thebristolkid

It finally happened. I was on my way back from checking out an apartment at 52nd and Chester...I was mashing up the hill on Chester around 50th...I thought 2 pants cuffs were enough, I was wrong. Pants caught the chainring, skidded sideways into a parked car, flipped over the bars, landed on the side of my head and my shoulder. The bike's OK, cuz I think my body cushioned the impact. I'm OK too, I think.

Pilot error.

peabodypride

Aw man. That really sucks -- any scratches or dents on the bike?

If you have medical insurance you might as well get a doctor to possibly scan your noggin. The co-pay is worth knowing you don't have anything weird (swelling or bleeding) going on in there, even if you don't feel it.

Time to get knickers or wear shorts?

And are you coming to the race tomorrow?

Chrysiptera

Wow.. I'm glad you are ok.. You hit your head? Helmet?

The worst crash I've had so far was catching my front wheel in trolley tracks at speed. Obviously I went over the bars and hit the ground pretty ungracefully. I hit my head hard enough to know why you have to wear a helmet.

veggiemafia

Go to uniform store or Army-Navy surplus store. Buy either Dickies pants or BDUs for $20, possibly less. Cut off.

Shants!

pirate

the worst crash I ever had was mountain biking. I had only been riding a bike for 3 or 4 months, so I didn't really know what the hell I was doing. I was bombing down this hill and saw this fat rock sticking out of the ground. I decided to hop it. My front tire cleared, but my rear tire hit it hard and I went flying off to the side, landing square on my side. I landed on a sharp rock and tore a starburst sized chunk of flesh out of my side, just above my waist. A few hours later I had an INTENSE purple bruise on my side that was about 8 inches by 4 inches. The next day I could barely move. My rear wheel was tacoed so bad it hit the frame, so I couldn't roll it back to the trailhead, I had to throw the bike on my shoulder and carry it back, whilst bleeding and cursing. it ****ing sucked. I haven't ridden MTB since. (mainly because I can't afford another bike)

peabodypride

Do you have a dimple where the flesh was torn out? I don't know if a skindimple or missing two front teeth takes the cake for injuries.

pirate

yup, it is suprisingly small though.

kitten_sandwich

you just need to learn how to true your wheel in an emergency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MA9b...elated&search=

cyclezealot

I am no speed demon. Considering the damage my second crash did to my arm, I hope I never crash again.

kemmer

The worst crash I had happened something like 10 years ago. I was a Mormon missionary living in Mexico at the time (yep, I was a little confused) and we were on our way home for the night. We lived at the bottom of a big ass hill with a nice speed bump. Or hump. It was halfway between a hump and a bump. Anyway, it made for some kick ass air once you learned how to do it right. After about three months of hitting that thing 2-6 times a day, we got to where we were hitting it at about 25mph. We would seriously fly 30 or 40 feet and make a graceful landing in time to slam on the brakes and stop within 20 or so feet of the parked cars at the bottom of the street. It got to the point where the kids on the street would yell that we were coming and people would come out of their houses to watch. I figured it was because they thought it was cool. Now I know they understood metal fatigue better than I did at the time. The last time I hit that jump, I did it with the same confidence that I did every day. This time though, my fork decided it had been jumped one too many times and and it snapped in half at the bottom race. Over the bars I went, wheel and fork ahead of me, bike passing underneath me as I sailed through the air. I went ass over elbows and somehow landed on my backpack full of Bibles and Books of Mormon which managed to prevent my helmetless head from hitting the pavement. After sliding to a stop, I picked myself up as a crowd gathered around and said something like "Jesus has my back" while pointing at the shredded backpack with it's Holy writings falling out all over the street. My companion gathered my things and my broken bike as I calmly walked the last couple hundred feet to our house and collapsed just inside the door.

I still can't believe how stupid we were. It wouldn't have taken a catastrophic failure to kill either one of us. If the brakes failed, we'd have crashed into the cars. If a tire flatted, it would have meant a crash for sure. And we did this every day without helmets and without even thinking twice about it. Maybe Jesus really did have my back!

kemmer

I know what you mean. Since that day, I start to think about what would happen if something went wrong anytime I hit speeds above 30mph. It doesn't really keep me from going that fast, but I'm relieved when I get to the bottom of the hill or have to stop for traffic.

thebristolkid

1. Not coming to the race. Not only do I have to work, but I was a little creaky riding to said work.
2. Bike's fine. Maybe a few dings, but no dents.
3. No helmet (I stopped wearing it when it got hot outside...idiot). Of course, I wore it on the ride today.
4. The precautionary trip to the dr. seems like a solid idea.
5. I usually wear shorts, but since it briefly turned into October last night, jeans were in order.

Not to get all strange for a second, but when things like this happen, don't you kinda feel like your bike betrayed you somehow? When it's a car or a ped that causes the accident, obviously it's not the bike's fault, but when your chainring grabs your pants/chain breaks/frame fails/etc., don't you feel a little let down?

peabodypride

It does suck. I had the same feeling two months ago when I bit it hard and chipped my tooth.

And wearing jeans is acceptable because it was ridiculously cold yesterday.

mander

Re. 5. This was definitely operator error, and one you can avoid in the future with shants, a higher and tighter roll or the good old socktuck. This kind of accident is a serious danger of fixed gear riding and we all have to keep it on our minds.

I know what you mean though, it takes awhile to feel like you trust your bike again.

666pack

yeah, for real. it was downright cold last night.

cyclezealot

since my big crash going down a steep grade. I try to keep my speed well under 25 mph. max. ever look at the pavement passing down below at 35 + mph. Mesmorizing. heck . I almost totally blew my rotor cuff apart at like 20 mph. Imagine 37. Still a cycling addict tho. I was back on the bike well before my doctor gave me the ok. He just hated cyclists anyway.

iamtim

My worst crash(es) were both back in my BMX days, and were both operator error. There used to be a track in La Mirada, CA, that was open 24/7 as part of a regional park. My dad used to take my brother and I there to practice on our off days.

This track had this uber long and steep initial downhill right out of the gate; at least... 75 yards at about a 45 degree angle, leading directly into a left-hand berm.

Anyway, the first crash I'd just put a new chainring on my spider to try a new gear ratio. I got out to the track, and decided to take the initial run helmetless. You know, it was a "just give it a quick test ride" type of thing. I go bombing out of the gate just pushing as hard as I could. About 3/4 of the way down the hill, right as the chainring flew off, I realized I'd only finger-tightened the chainring bolts! I fly forward, rack my gnutz on the stem, slide onto the top tube, and fishtail back and forth for about 15 feet before I finally go ass over teakettle and roll two or three times.

My dad was PISSED. Once he found out I was OK, that is.

The second worse crash was also at that same track; right after that initial berm, it went into a tabletop jump. Again I flew down the hill, took the berm, and hit the tabletop. There were a bunch of non-racing local kids hanging out watching us practice, so I thought I'd show off and lay the bike into a textbook tabletop.

Only I forgot to raise the bike back up on the other side, and wound up hitting the dirt flat on my side. Luckily I had my helmet on that time, because I can still hear the ringing klunk of it slamming into the track's packed dirt.

Ow.

thebristolkid

That's the thing I've never forget about my crash yesterday...the sound of my head hitting the pavement. It wasn't a thud by any stretch, it was more like a bang, like a gunshot. Creepy noise.

Junkdad

Are these really THAT bad?

https://www.xxcycle.com/serre-pantalon-doowah,,en.php

deathhare

yes

iamtim

Only for their name: "SERRE PANTALON DOOWAH"

... huh?

iamtim

+1.

I remember that sound not only from the BMX days of my youth, in a full face Bell helmet, but from just a few years ago when some lady steered her Excursion's mirror into my shoulder and sent me sprawling to the ground.

666pack

my worst crash (since we're all sharing stories) isn't that bad at all i guess. i was going down a hill and up a slight rise to make a left hand turn onto the main street in my town. it was about eight in the evening, cars on the road. so i'm bombing the hill, go up the rise to make my left and all the sudden there's a van behind me. if i took the turn like i wanted / planned to it would have been no problem, but the van came up alongside me and forced me into the curb. i was going too fast to correct myself. i hit the curb, flew over the bars, saw my bike fly over me (i was still strapped in), and eventually landed in a bush.

got some wicked rash on my knee, calf, hand and wrist. i still have the scars on my hand cause they were the deepest. the worst thing: the car didn't even slow down, let alone stop, after they saw what happened.

peabodypride

Sucks 666pack. Philly is wild. Also the race was fun.

My crash was operator error and nothing special.

wroomwroomoops

The worst crash I had didn't have that bad physical consequences (I had worse), but it scared the hell out of me, and I was never as close to death as that time: going downhill on a bikepath parallel to the road, on which a bus was going. I had a crossing with a green light friendily awaiting for me, so I really went for it fullspeed, hoping the bus driver would notice me and stop before turning right. But he didn't (I was going too fast) and I just barely managed to avoid the front of the bus on the left and then some lamp post of some sort on the right. Then I crashed. I didn't hit myself seriously, although I did, of course, fly over the handlebars and the helmet needed replacing. But I'll never forget the sheer fear that took over my whole body, as the "movie" of the last 3 or 4 seconds played out before my eyes in my mind, over and over again.