WCroadie

On my ride tonight my buddy went down hard, I was off the front of the group but I am told someone hit a branch which shot into my buddy's front wheel sending him flying over the handlebars. I heard the crash and turned back to see him sprawled over the road writhing in pain. He was bleeding from the nose, mouth, arms and legs.

I called 911 and some dudes tried to calm him down until they arrived. He did not know what happened or where he was, he couldn't tell us his name or what day it was. He just kept saying his jaw was broke and asking what happened. He said he could not see and everything was blurry.

My question is for anyone else who witnessed a pretty bad crash is, how do you look past it and keep riding? I have a race in 2 weeks, my second, which he was suppossed to race with me. Right now I am still pretty shaken up and wonder if I will be nervous riding in the group and race.

Thanks.

timmhaan

it's an unpleasant but very real part of racing. people go down sometimes. if you want to race you'll have to face the fact that at some point you'll probably crash too. if you don't feel comfortable in a group after this, just pull out and race another time. jittery nerves don't do anyone any good. good luck, whatever you decide to do.

DrPete 

Having raced a couple cat 5 races and seen some jittery folks, I think the #1 cause of crashes in the lower cats is overreacting to something, be it acceleration/deceleration ahead of you, obstacles, or another crash. The key is to just ride a smooth line and not make huge moves. I think the stress/excitement of racing makes people a little spastic at the controls and that makes for bad decisions. Just focus on pack riding skills and not making any sudden moves. Just stay cool, calm, and predictable.

I hope your buddy is back on the bike soon.

And remember--stuff flying into your spokes and causing a crash is a pretty rare occurrence, so I wouldn't hang the bike up just yet

GuitarWizard

Just go out on a few solo rides and get your confidence on the bike back up....and then start riding with others again and see how it works out for ya.

I hope your buddy is ok.

WCroadie

Thanks guys, I definitely would not give up riding. I left the scene shortly after the ems arrived, I just wanted to ride alone and didn;t want to be on the scene anymore. I talked to another buddy who was there and stuck around, he said he was able to tell the ems his name and eventually answer the basic questions. This makes me feel a lot better.

On my way I saw a helocopter heading his way which also made me more concerned, they did take him by helo to the hospital but said it was only percautionary, with a head trama they don't take chances. So I think he's just banged up but should be OK, they said he may have fractured a few bones in his face though.

I've crashed before and know I will again, I'll get right back out there. I was just shaken a bit not knowing how he was, now I am relieved.

Thanks

DrPete 

Just ease back into it. Sounds like this was a pretty major thing you witnessed, so no need to go charging into a race if you don't feel ready. It's more dangerous if your mind isn't in it.

Ophidian

I crashed in a BMX national years ago and I didn't even remember waking up the morning of the crash. I remember going to bed and waking up in the hospital. It was scary but I was young and when I got out of the hospital a few days later I bought a new helmet and went straight to a race. But it took me a year to race the track I crashed at again and it was in my hometown.

WCroadie

Don't worry, the last thing I am going to do is race again if I am not ready, I will do a bunch of group/training rides in the next 2 1/2 weeks. If I am nervous in the pack I will pull out, I won't endanger myself or my fellow riders.

DrPete, I see you live in College Park, MD. Are you racing the Tour de Christiana by any chance?

botto 

This is my advice - don't look.

that's one reason why i HATE the 'i crashed my bike, and here's some pics of my road rash' threads.

i also never look when i hear a crash, especially when i'm racing. IME that's an express ticket to getting involved in the crash.

as far as stopping, and checking your friend, well, that's tough. fortunately one of my regular training partners is a Doctor, so i leave it to him to do the triage.

Hope your friend's OK

WCroadie

Thanks for your responses fellas, it turns out my buddy was in shock, the ems took good care of him, he is in the hospital for observations because of the head trama but looks like nothing major is wrong, just pretty banged up.

Apparently he looked worse then he was, I was just shaken up seeing and hearing him in pain. I talked to a few people from our group last night, we all agree it was just an unfortunate accident, no one did anything to cause the crash. We'll be riding as usual this weekend.


Thanks again.

EventServices

If you watch a videotape of crashes, you can actually STUDY them and LEARN how they occur and learn how to AVOID them. Most of the time, it involves anticipating and looking farther ahead of you in the field.

And you know, you can practice the skills that will either prevent your own crashes or lessen the effects of a crash.
(Start by doing these on a grass surface. Use old wheels. Eventually, you'll be able to do them on the road.)
- With a training buddy, ride side-by-side, and lean on each other while you go down the road. Try to push each other over. Start by just bumping into each other. Then progress to where you're seriously leaning on each other. Surprisingly, you can get pretty good at this. And when it happens in a race, you'll be surprised at how calm you are when it happens.
- With a training buddy, ride single file. The 2nd rider purposely taps his front wheel into the 1st rider's rear wheel. Get used to how the bike reacts. After a few times, I'll bet you're able to really smack the other rider's wheel. (Our club riders will do this to each other on a road ride just to be funny.)

Mike Walden School teaches the art of tumbling. Don't stick your arms out! Just tuck and roll.

I'm sure there will be people who read this and think, "No way! That's dangerous!" But seriously, if you're going into a race without any knowledge of what's involved in a crash or how to react in a crash, you're not fully prepared.

And by the way, never say that "no one did anything to cause the crash". That's impossible. If you had it on video, I promise you'd be able to figure out why it happened.

Grasschopper

Never a truer statement was ever made. When I was young...like 7 or 8...I took Tang Soo Do and in time worked my way up to brown belt before I moved on to other things. One of the things you are taught in martial arts is how to absorb a blow and how to hit the ground. When I was in HS I ski raced and then snowboarded and I can't tell you how many times I fell, sometimes from some pretty serious heights, generally always at high speeds, never wearing a helmet and I have never broken a bone. The only dislocation I have ever had was while playing volleyball in college and there was nothing I could do there...the guy about ripped my pinky off (I was blocking). Learning to fall well is a great skill.

NEVER stick your arms out as stated and shown over and over in cycling you WILL break something.

WCroadie

"If you had it on video, I promise you'd be able to figure out why it happened."

You may be correct here, but we don't so unless my buddy remembers and will tell me we may never know.

I've been cut off, bumped wheels, slid into by a rider going down and so far controlled my bike pretty well, I've crashed before and yes I know to tuck and roll. However, I'm not saying that I don't need training and practice.

Can you buy race crash videos or do you just watch crashes from each race?

jfmckenna

I saw the same thing happen about two months ago. You think you will have a hard time racing again just think of how hard it will be for your friend. The person I saw go down amazingly was back out about a week later still with staples in her head. She went on to win a road race just last week. It takes a very hard toughness to come back strong after something like that. I am glad to hear your friend is ok. Believe me he will never remember anything of it. Learning how to fall is all well and good but if you are going 25 - 30 MPH and hit a branch or a dog or whatever you are going to go down so fast that by the time the signals travel to your brain to be processed that you are crashing you will be bouncing on the ground. This is why you forget everything that happened.

botto 

That's exactly where I learned to do all the drills you just listed, but i did it at one of the Mike Walden FLA training camps, back in the early 90s.

Those halcyon days *sigh*

merlinextraligh

In addition to being valuable training, its acutally pretty fun.

EventServices

I had a teammate who would ride up next to me during a race and throw his shoulder into me like we did in practice. We'd ride through the start-finish area leaning against each other like we were about to fall over, and it would freak out the rest of the pack. Oh, that was fun.

bitingduck

Me too, every 45 seconds or so.

Nothing changes your concept of contact like learning to ride madisons, especially after an exchange where the pack speeds up faster than your relief rider realizes and he comes in *way* too slow. I had one partner who actually liked it when I pulled his front wheel up in the air during an exchange!

And I'll third or fourth the "learn to tumble" suggestion. My GF made me go to "adult tumbling" at a local gymnastics gym, and it was a total blast. It also made major improvements in my back/ab strength, balance, and ability to tumble in a crash. She did gymnastics for years, and actually lands on her feet and hops back on the bike when she endos!

WCroadie

I spoke to my buddy a while ago, he broke his jaw and a few other bones in his face and has a concussion. He is still awaiting a specialist to look at his jaw to see how they will fix it. He lost consciousness for a bit last night on the way to and at the hospital. He has no recolection of what happened, doesn't remember a thing from yesterday.

He said he wants to get out riding once he is all healed. I told him the good news was I inspected his bike and his carbon frame had not even a scratch on it that I saw, but we can take it to the lbs for a once over.

bitingduck

Nah. With experience you sometimes know what's happening all the way down even at full speed. I screwed up badly behind a madison exchange last year and rammed a guy going onto relief at full speed while he was nearly stopped. I knew what I'd done wrong and why before I hit the ground. He didn't go down, but the guy behind me rode over my back and endo'd. We talked about it later and he was disappointed in himself because he "had a long time to plan that crash and didn't take advantage of it and go down gracefully".

Most of my crashes (not that many, but enough) I can tell you what happened and why I went down, and what I should have done to avoid it. A guy in my club who's a doctor just did a survey on crashes and injuries, and it was no trouble describing nearly all of them from the past 15 years (more than half were slipping on ice while winter commuting)

Phatman

I was at the french broad cyclinc classic last weekend, and the cat 4 road race was a flat out crash fest. First of all, it was a field of 60 some cat 4s on very narrow roads just south of asheville. Then they shortened our race to 36 miles from 44, which was too short to start with. There were three crashes along the way, in corners. entering the last K, I was in about 10th position, and people started attacking over the yellow line, until the whole group was spread across both lanes with about 800 to go. then, at the line, a guy in the center of the group's tire blew, and he took out 3-4 other people. that was a very bad crash, and I missed running over a guys back wheel by maybe two inches. then...get this. about 300-400 meters after the line (we're all going, "**** man, you see that crash? that **** was bad!"), this guy pulls over to unwrap a powerbar, and someone runs right into him and flys over the bars! nuts!

to top it off, back in the parking lot, I'm coasting along (2-3mph) going to grab my wheels, and this cop walks right out infront of me from behind his car. I didnt even have time to hit my brakes, and he was rammed. luckily neither of us were hurt, and my bike was fine too...but you gotta wonder sometimes. I think that weekend was cursed.

jfmckenna

Hey phatman I was in that race too. I was off the front for a little while with one other guy. When we got caught I couldn't believe how hostile the field was. There were guys yellin F-U to each other and *****ing about everything. I just sensed bad things happening. There were lots of squirrelly riders too. Some one did something stupid and caused a shift and the guy next to me put his pedal in my front wheel and blew out a few spokes. I unclipped and skidded for about 20 feet on my right foot but never hit the pavement . Did you do the crit too? I was nervous about it so I pretty much pulled the whole race around for 45 minutes. I wanted to have all those tight corners to my self

EventServices

Funniest crash ever:
1. Herb Meingast in Cleveland, 1991.
Riders go down. He runs into a body on the road (Dave Mann - IME Bolla). He comes unclipped from BOTH pedals and lets go with one hand. Lands back on his bike and continues riding.


2. Unknown rider Birmingham MI 1994
Someone falls and knocks his bike out from under him. He ends up running down the street.
I have this one on video somewhere. Will have to dig it out.

bitingduck

It needs to be on google video!!