cornucopia72

Last Sunday were doing about 35 mph and almost finishing a turn when our front tire exploded. Less than one second later we were on the pavement. I landed pretty hard with my left hip and broke it. My wife is in better shape but she also got scrapped pretty bad. Good thing we were wearing helmets because both our helmet were broken afterwards. Since we were on a remote area our phone did not work. I could not drag my body from the middle of the road and my heroic stoker took great care o me. We will be off the bike for at least two months. I am writing this note from the hospital bed where a team of fine doctors and nurses are slowly bringing me back to health.

I have the feeling that our top allowed speed from now on is going to be substantially under 45. Either way it was a heck of a ride!

Knubby

Sorry to hear about the accident. A front tire blowout is my biggest fear about tandeming. I hope you both recover quickly and fully.

bikeguy

hope you heal up quicklly.... God Bless

tandemania2

I'm sorry to hear of your accident. We had a similar experience in January on our tandem, but at only 5mph and on wet Metro railroad tracks. I broke my femur and could not move off the tracks. My uninjured stoker pulled me to safety.

I hope you are soon out on the road again stronger than ever.

carrefour

This is, I guess every tandem team's nightmare. Sorry this happened to you. I'm sure you will recover completely and quickly. Writing a post about your crash shows you are a real cyclist.... tough people.

Could you tell us what caused the blowout? Overheating (rim brakes), hitting something on the road or just bad luck? All the best!

Shayne

Sorry to hear this. Take the time to get yourself all better. The bike will be there when your ready.

sch

Falls like this dramatically change your approach to cycling. After going down on
a single at 38mph 6 yrs ago, only suffering road rash, I no longer cut loose on
downhills that have any maneuvering on them or ones I have not done before.
More recently a concussion and memory loss for ~7min with a shoulder fracture
in a group ride bunch fall lead me to avoid large groups on rides. I haven't lost
confidence in my riding capabilities but a knowledge of my frailties and those of
others has introduced a cautionary note to my riding that was not present in the
past. For a funny write up of a similar event: https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/...04/springbreak
Morgan never returned to racing and is a different rider than he was before for
the same reason I am.

oldacura

Yes - I would also be interested to hear if you know what might have caused the blowout.

Whenever someone gets injured engaging in an activity that I also participate in, I try to learn and also try to convince myself why it might not happen to me.

A cyclist I had met was killed near here recently. As I understand the circumstances of the crash, he was doing nothing wrong. Just bad luck on his part.

Hope your hip & your confidence heals quickly & fully.

cornucopia72

Thanks to all for the good wishes!

The bike was picked up by the CHP and they left it at the fire station in Exeter CA. My daughter picked it up yesterday a told me that the only damage to the bike are the front bars and the shifters. She is not a bicycle expert but is a careful observer. Having being born in Mexico I had a concern in the back of my mind that things ; like the garnin, the tool bag, the pump, etc were going to be missing. Nothing was missing! You have to had grown up in a corrupt society to understand my unfunded fear.

While waiting for the ambulance, I peaked at the front tire. It showed severe damage on the sides walls but I suspect that is an effect and not a cause. I know that the wheel got a bad scrape, hopefully it did not weaken the side and the lip. I am supposed to be going home today and after a couple of days I am sure I will make my way to my shop. I will inspect the tire a give a report then.

Hermes

We wish you and your stoker the best. Get better quickly.

specbill

We are sorry to hear about your unfortunate accident and hope you and your stoker's recovery is quick and complete. We look forward to any thoughts you can share after looking at the tire. Best wishes!

Bill J.

Xanti Andia

Here is to a speedy recovery.

joe@vwvortex

Wishing you and your stoker a quick recovery!

kevinger

I so hope you both have a fast recovery. Use honey on the wounds! Oh, BTW bees communicate in this same way regarding what they find out in the world. A recent crash story to come.

Our crash story follows:
We went down on our vintage Burley on 7/16/08 crashing on a set of wicked railroad tracks. They had swept the roads in an industrial area and pushed dirty road chiz around the tracks. Slicker that can be. (Forklit driver at site said we were 4th set of bikers in 2 days to go down) Luckily, my wife was not hurt to the point she was concerned enough to not get back on. She hit pretty hard on her elbow and knee. I believe I somewhat separated my shoulder and it is really sore. Some serious road rash on the left forearm, elbow, bicep, hip (real sore) and my bionic replaced ankle (arthroplasty) has a scrape. I took the hit on hip and collar bone area the worst and my wife got it on the elbow and knee.

On Sunday 7/20/08 we were sending in money to go to do the Seattle Century, 100 miler. I am so thankful that we were not hurt further and have a totally different perspective on my fraility and lack of super human capabilities. At 47 the pavement seems a bit harder than it did the last time I wiped on a RR xing as a teen.

Speedy recovery wishes from Tacoma.

zonatandem

Team C-72:
Had front blowout years ago on tandem at 30+ mph but managed to ride it out. Was like riding a bronco!
Looks like helmets saved you from more injuries.
Get well soon . . . the tandem will be watiing!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

cgallagh

We are so glad that you are not injured more than you are. Hope you heal quickly and completely.

Possum Roadkill

Whenever someone gets injured engaging in an activity that I also participate in, I try to learn and also try to convince myself why it might not happen to me.

I've ridden with Cornucopia and he's a very capable rider. Another tandem rider came into the shop yesterday who had heard about the accident and brought to my attention what I already had been thinking about. When a rider crashes that you have no knowledge of or when many riders are involved, you can rationalize that they may have not been as capable as you or that the accident may have been caused by a less capable rider. When you know that the riders experience, there's no room for rationalizing. I'll be checking my speed a bit more than usual for awhile now and my stoker's son has been trying to sell her on the idea of full body motorcycle armor. I was also wondering whether the tire was a steel bead or a folding, but I think given the unlucky placement of the turn may have made that irrelevant.

Get better soon. We need someone to push us around on the steep hill climbs!

Red Rider

So sorry to hear this. Sending good thoughts for your speedy recovery!

TandemGeek

To you and yours, best wishes for a complete recovery and a quick return to the saddles.

sweetnsourbkr

Best wishes to your team to get back on the bike soon! Sorry to hear about the accident. I think we're going to slow down a bit as well.

zonatandem

Eventually, the 'slowing down a bit' takes care of itself as we get older.
At ages 75/73 we no longer descend at 50+mph; really, we keep it under 30, as the older we get the longer it takes for them bones to heal!
So heal up soon!

Artmo 

Cornu - I hope you make a speedy recovery. A front blowout is a one dread I have so I limit downhill speed with wife on board to 30mph, although I would like to go faster .
A couple of months ago I had another guy on the back of our Co-Mo Primera at 37mph coming off a high ICW bridge and the rear tire blew. The fairly new Vredestein Tricomp was shredded and I still don't know what caused the failure. It was inflated to 120psi - perhaps too low for ~375lb combined rider weight causing overheating?? The tire was very hot when I stopped.

The Primera behaved as though nothing had happened and I was easily able to control it to a stop.

zonatandem

As careful as we are, and buying quality tires, there is the occasional problem. Seems quality control is a thing of the past.

andydreisch

C..72, how are things nearly a week after the big crash? I certainly hope they're as well as can be hoped for. I'm very curious if you've uncovered the cause of the blowout? I'm absolutely paranoid of such an event and I have the 700x32 tires in the front to prove it (700x35 in the rear)!!!

Good luck and get well.

Andy

andydreisch

I stumbled on this journal page of a tandem team experiencing a blowout, albeit with better results. Still, scary.

Andy