General Cycling Discussion - My Best/worst Crash.

I was just reading that highest speed discussion and it got me reminiscing . . .

When I was young and more stupid than I am now - 18 or thereabouts -I used to train with a fixed wheel (and for you weight weinies there is no better way of getting a lighter bike!). It was great for the cadence and the pedalling style but not so great for the handling (but that's another story).

Anyway I used to go and do ten mile tuesday night t/t's on the other side of town. This one night I was running late and decided to go through town to get where I was going. It was rush hour and I weaved and flicked my way through traffic down the main street keeping an anxious yet appreciative eye out for my reflection in shop windows as I hurtled past.

I was happy. My back was straight and horizontal; my feet, almost a blur as I pushed 46x15, were parallel to the ground through most of their revolution, and my chin was inches from the stem. I waved to pretty girls. I even had time to take in the fact that an ambulance was loading up a laden stretcher in front of the MacDonalds.

At the next lights I got the green and stamped on the Campy quills for all I was worth. My spokes started to whir as I saw ahead of me several blocks of clear road. Wow, what great luck.
Head down I charge on up, playing chasies with the next lights.

BAM!

I land on my face, lose my two front teeth, gain twenty eight stitches and regain consciousness in the first vehicle that comes past - that ambulance!

An oncoming car driven by a hairdresser (and I'm not stereotyping here) had turned right (this is in NZ) in front of me on her (whoops) way into work.

I never saw the damage to her car but got a letter from her dad a few days later saying I owed her a new one. Apparently I hit her little Datsun just behind the passenger door and ripped the boot off. A few days after that I went to claim my bike, and went into the bank where the staff, who had heard the 'POW-swoosh- crunch' had kept it for whatever reason.

The wheels were still good, true and inflated but the frame now had a wheelbase significantly shorter than original. The Cinelli XA stem had snapped and the '44' bars were now about 30cm wide. The leather saddle was just leather. One staff-member who witnessed my accident had told police that I flew at least twenty metres before sliding along the ground and stopping in a heap. She fainted at about this time and was revived by her manager.

:D :D :D :D :D

Nice story, I like it! The flying part especially!

My worst crash was also on my fix, the Lejeune, in SoCal,, on Parthenia Ave., in the San Fernando valley. I was clipping along a long line of parked cars, dutifully watching for drivers in the drivers seat of said cars, when, maybe, 3 cars in front of me a door began to open. I screamed "NO-O-O-O-O-O!!!and the driver actually stopped opening the door with it about, oh 2 ft open. I threw the bike to my left, but my hip was the last thing to move and I clipped the edge of the door with my pelvic bone(llium). This sent me into an awkward, upward spiral, still in my straps, which I came out of in flight and landed, no kidding, on my feet. My bike was bounding and crashing around, basically unhurt. I walked over to the curb, sat down, laid down, and a group of people surrounded me and seemed to all say at once,"Are you ok?" in a kind of surrealistic, distorted way. I wasn't, but I got back on my bike and rode home, didn't get out of bed for three days.

The car was a Volkswagen Rabbit. If you looked down on the door from the top you could see where the door had been bent in a bow by the impact. The hinges had been pushed into the frame of the car so that they had to cut them out and reweld the frame at that point.

I became good friends with the girl who opened that door.

poupou, what town is that?

Brendon
:beer:

Wow! You guys have the oddest ways of meeting women. :D

Glad to see you folks survived to ride another day.

Thankfully I've not had an accident on a cycle as bad as that, but the worst i saw was a guy on a mountainbike came past me and the Mrs while we were cycling into Edinburgh. I had just started to give chase, when a Land rover Discovery (driven by an American tourist) did a U turn in front without looking (having noticed their hotel on the other side of the road).

The teenager on the mountainbike locked up the wheels, skidded sideways, and slammed into the side of the Disco.

We stopped to help and, though shaken, the guy looked Ok. We callled for an Ambulance anyway. the bike looked a bit bent about the bars, and the American woman and her family were very shaken.

The Disco had a hole in its rear passenger door skin !!, where the handle bar and brake lever had punched thorugh.

I'd like to have seen them explain that to the rental company.

brendon, it was in Hamilton, owner of NZ's longest legal dragstrip.

ouch! anymore?

Legal dragstrip as in for bicycles? I dont follow ya..... hehe im down in Ngarawahia tomorrow for Secondary Schools North Island champs! gonna be good

I had a smash at about 55kmh on a twisting downhill in suburban west auckland, when I hit a drain at the side of the road. Came round the left turn hugging the side of the road and boom front wheel drops into the drain! I endoed but dont really remember because it happened so fast. I ended up on the foot path going ****......****......****! and looking around in astonishment. I got nice scars on my knee, elbow and shoulder all on the same side. and my pinky finger on the other hand....lol

Brendon

I have had one bad crash. I was going down a hill at about 30 to 35 mph. There was a school bus about 100 ft ahead of me. I looked in the bus, and saw no one in it (atleast I thought I did). Well, at the bottom of the hill was another road, which the bus slowed down at. At just about this time, I took my eyes off the road for what seemed like just a second, and I looked back up to see the bus about 50 ft ahead of me, mind you I'm still going 35mph.

Well, I applied my brakes and realized that I was going to end up on the ground one way or another. I began to go over some options:

1. Run into the back of the bus.
2. Go around the bus on the right side (cement median to the left) and risk hitting some kids.
3. Or run my bike off the road and hope for the best.

Well, as I was thinking, it seemed that I had squeezed the brakes too hard and locked them up. The last thing I remember was bouncing up and down about three or four times and then I woke up laying on top of the bike, about 10 ft away from the bus, my bike a a mangled heap, my jersey torn down the side, my helmet shattered, and a small case of road rash. Everyone was very friendly to me despite my incredibly stupid mistake, and one guy gave me a ride home.

Ever since then, I have removed anything on my bike that may distract me (computers, ect.) and I try my best not to go sight seeing when going down hill.

Yea, crashes are fun to talk about later, especially if you're not hurt because of them.

At one time I HAD climbing bars on the mtb. One time while rockin' down a slalom-type trail, I got wide on a turn and the climbing bar hooked a sagebrush along the trail's edge. Well I was doing about 30 mph and that sagebrush didn't give. So the bike stopped NOW, and I did a freakin' superman over the bars. YIKES!!! I recall having time to think "this is gunna hurt!!!" Luckily, I got up and dusted off with no injuries.

Well my last crash 5 weeks ago resulted in a broken collarbone (see Tyler H.). Mine was a displaced fracture where the broken ends of the bone were overlapping by about an inch. That's the way my orthopedic surgeon left them to heal. Fortunately I started healing right away and was on a trainer within a week and on a road bike in two. Since then I've put 650 miles on the road bike and haven't been back on the mtb yet. ...maybe another few weeks <shrug> I'm not in a hurry.:)