Originally Posted by
Spoonrobot
Hands being bounced off the hoods by a front end impact happens more often than is well known, many times it doesn't lead to a crash. I've seen it happen several times in real life to other riders and has happened to me as well.
+1, I can attest personally to one such "bounced off the hoods" incident that led to my crashing, about 17 years ago.
I was riding home on the shoulder of a familiar residential road in the rain at a moderate speed, relaxed with hands comfortably wrapping the hoods. Unknown to me, a work crew had dug into the shoulder to work on a utility line, then covered it over temporarily with asphalt, leaving a substantial but invisible (in the rainy weather) "speed bump".
As I recall, my hands didn't leave the hoods on the initial "bump" of the front wheel. It was when the back wheel jolt popped me off the saddle and forwards that my hands lost contact, the front wheel slid, and down I went.
Watching that video of the crash above in slow motion, that looks exactly as I remember my incident. Note that his hands remain in contact with the hoods on the initial front wheel jolt.