the girl or the scenery is one should always remain aware of what's directly ahead of them.