Ygduf

I'm just joking around guys.

OP, take CDRs advice or you'll end up looking like I did. Note, the right clavicle is already plated. Now they both are!



Oh, and yeah, I was totally comfortable riding in a small break. The idiot pulling on the front of the rotation looked over his left shoulder and cut across our line as we rotated through, sending the rider ahead of me off his bike and onto my front wheel. Pretty sweet.

Fun sports aren't generally very safe.

ericm979

All crashes are your fault, even the ones that aren't. You can always have done something to avoid the crash. You may not have known what that was before the crash but you should try to figure it out after the crash. Otherwise it could happen again. Wouldn't that be dumb. Thinking that some crashes "just happen" and "aren't your fault" is giving up on figuring out what you could have done to avoid it.

Someone else's crash should not give you the fear. You should acknowledge it and if possible, learn from it. But in races people crash all the time. If you can see what they did wrong and avoid doing the same thing, that's good, but often you won't know why they crashed. You just trust in your own abilities and go on. It's normal to think "I don't want to crash" in races. But if you are confident in your abilities and don't ride over your head, and pay attention to your pack riding and the riders around you, you shouldn't crash.

Another way of looking at it- if you were walking with a group of people and they all tripped and fell, would you be afraid to walk? No, you would look for what tripped them so you could avoid it.

BTW I find race oriented group rides to be at least as dangerous as road races. People are more focused and paying attention in races. Try to keep your race focus there.

gsteinb

indeed. I would fear your man boobs.

Ygduf

I humbly disagree. In my example above I didn't do anything wrong except show up to race.

Chris Zappala just crashed a few weeks back and spent 2 days in the hospital due to random fork failure, with no prior warning.

I will agree that MOST crashes are avoidable, but I can't say all.

gsteinb

The crash that shattered my elbow occurred because some guy hit a pedal in the last turn. I had no where to go but into and over him.

my fault.

I should have made the break.

Ygduf

hah. I was in the break. Should have stayed in the field. But the guy who caused the crash stayed up and finished 3rd... in the break.

MDcatV

the only ways to avoid the last crash i was in would have been to:

1) bunny hop 4' into the air and stay airbourne for 20' then landing and staying upright in a ditch with a soybean field under cultivation on the other side of it
2) channel my inner superhero and learned how to fly instantaneously
3) slept in that day

mattm

Yeah that's what I meant - ouch.. was it wet and you slid out, or just went wide??

No.

Unless you mean that you can avoid a crash by not entering a race, or not being in the field when 10 guys go down in front of you.. which is useless anyway.

In many cases it's not like guys just plow into someone on the ground when they had a better option! In all of the race crashes I've been in, I'm in the middle of the pack and guys start laying down in front of me, please let me know how to avoid that in the future?? Just saying "ride off the front" or "not in the pack" is not very useful.

rkwaki

I love it when you come down to my level...

and you would hope I wasn't lactating...

rkwaki

Confused..
The first two were viable options...

Jandro 

Oh man, I hadn't heard about that. Looks like he back riding, though!

Only if you were hungry.

merlinextraligh

Safety is the illusion.

There are risks in everything, including bike racing.

Just have to decide if the risk is one you can accept.

Grumpy McTrumpy

the crash from which I am currently recovering was unavoidable. Believe me, I tried my best to rehash the way things happened to figure out some way that I coulda shoulda woulda...

blah blah blah

plus I took out another rider. Having a broken fork and no control over the direction in which you are going can do that. Prayer helped. Nobody had any broken bones.

You have to get back on the horse ASAP before your mind starts in with all of the "what if I die" BS.

By the way, I was right there on the ground next to Markus when he was dying on the pavement at Bethel last year. Yes, it took a while to mentally recover, but I was back at Bethel this year.

topflightpro

I'm pretty sure Johnny Hoogerland would disagree with you:

UmneyDurak

The front just let go in the middle of the turn. I wasn't even leaned in all that much. I don't think I even had time for "Oh ****". Due to nature of the turn all the forward momentum transferred in to downward momentum. When I looked at my files later I was going around 22 mph at the time... The worst part was how unexpected it was, and I wasn't sure what I did wrong. That played a HUGE role in getting confidence back very slowly. Between that and being off the bike for almost two months (right before racing season), didn't bode well for my results that year.

merlinextraligh

I think there's an example in there of what Eric's talking about. Obviously that crash is the fault of, hell the criminal negligence of, the driver ( who's banned from the tour for life.)

However, there was a possible opportunity to see it coming. You could see that the Car wasn't going to make it through on the line it was on without hitting the tree. So it was possible to aniticpate the problem.

I'm not suggesting that you'd expect the riders in the break to be focused on the car, or expect it to do anything so stupid. But taking the time to think about how an accident developed may help you spot future problems, and improve your chance of avoiding them.

So I wouldn't say all accidents are avoidable, but I do think it's worth examining what caused an accident with the view of not repating it, or being better able to identify potential things to avoid.

ericm979

I knew I'd get a bunch of argument. But I think you guys are not trying hard enough to figure it out. Quit trying to argue how it is impossible and think what is possible. It might not be something that gets you out of the crash all of the time but at least gives you a better outcome.

> I'm in the middle of the pack and guys start laying down in front of me, please let me know how to avoid that in the future??

I've bunny hopped crashed riders and ridden over bikes.

But chances are good there was a clue that something bad could happen before the crash, like some guys bumping and not handling it well, or some guy who is too eager on his brakes. I often see riders riding poorly in the pack. I try to move elsewhere. It doesnt always work and you can't always do it, or you might not think that losing your position is worth it, but it is an option to reduce your chances of being in a crash. Even if I am in a small break if I don't like the way someone is riding I keep an eye on them, and maybe try to change the rotation so I'm not behind them.

If my fork broke I'd be thinking about any previous crashes or hard landings I had on that fork and that I should have inspected it.

Grumpy McTrumpy

this is some dangerous bull****

gsteinb

there are actually psychological diagnosis's for this kind of thing.

Grumpy McTrumpy

the need to control that which cannot be controlled?

UmneyDurak

At 10:25 mark, what was the clue that those two about to bin it?

ericm979

But they should have situational awareness of what's around them. Your senses are taking it all in, its just a choice whether to pay any attention to it.
Of course you want to pay attention to the race but you can often afford a little attention to what's around you. I started practicing this when I started street motorcycling but it's now how I drive and ride.

Thanks, that is a less confrontational way of saying it. I stated it the way that I think it- it's always my fault- but that side tracks people into "what about X? What about Y?" which is less than useful. Making it an absolute is my way of making sure that I learn something from it.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I'd strongly suggest not making your way into everybody's way unless you want to piss people off.

ericm979

But "Prayer helped"? You really think that?

Grumpy McTrumpy

yes. Otherwise I would not have said it of course.