Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Accidents and Injuries '08

So what sorts of accidents/collsisions/wipe outs have people experienced on their bikes in the last year and lived to brag about? I don't mean close calls, but actual,this fully happened to me type stuff.

I myself managed to make it through most of the year with only a couple of minor ice related spills, but finally got clipped in October, riding home after work around midnight at a snail's pace. The car turned left into me, hit the rear of my frame, threw me off the bike and drove off. It wasn't catastrophic, but my left seat and chain stays were completely bent beyond repair and the wheel was tacoed. My left knee was tweaked, and i was limping for a couple of days, but it could have been much worse...and i know worse things have happened to the rest of you, so brag about it.

OTB'd real nice about a block from work, walked in looking like I'd been through a war, ha ha

Hit a guy on campus while riding through a slow pace. I was passing by the stairs saw the guy walking down them, slowed down a bit. He never looked to his right, never looked left and walked right into me. He at least apologized for being a idiot and not looking around, dumbass was zoned out listening to music. Bike was fine.

I ride far away from stairs now, after that incident I have had to swerve around 3-4 other people. Apparently college is just a home for mindless dumb ****s now. Mommy and Daddy never taught them to look both ways before crossing.

got tagged by some smirch pulling away from the a curb. didn't go down, but she flipped me off afterward. it was a nice touch.

Went over the bars 4' into my ride when I dropped over the curb in front of my house and hit a big rock buried in 6"+ of leaves.

Worst injury occurred while getting ready for a ride, putting my snowpants on. One of the waist tab-things had bent out and cut my leg from my knee to the arse.

Got trolley track'd on Baltimore Ave, fell and ripped a cheap pair of cycle shorts. Of course, no undies exposed and there was a rip on my bum, so I had to ride to school with a hole in my ass.

Ripped a few threads out of my left crank about 60 miles from home. Had to walk to the closest train station, a good 10 miles.

^ super tough. D:

Commuting back from campus, I was cycling down the street when I got t-boned by a car trying to park. I flew over the hood and landed on the pavement. Got checked at the emergency room and suffered just a severe strain. And here is the wrecked carnage.
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got hit by a car messengering in feb. fractured my c2 vertebrae, dislocated my left knee, and lacerated my scalp. i was in a neck brace for about 4-5 months, then ended up having to get a 2nd surgery. so i've been out for almost a year now, riding on and off as i felt better. started feeling better/healing up prety good, so i started riding again. i ate **** recently and i tore something in my knee this time pretty bad. probably gonna have to get surgery on my knee now. listen to your doctor kids when they say you shouldnt be riding!

busted my knee up on a skid when I caught a weird edge of the pavement. My knee looked like a pizza for a month and I thought I shattered my knee cap.

Then a week or 2 later I was in Minneapolis and didn't see the slight rise in the road where the light rail track is and my front tire caught and I magically landed on my feet after going over the bars. Luckily no cars/train. I just really didn't want to hit my knee again.

late summer i hit a set of tracks wrong and took a pretty nasty fall... didn't break anything but i thought i did (see swollen arm) there was a good bit of my dermis left out on the pavement, but i'll spare you those pics. i managed to ruin my bars, headset, and dent my top tube. nothing awful but still sucked.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3234/2882758034_7288bb3bdc_m.jpghttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3215/2881923707_a174998dd8_m.jpghttp://farm4.static.flickr.com/3042/2881925631_ff9ebd2a47_m.jpg

Balls got squished when I was doing my over the bar skidz. I'm sterile now.



JK

we want dermis pics!!1!

Motorist hit me and totaled my front wheel and fork on my Schwinn. No pics to show, coz somehow I didn't get hurt, just rolled over her windshield.

no trips to the hospital this year. but i t-bone'd the back of a beige mini-van in an intersection during a thunderstorm. the vehicle and i entered simultaneously and i couldn't react/stop quickly enough. the mini-van didn't even bother to slow or pull over after i smashed into the back. i wasn't seriously injured and the bike wasn't actually damaged but the impact was spectacularly loud. stem/fork were misaligned and the front wheel was slightly warped in the crash. if anything, i must've cratered/dented the back of the van; don't know why the driver wouldn't bother to stop. ride afterwards was a total pita (cut, sore, and more soaked than ever) but, above all, i'm just glad to have ridden away.

I almost forgot about wiping out on the Santa Barbara bike trail just outside of UCSB. Some cow on a tank-like cruiser bike stopped right in the middle of the lane, 10 ft. in front of me and was bent over to pick something up. I wasn't paying attention, swerved way too late, and caught her ultra wide handlebars. I was ejected off my bike, which somersaulted over me, and skidded on my side into some brush. the bike ended up landing on top of me, and both the stem and bars were loose. I was ite though, except for some road rash which ended up badly staining our sheets. but yeah, to anyone around there, stay off that path

I was riding in between parked cars and slow moving cars. Looked up and saw a car pulling into a bank in front of me. Grabbed the front brake and slowly grazed his car in the rear passenger side door. Fell over kind of awkwardly and jumped right back up. The driver got out and asked if I was ok, I said yes and jumped on my bike and rode away. I'm pretty sure I scratched his car and I wasn't about to pay for that so I got out of there ASAP. Only a couple of small scratches but I was sort of shaken up.

I swerved to miss a car going the wrong way down the street and ran up on the curb during the spring. Bent the fork and front wheel. Landed in the grass across the sidewalk, though.
One of my bikes (geared) decided to phantom shift and the chain popped off while I was out of the saddle sprinting. Flipped the bike all the way over, slid and landed still clipped in on my side. Lots of various road rash, and a bent shifter.

I swerved to miss a car going the wrong way down the street and ran up on the curb during the spring. Bent the fork and front wheel. Landed in the grass across the sidewalk, though.
One of my bikes (geared) decided to phantom shift and the chain popped off while I was out of the saddle sprinting. Flipped the bike all the way over, slid and landed still clipped in on my side. Lots of various road rash, and a bent shifter.

nearly the same exact thing happened to me last year in march but i landed on my face, cracked a tooth, messed up my gums, and got some unsightly lacerations

one accident.
ten or so of us riding back from penn treaty after the fireworks right after midnight on nye. first thirty minutes or so of 2008.
my gf was a few lengths ahead of me to the right. i sped up to tell her something, forgetting that the turn she takes to get to our place is a block ahead of the turn i take.
she took a sharp left thinking she was still at the front of the pack, took my front wheel out.
we were probably going about 20mph, maybe a little under. my bike and i slid ~ three or four feet. hands all mashed up, knee wrecked for about two weeks.
she stayed on her wheels, obviously.
my frame was fine, front right pedal cage bent a little, bar wrap eaten up a little.
the right nut on my rear axle won't come off to this day. goes right up to the end, but the end is mashed up enough that it keeps the nut captive.

let's see, hit a cop car, during an alley cat hit got hit by a bicycle. totaled the bike out.

later got a hole all the way through my lip 11 stitches, 3 months later got 16 stitches in my eye brow.

more than 25 trips to the er in three different states.
(note i have ever only walked into an er once)
another note, if you order a pizza at one of the local hospitals, my name comes up.

in march a drunk decided to make a u turn into me. went on to the hood, she hit the brakes, i landed on my shoulder. broke my collarbone. id like to think i took her passenger mirror off as it definitly took some good chunks of me with it.

while still healing up from that i got the ok to go back to work (i pilot a pedicab) and figured if i can ride the pedicab i can ride my bike again, afterall i never go out intending to fall. riding to work a whole herd of peds stepped into the road where it makes a funny turn/swerve thing. i see them almost to late to begin with, experience catastrophic front brake cable failure and a moment later epic chain failure and start yelling. the herd never even looked over, i couldnt stop, couldnt go up the curb (it would have sent me into the metal patio fence of a resturant) so i tackled the first woman full force with the side of my face (i was aiming with the shoulder but missed the mark). bent fork, but thankfully my frantic thoughts going over the bars to land on my left side worked and i didnt rebreak my collarbone.

biking on campus, early october. my school is famous for having more bikes than people in the whole town. so as you might expect, a handful of people don't know how to ride their bikes properly.

so after my comparative lit class i decided to go for a little ride. 30 seconds into the ride, when i was gonna turn right, this guy was riding really slowly, so i passed him on the left. stupid idiot changed lanes without looking, so he ran into my rear wheel and he fell. i skidded sideways to a stop without falling over. my rear wheel was taco'd and i had to carry my bike all the way back to the dorms.

i had to buy a new rear wheel, but up till this day i'm still amazed by how i didn't fall or get hurt from the crash.

I haven't had anything too bad. Only a couple of idiotic falls, no collisions with any cars this year.

But I did cause an accident. I accidentally hit my girlfriend and almost broke her wrist.
I felt like a super boyfriend afterwards.

lol with in 24 hours i somehow managed to fall 3 times, twice front flip and once into a rail. first front flip my wheel caught a towel on the ground and locked up sent me flying over the bar. bike was fine then second time, i was going down this ramp w/ metal rails on both sides, this fat chick decides to walk in the middle. so i figured i can squeeze thru next to her but she all of a sudden moved towards and and i had no time to dodge. my bike caught one of the vertical bars and i did a 180 spin w/ the bike. the bike was wrecked. so i rode my mountain bike to class later that day, i was riding w/o my hands on teh bars then the wheel got caught in one of the road cracks and i did another front flip. this one hurted, cuz it was super hard messed up pavement w/ pot holes etc. i scraped both of my hands trying to land w/o hitting my head and my chest went flat on the ground. i was on the ground for a good 2 mins w/ my bike on top of me and it was so embarrassing cuz these girls came running to me to see if i was ok lol. of course once they came i had to jump up and pretend the bleeding hands were everyday business. i walked my bike away and inspected the dmgs. the seat is busted in half, the bar-end horns were bent out of shape, shifter broken and the chain is locked in top gear. so that was that.

3 major accidents in 24 hours.
busted 2 bikes
bleeding hands and a bruised chest w/ embarrasment in front of handful of girls

going at a decent clip i ran over a fat drunk lady during the phillies victory parade thing, she was ok but pissed off even though she stepped into the lane. i was fine.
oh i took an embarrassing spill when i got caught at a stoplight wearing my dress shoes and didn't adjust the straps. couldn't get either foot out and knew i was going over about five seconds before i hit the ground.

2 accidents on a beater 10-speed at the beginning of the year. After a successful and crazy night at the restaurant, everyone sat at the chef's table and had some drinks to celebrate. We decide to continue with the drinking at a bar. 8 of them pile into 2 separate cabs and I hop on the bike. I ride up to the window and confirm directions to the place. They were stopped at the red and a buddy screams out the window, 'don't die'. I peel out east on the roundabout at Columbus Circle. Oncoming traffic just got the green light and traffic started up. A cab was just starting to accelerate and t-boned me. I remember holding onto the bars with the might of Samson and landing on the hood of the car. I released my deathgrip and the bike went flying while I slid clear across the other side. I popped up instantly upon hitting the ground, fearful of traffic in the next lane that might finish the job. My chef and co-workers all saw it happen. The pastry girls were flipping out. I grab my bike and hobble onto the sidewalk. Wheel was warped. My friends' cabs pull up next to me and check my status. The knee was banged up so I just coasted all the way to the bar. Upon arrival, I drank. And drank more. I also didn't spend one red cent.

Another time, I was riding down 8th Avenue in bumper to bumper traffic. I wasn't too busy focused on pedestrians j-walking and didn't realize the SUV in front of me came to a complete stop. I avoided a direct rear-end impact by turning at the last second, but I choked the **** out of the brake and went over the bars. I landed in the only empty stretch of the neighboring lane of traffic. My ego was bruised severely, but beyond that, I was fine. Needless to say, I no longer ride that bike.

I eventually switched to a fixed and have been riding intelligently. Still, accidents happen. I was riding out of the Central Park loop into Columbus Circle in front of the Time Warner Center. It was all clear so I figure I'd try my hand at a leg over bar skid, which I'd been doing on a regular basis. I wasn't comfortable with the cadence and had to bail. I've learned to get out of failed attempts pretty safely on that particular trick but as I landed on both feet in quick stride, I pulled the bike behind me and jammed the handlebar into a stretched calf. I then spent 12 hours on my feet at work in excruciating pain. It took 2 weeks before I could walk without a limp. Most recently, I did a full body skid on 42nd St. in front of Bryant Park. Road was wet and empty. I was still in the cages as I came to a complete stop. I got up unscathed and shouldered the bike up the steps behind a few of my buddies. That was by far the smoothest and least painful spill of the year.

Another gnarly accident took place on Broadway & Lafayette. Taxi cut me off at a snail's pace. I turned my wheel an exact 90 degrees and may have even tapped the brake. It sent me ass over elbows with the bike still attached. The entire area down there is in perpetual construction so I suffered nasty road rash all over my body.

september... on broad street... ****** from Jersey makes a split second-illegal U-turn for that ALL-important parking spot... his front end clips my front tire and i flip onto the hood... apparently it looked horrid judging by the expressions on the faces of the standers-by. Banged up and bruised... The Super nice gal hostess at "Fork" was cool enough to buy my limpy ass a shot tho... so it wasn't a total loss... I do however really miss that bike...

hit from behind by a cab while working, this is all.

May- I went down in a grease slick in a roundabout. Seriously--- was biking through some "water" when I quickly realized "this is not water." Next second I was down. Next to the road was a huge bucket of french fry grease that had been fallen off a truck and had been run over-- and I saw the slick in the road. I was a real mess of grease-- also bruised and a bit of road rash.

November- went down on a patch of ice-- from some hardcore frost. Again, road rash and bruising. It was at the bottom of a big hill....

Commuting back from campus, I was cycling down the street when I got t-boned by a car trying to park. I flew over the hood and landed on the pavement. Got checked at the emergency room and suffered just a severe strain. And here is the wrecked carnage.
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Thats horrible man. But on a funny note, I have that exact frame. You lookin to replace it? Ill make you one hell of a deal!

riding my allez and approached an intersection where the light was turning red and a car was waiting to make a left turn in front of me...

got distracted and tried to make a right turn before the signal turned red (was yellow) when the car moved to complete the left turn...forgot to control my speed and slid out mid turn cause i was leaning in too far...dumped my week old 09 Allez. Scrapes on my right leg and a pretty deep road rash on my elbow. Only damage sustained by the bike was the grip tape, right shifter (still functional), and right pedal.

I now have two scars (leg and elbow)

head on collision with a jeep a couple of months ago while riding in a HUGE bike lane in park slope Brooklyn. Riding at dusk with 2 headlights, a woman crossed an intersection right as i was coming thorough, jammed my brakes but ended up flipping over the hood and all. Called police and they couldnt have cared less when they showed up. Good news is the woman stopped and i am filing insurance and stuff.

minor injuries, bike (1971 Viscount) totaled

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/Jake-O/IMG_1180.jpg

Got trolley track'd on Baltimore Ave, fell and ripped a cheap pair of cycle shorts. [snip]

Got trolley track'd on Baltimore Ave, fell, and ripped the lower part of my (in all fairness old, but much beloved) trench coat off.

What's with Baltimore Ave trying to undress cyclists?

Let's see. Nailed an engineering major on Penn campus, it was pitch dark and I had my lights on, but he didn't see/consider it necessary to get out of the way. He wasn't very nice about it, even though I was a lot more banged up than he was.

Got nailed by a driver making a right on red with no signal. I was on my beater which is indestructible, thank gods, and I was wearing a long leather coat so I didn't take nearly as much damage as I would have if there was any bare skin showing. What was amazing is that the driver didn't stopeven though there was this furious girl sitting in a puddle under a bicycle yelling her lungs out with every profanity in her (limited) vocabulary.

I've been lucky, though, on the whole.

5:00am, 23mph, heading to work: I was pedaling the usual route, and I happened to hit a recently filled pothole (picture a 1/2 basketball sized mound). I shot sideways into the curb, skidded along that for about 20 feet, and then flipped over the bars landing on my head. Amazingly, I practiced my technique from the track, hold on to the bars as tightly as possible to avoid breaking fingers/arms/collar bone, and I was able to walk away with only 10 burns of this quality and a cracked helmet.

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The bike is back up and running after a new fork, new bars, and a new lever.

JAH

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Got a plastic bag carrying some pants and cassettes stuck in my front wheel as it was hanging over the handlebars. I was almost home, it was sunny, very relaxed, going slowly; then I was thrown over the handlebars in a perfect flip, landed on the back of my shoulder.

I walked home, then walked to the medical centre where they told me to go to the hospital. Couldn't flag a taxi so I walked there. It was much further than I thought. They said it'd be a 4-5 hour wait until very early in the morning, so I went home after a while.

Couldn't get x-rays for two days because of the weekend, and after the doctor looked at them he was 'suspicious' but not sure. A week after that they called me to come in and they said they now knew my clavicle was broken (but in good alignment) after an expert looked at the x-rays. Couldn't sleep that side for a month, but now I think it's good. Nothing you could do about it though but just wait. I doped myself up real good the first week.

The gross white stuff on the scabs is some sort of lotion to keep them from cracking and bleeding all the time. The yellow bruise took a week to show up.

I got run over by an 18 wheeler
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ouchies

let's see, hit a cop car, during an alley cat hit got hit by a bicycle. totaled the bike out.

later got a hole all the way through my lip 11 stitches, 3 months later got 16 stitches in my eye brow.

more than 25 trips to the er in three different states.
(note i have ever only walked into an er once)
another note, if you order a pizza at one of the local hospitals, my name comes up.

16 stitches, they come out tomorrow

c0urt same thing happened to my eyebrow... sucks.

On my way home from a Ten mile time trial I hit a patch of diesel in the rain descending a hill at about 28mph, I managed to bail out sliding up a driveway to avoid a head on with a car coming up, some of the bruising is from the bloody great lumps of gravel covering it.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3095/2654964349_f762fecd7b.jpg?v=0 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixedwheelnut/2654058112/)

Hit twice on the same road: Manchaca Rd. in Austin texas. There are some really awesome shoulders once you get south on it, but i'll be damned if that is not one of the more dangerous streets that I have ridden on during peak commuter hours. No bike lanes, tiny little shoulders that cars try to push you into, terrible/unobservant drivers seem to flock to this street.

First time I was hit in a crosswalk (!) by a guy in an F250. He was a contractor and I declined hospital transport.

The second time was at 8:30AM travelling northward. There was about a mile of traffic backed up, so I decided to ride between the two lanes of traffic. I was going at a pretty fast clip when a girl zoomed out from the opposite lane(s), and it was too late to avoid her. I tried to turn and miss her (as well as brake), but I flipped diagonally off of the back of her car landing in the middle of traffic. I was dazed, and tried to ride off when I realized... my bike was totalled (2007 Mercier Kilo TT). The girl asked if I was "OK"... the paramedics hauled me off where I was diagnosed with a broken phalange and a hairline fracture in my left ulna. 10 stitches and a soft-cast later I was off.

I just took the cast off 2 weeks ago... I bought a new bike immediately, and still haven't followed up extracting money from this girl. She had no insurance and gave me a fraudulent policy number. I ****ed her car up really nicely, though.

Thats horrible man. But on a funny note, I have that exact frame. You lookin to replace it? Ill make you one hell of a deal!

I would but I already traded the whole mess for the insurance check. But I am curious. What size and how much? Any pics of it built up as a fixed? I'm curuous to see how you did it with vertical drops.

I've been pretty lucky this year; only one bad fall.

I fell on Halloween and cracked a bone in my face and did some nerve damage in my cheek. The nerves are slowly healing but I still have some numbness and tingling in my cheek. Stopping a bike with your face is a bad idea, I don't recommend it.

I have nerve damage in my legs from the truck accident. Ed wonka got hit early last year and destroyed a nerve in his cheek and lost feeling there so he doesn't like when girls kiss his left cheek. I believe he won't be getting feeling there again

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If you think slamming your nuts on the top tube is bad...