Road Cycling - Whats your fastest crash?

any critical injuries?

Fastest crash? 10 seconds after leaving the house. Embarrassing but no injuries.

55/Rad

about 20 kpH (smacked into a car that pulled out in front of me)

Broken Scapula

at about 17mph, I only skidded a little prior to slow the impact of the butt head who was too busy to look both ways prior to crossing the street....butthead stopped me but good.

p.s. critical no, broken nose and a few craked ribs...

Slipped in some gravel going down a hill at maybe 22 mph. Road rash. That was the last time I rode without gloves.

32 mph....was going around a 180 degree turn downhill and my front wheel flatted...i instantly laid the bike down on my left side...and boy did it hurt...a little road rash....lots of bruising on my left hip....scratched my brand new centaur shifters

I was in a paceline at about 25mph once when I went down. No idea what happened; I probably bumped the person in front of me. Just got slammed down; thankfully I didn't take anybody else with me (although I was second from the end when it happened anyway). Lots of road rash, bruised ribs and a broken arm. That was a bad day.

I was doing sprints on a track bike w/ a 92" gear, and I was at the end of my workout. I spun it up and got sloppy coming over the top and unclipped at 30 or so. I was never x-rayed, but think I cracked a rib or two that day, as well as the worst rash I've ever gotten from my ankle up to my shoulder, including some really nasty stuff on my elbow, and rash bad enough on my shoulder to permanently alter a tattoo I have there. I vividly recall seeing my bike flying way above my head as I slid along on the asphalt. Good times!

So far, my crashes have been clipless pedal incidents at a standstill. Other than a bruised ego, no injuries.

Road bike? 0 mph.

Mountain? 35 mph body slide on a gravel road. 20% of my body had road rash, bruised pelvis, bruised ribs, concussion, broken bike, broken helmet, ripped clothes.

Won state a week and a half later.

Crashed into a kid after he stepped in fron of me while traveling at 20 miles per hour.
The kid only suffered a few bruises, I had a broken collarbone in 4 places and a broken finger, and the front wheel, fork, and helmet were destroyed.

About 40 miles per hour.
I was wearing shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt, no helmet :eek:
It was a warm summer night, and I was holding on to the door of a friend's car with one hand and my handlebar with the other. He started going too fast and I lost control. Luckily I didn't hit my head, or break anything, but I was bruised and had the worst road rash from shoulder to toe, and got a nasty scar on my elbow.

The scar was recently reopened (now it's a bigger scar) when I crashed in a crit in February going about 30, but this time I fractured my elbow. It healed quickly though.

So far, my crashes have been clipless pedal incidents at a standstill. Other than a bruised ego, no injuries.

+1 including riding up to the LBS door after my first trial spin, saying "These are great" then oops!!!

Embarrasing but no injury

7 mph..... I was switching my empty downtube bottle to the seat tub holder, and was holding my other full bottle...... I hit some wet pin needles... slide out.... broke a break caliper, scratched my brake levers, and pedal, and bruised my ego...... oh well it was on my beater bike so I didn't care too much : )

18mph... hit a storm drain... face plant to the concrete... buckled the frame of my bike in the process... no broken bones... few stitches. It looked like someone swung a bat in my face afterwards.

Crashed in the final sprint during a road race at Penn State in 1995. Some jerk (turned out to be a teammate of mine) crashed in the middle of the road at the front of the pack, everyone swerved to avoid him and a rider inadvertently took me out just as I was at max sprint speed. We were going well over 35mph and i believe I crossed the line on my back. I can't remember, really. Not too much road rash as I was layered up nicely.

17 mph T Boned a car that turned left in front of me as I crossed an intersection. Seventeen stitches on my arms and hands that punched out passenger side window as I flipped over the roof of the car. Specialized Roubaix Elite totalled. Driver said "He must have been going very fast."

25 mph Competittor drives through my front wheel at Torrance Crit. 25 mph face plant on asphalt. Concussion ,road rash forehead, cheek, nose,upper-lower lip, backs of both hands, elbow, sholder, hip, both knees. Specilaized Roubaix Comp no damage. Other guy didnt say anything.

Don't know, but probably about 30 mph. I was going as fast as I could down a hill when suddenly I hit a bump and lost my front wheel --I suspect someone popped my quick release mechanism since the bike had been parked near a party.

I went down so fast I didn't even know I'd crashed when I woke up. However, the broken teeth, inoperable right hand, and lacerations gave me a clue. Except for false teeth and a bit of scarring, there were no lasting effects.

Crashed in the final sprint during a road race at Penn State in 1995. Some jerk (turned out to be a teammate of mine) crashed in the middle of the road at the front of the pack, everyone swerved to avoid him and a rider inadvertently took me out just as I was at max sprint speed. We were going well over 35mph and i believe I crossed the line on my back. I can't remember, really. Not too much road rash as I was layered up nicely.

Well, how did you place? :D

Fastest crash: Road bike, 30 mph taking the final turn up my street at the end of a ride. Both tires rolled off the rim during the turn, making me lay the bike down and skid a while. Minor road rash on my hip, hands were raw from breaking the fall, and RD needed adjustment. Lesson learned: always crash on the non-drive side.

Worst injury: MTB, coming back down a hike-a-bike section. Probably only about 10-15 mph but it was steeeeep and full of gravel. Locked up my brakes and went over the bars. My feet wouldn't clip out (straight pull) so the sole ripped right off my shoe, I landed in a pile of stones, cracking a rib, scraping up my knee, and puncturing a hole in the helmet shell. Also bent my crank, RD hanger, top tube, and BB spindle. I didn't even know I had cracked a rib and was going to make it a longer ride until I noticed my inoperable shoe. The rib made itself apparent a day later when I laughed at a joke and it hurt like hell!

Crashed in the final sprint during a road race at Penn State in 1995. Some jerk (turned out to be a teammate of mine) crashed in the middle of the road at the front of the pack, everyone swerved to avoid him and a rider inadvertently took me out just as I was at max sprint speed. We were going well over 35mph and i believe I crossed the line on my back.
Well at least you finished. :D


+1 including riding up to the LBS door after my first trial spin, saying "These are great" then oops!!!

Classic, but feel better cause you're not alone. I worked at a bike shop and we had a good laugh half the time someone bought clipless pedals.

Somewhere between 35-40mph at the bottom of a hill in the rain. Only damage was some road rash and a scratched shifter.

My worst crash was about 30 years ago when I was 11 or 12. We were all pretending to be Evel Kneivel, jumping ramps. I landed wrong and ended up busting out my 2 front teeth and getting a ton of road rash. I have no idea how fast I was going but picture an 11 year old going full out down the steepest street in the neighborhood hitting a 2 foot high ramp.:eek: :eek:

The bike (Schwinn Scrambler) was ok though. :D

36 mph on asphalt with no helmet. Hit my head, but only hard enough to hurt a little. However, I had plenty of bloody skin hanging off of my arms.

About 40 miles per hour.
I was wearing shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt, no helmet :eek:
It was a warm summer night, and I was holding on to the door of a friend's car with one hand and my handlebar with the other. He started going too fast and I lost control. Luckily I didn't hit my head, or break anything, but I was bruised and had the worst road rash from shoulder to toe, and got a nasty scar on my elbow.

The scar was recently reopened (now it's a bigger scar) when I crashed in a crit in February going about 30, but this time I fractured my elbow. It healed quickly though.

Ouch. Not very safe of you ;)

My fastest crash was at 25 mph.. coming around a blind curve being chased by two dogs. My outside pedal clipped the curb and down I went. The dogs lost interest.. argh. Rear wheel totaled, front wheel knocked out of true.

35 mph for me, it was at one of the Rose Bowl training rides/races. It was near the bottom of the downhill section, right past the clubhouse. I was taking a drink, out in the wind, sort of eyeballing things as I took a swig. I saw this one guy up about 20 riders get all sketchy when the pack compressed where the road narrows a bit. Well this guy didn't adjust with the compression to well and started getting all squirly. I though uh oh, this isn't good. So I put my water bottle back in the cage, and in the moment it took me to put it away, I look up and here's this guy, all over the place, right in front of me. The next thing I know he was hitting the deck and there was nothing I could do. I hit him square on and (according to my teammates) did a full layout front flip. I'm 6'3" and with my arms fully extended they said I was quite a sight to see me in mid air like that all streched out. I landed square on my back and ass. I shattered my helmet, separated my shoulder (2nd time for that one) and got a huge hematoma on my left hip. I mean I hit so hard I didn't roll, slide, tumble or anything. It was a pure pancake moment. They took me away in the meat wagon and luckily I wasn't injured more then I was.

40+mph. Fall of 2005: I was going down a hill when I ran into a large stick lengthwise. It locked up my front wheel and sent me into a ditch while the bike tumbled down the road. The bike frame was ruined. I had cuts and bruises, nerve damage on my side, nausea when my head hit a rock at impact. It would have been much worse, but I immediately went into a sideways roll down the embankment. (more info. on my website).

any critical injuries?

About 125 mph at Texas World Speedway. Classic high side over the bars. OK, don't laugh. People dressed funny 25 years ago :o

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mrod1952/smlBig_Ouch.jpg

~20 mph, gentle downhill, goofing around slaloming the bike across the crown of the road. Good fun, and I kept pushing it harder and harder, almost unweighting the bike as I swung it across the crown. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh...and then 'this is different' I thought, and came down hard on my left side. Bounced off the road so high I was looking down at it, arms outstretched above me to protect my head. Hit hands first and landed a second time on my left side. Shoes were still on the bike. Left leg didn't work at all. Crabbed over to the roadside to not get run over, and assessed the damage. Left forearm from elbow to wrist had what appeared to be hundreds of short black needles poking out of it, stinging badly. Combination of skin, hairs, and road surface, I suppose. Really unpleasant and bizarre to look at. After a while my leg proved capable of supporting my weight, so I rode the bike the few remaining blocks to my house. I think I came about as close to breaking my femur as is possible. My leg was SCREWED. It took fully five minutes to bend it to sit to avoid blasts of nauseating pain. I had to hold the meat of my thigh and sloooooooowly roll my body to change position in bed at night as the pain of the muscle flopping around was...I don't recommend it. I have some permanent nerve damage in the skin in my upper thigh, it always feels somewhat anaesthetized. Only missed one week of work, though when I returned it was to light duty and my thigh threatened to cramp up for several more days.

Fastest cycling crash ever was at about 40MPH while MTBing... missed the line on a downhill section and went off the side of a cliff. I rolled about a hundred feet down the side of the hill. My feet automagically unclipped. My bike came through without a scratch but I wasnt wearing my armour that day and got a few bad gashes. Luckily some of my latent martial arts skills took over and I managed to roll through the worst of it.

My worst road crash which wasn't all that bad was when my cycling partner (owner of my FBS actually) sort of zoned out because he was busy looking at some houses (he does some fixer-up real-estate business as well) and ended up drifting right into me. We were both cruising along at around 25MPH at the time. At first he just bounced off my right side and slid back. Then he wiped out as he went past my rear tyre and washed it out. My rear end came loose and I almost recovered but ended up going down. We skidded across the road for quite a bit and both of us ended up in the ditch on the opposite side. I lost a barplug and scraped up my tape. He scratched up quite a bit of his handlebar furniture including the brifters and tape. We both had plenty of raspberries and lacerations. After picking ourselves off the ground, we went over to a local bike shop he knew of that was owned by a friend of his and ended up using poor-man's liquid band-aid (aka SuperGlue) on our cuts.

3 days ago. My winter of commute kept me in good shape --too good. I was ripping through a beautiful local park with short choppy hills and loads of curves. I went into one curve at 20 (I take this route several times a week) and hit a load of twigs and leaves that had spilled onto the road.

I went down hard, harder than being dropped in a suflex when I wrestled heavyweight. Thankfully it was cool enough I had on a jacket and gloves. As it was I had to drag myself out of the road before someone came around the corner to finish me off.

About 30 mph ... LOTS of road rash.

Crested 'the big hill' in a road race, the pack all stretched out trying to gather back together. I'm at full tilt with _my head down_ watching my feet instead of the road and hit a pot hole ... went over the bars. I still have the jersey ... it's backless! :p

jw

About 35-40mph don't know how it happened just woke up in the middle of the road face covered in blood and my knee hurtin bad. The next day my knee was like a basketball and i could barely see out of my right eye. my mom got some pretty good pictures of it.

Let's see....on the road, about 20 mph. Bike slid out from under me in a sandy turn in the winter, when I had to re-adjust my line for the guy walking across the street. Another time I was on the road on my BMX bike descending a steep hill, and again the bike slid out from under me trying to do a 45 degree angle turn at speed w/ small gravel bits in the turn. That was a joy.....not sure how fast I was going, but it probably wasn't over 25 mph.

Offroad, that's hard to say.....going fast, I never crashed....it's just going slow is when I would bite it, and that happened to be rather often.

Another time on my BMX bike, I did a tabletop off a 3 foot dirt jump.....was around 6 feet in the air....and landed that way. I don't remember how it happened, or why I even tried doing that (wasn't intentional), but one moment I was going off the jump, and the next moment I was on the ground with my legs tangled in the frame and all my buddies around me telling me what happened and asking if I was ok. Oddly enough, I didn't get hurt....and it's not like I landed in soft dirt, either. That was a great jump though.....if we kicked hard, we would routinely get distances of 15 feet or so, sometimes more. Ah, memories.

22 miles per hour.... injuries were horrible.... ripped a $200 pair of tights and scaped up Ultegra shifter and ripped up brand new bar tape....... I hit a patch of ice...... Oh yeah, I was sore for a few days too..

Around 35 mph. Slight downhill sweeping right hand turn in a time trial and my rear tire blew. Rashed up my right forearm, ankle and of course my butt. That was fun to back to the starting house with a big o whole in my spandex for all to see. The worst part was scrubbing asphalt and spandex debris out of my cheek. Ouch! I later found out it was my LBS's fault as to why my tire blew.

Never crashed on my roadie *knock knock*, about 30mph down a long ~60 degree wooden ramp, hit the sand and the front of the bike just skated sideways. Luckily the same thing that took me down (6 inches of sand) made it hurt a lot less. I got some decent skid marks, and was sore all over from tumbling, but fine.

Oh yeah, and my bike popped up in the air, and I caught it by the seatpost with my foot before it landed on me. Pretty awesome.

Around 35mph for me. Downhill tight left curve. I had just ridden it a week before with no problems, but this time a vehicle had leaked some antifreeze on the road. The bike shot out from under me in the middle of the curve like a wet grape on ice. I had a decent case or road rash, and that was it.

Fortunately the bike was undamaged, because I had to ride it home from the wreck.

I never talk about my crashes or lack there ofsurest way to have one :p

Sence its not realy a crash ill tell this one though. Was years ago i was hanging out with some friends we was getting ready to go fishing. I had my pole etc all hooked on to my little rack i made for it. Im sitting on my top bar with feet off to one side. Just walking the bike in slow circles waiting for them to finish tieing their stuff down and then it happens. I fall over and down the freaking hill in to my one friends back yard.
Wasnt even realy riding the bike and just freaking fell over.

I think it was 22 mph.

I was going along and the road got very sandy and before I knew It I was on the ground yellow "WHAT THE **** THAT ****ING HURT!" and a guy soon came to my help because he could hear me three streets away.:D

25 mph corner in a circuit race 10 years ago. Tubular rolled off the rim at the worst possible moment. Lots of rash and welts.

Lucky me. 10 years on, Im returning to the scene of the crime Sunday morning for a Mas 40+ event. At least my tubs are glued on better this time!

Also 5 years ago in a individual 40k TT. I crashed at over 25 in the final kilometer. I had my head down cranking as hard as i could go to make a sub 58min TT and i was following the white line on the side of the road. I followed that white line right into a drainage ditch in sight of the finish. I got back up and posted a 62min TT. Bike was messed up, but me not so much since i landed in grass and mud.

About 125 mph at Texas World Speedway. Classic high side over the bars. OK, don't laugh. People dressed funny 25 years ago :o

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~mrod1952/smlBig_Ouch.jpg

You win!

They have slipper clutches now to help with that. :)

26 mph in a cyclocross race in the only pavement section in the race had a dirty rear tire and it swung out on me when I was going around the turn, laid the bike over slide across the turn hit one of those tape things got tangled up in the tape got back up put the chain back on my bike and kept going feeling like garbage, 2 min later i was like my arm feels wet i look down and theres road rash all up and down my leg, still had 2 laps to go, finished them up went from 4th to 13th tho. The bike has to get a new left sti shifter and new handle bars....woooo.

my 1st year on a road bike, 43 mph downhill on sweeping right hand turn, saw water moved left to avoid, but the curve got tighter and I couldn't hold it, off the road straight into a culvert of a ajoining road. Bike stopped dead - crushed headtube, broke fork and frame in 3 places and front tire wound up even with the back one, i kept going..., wound up in the ER with broken right wrist, severe hematoma on inside of right leg where i took out the seat and fair amount of road rash, but i lived, that was a victory in itself.

My gosh, that poor bike looks about as wadded up as I did after my crash!


my 1st year on a road bike, 43 mph downhill on sweeping right hand turn, saw water moved left to avoid, but the curve got tighter and I couldn't hold it, off the road straight into a culvert of a ajoining road. Bike stopped dead - crushed headtube, broke fork and frame in 3 places and front tire wound up even with the back one, i kept going..., wound up in the ER with broken right wrist, severe hematoma on inside of right leg where i took out the seat and fair amount of road rash, but i lived, that was a victory in itself.

210+ km/h lowside @ Phillip Island GP track. No injuries.

22 MPH when I was turning left and a motorcycle decided that it would be a good time to try and pass me. Road rash, a smashed helmet and a torn-up jersey were the only real casualties.

42 mph. i was going down a local climb and was leaning in hard on a corner, and my rear tire rolled off the bead. the back tire skipped as i was turning, so i got pretty sideways, then high sided, came down hard, and slid, no rolling. my left calf, back thigh, butt, shoulder, back, and arm were covered in road rash, with the butt/upper thigh being the worst. i had to change bandages 5-6 times a day and bled through numerous pairs of jeans. I also tore my uniform to pieces and broke my seatpost in two, so i got to ride the 25 miles back to campus standing up. good times. but no broken bones or head/face injuries, so i'm happy

42 mph. i was going down a local climb and was leaning in hard on a corner, and my rear tire rolled off the bead. the back tire skipped as i was turning, so i got pretty sideways, then high sided, came down hard, and slid, no rolling. my left calf, back thigh, butt, shoulder, back, and arm were covered in road rash, with the butt/upper thigh being the worst. i had to change bandages 5-6 times a day and bled through numerous pairs of jeans. I also tore my uniform to pieces and broke my seatpost in two, so i got to ride the 25 miles back to campus standing up. good times. but no broken bones or head/face injuries, so i'm happy

:eek: Apparently, I'm a wimp. That would be one of the situations where I pulled out the cell phone and had a friend with a truck come get me.