Bad crash need pointers/motivation
04-04-17, 08:14 AM
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Bad crash need pointers/motivation
(tl;dr: crashed, please tell me to HTFU)
Got back into bikes a year ago (I'm 47) doing centuries and such and just started racing mid-March. Read lots here and elsewhere, including the road rash thread, stocked my gear bag with plenty of tegaderm, etc before I hit the road.
So I did well enough in my first training crit I decided to to go ahead and jump to a bigger weekend event ahead of schedule and with nowhere near the watts I read about here. Finished top half in a field of 59 Saturday, much better than I expected. Sunday, (third race ever) the pack split into two groups plus stragglers and I was hanging on and doing fine in the back third of the front pack. With about half the laps complete, coming around a technical right two riders got together on my right, left rider crossed my front wheel as he went down, I couldn't save it.
When I came to a few seconds later I had broken my collarbone and five ribs, cracked my pelvis plus (very minor!) brain bleed and lung puncture. Very little road rash though
This was all two weeks ago.
So I bought a trainer, hip is limiting but I've done a few miles and don't seem to have lost too much fitness yet and expect to be training hard indoors within the week. I am dying to get back out on the bike, got a couple of charity rides already committed and can't wait to get back to the "A" group rides, but will ride indoors until the bones are healed.
But now I'm kind of in a bad mental place about going back to crits because I just can't be doing this kind of damage on a regular basis. But oh man do I love it - I came to cycling from sports cars racing and the local weekend crit is better, more exciting racing then the sports car national championships, at least for me.
So tell me that's kind of an "extreme and unusual" accident and to get back out there. Also give me hints how to avoid a repeat - I do intend to be stronger before I go back so I can be more in control of where I am in the pack and stay in the front few rows. Other than that - what? Tumbling drills?
Thanks for listening!
Got back into bikes a year ago (I'm 47) doing centuries and such and just started racing mid-March. Read lots here and elsewhere, including the road rash thread, stocked my gear bag with plenty of tegaderm, etc before I hit the road.
So I did well enough in my first training crit I decided to to go ahead and jump to a bigger weekend event ahead of schedule and with nowhere near the watts I read about here. Finished top half in a field of 59 Saturday, much better than I expected. Sunday, (third race ever) the pack split into two groups plus stragglers and I was hanging on and doing fine in the back third of the front pack. With about half the laps complete, coming around a technical right two riders got together on my right, left rider crossed my front wheel as he went down, I couldn't save it.
When I came to a few seconds later I had broken my collarbone and five ribs, cracked my pelvis plus (very minor!) brain bleed and lung puncture. Very little road rash though
This was all two weeks ago.So I bought a trainer, hip is limiting but I've done a few miles and don't seem to have lost too much fitness yet and expect to be training hard indoors within the week. I am dying to get back out on the bike, got a couple of charity rides already committed and can't wait to get back to the "A" group rides, but will ride indoors until the bones are healed.
But now I'm kind of in a bad mental place about going back to crits because I just can't be doing this kind of damage on a regular basis. But oh man do I love it - I came to cycling from sports cars racing and the local weekend crit is better, more exciting racing then the sports car national championships, at least for me.
So tell me that's kind of an "extreme and unusual" accident and to get back out there. Also give me hints how to avoid a repeat - I do intend to be stronger before I go back so I can be more in control of where I am in the pack and stay in the front few rows. Other than that - what? Tumbling drills?
Thanks for listening!
04-04-17, 11:13 AM
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Ouch. I've done the collarbone + five ribs thing, and it wasn't fun.. but that plus the other injuries?! Ouch++
The good news is getting hurt that bad is pretty rare - I've had about 10 crashes (out of 300+ races), only two of them involved broken bones.
I have a teammate that annoyingly says I only break bones because I didn't "fall right", and I've tried to explain that there's no time to tuck or do anything usually, you're down before you know it.. I also pointed out that if there is a "good way" to crash, why don't pros do it more often??
Anyway, keep racing and you'll most likely crash again - that's a fact. However, the chances of it being as major are not that big. That's what I tell myself anyway.
Fwiw I just got in a crash on Sunday, just some road rash, no broken bones this time.
Take you time healing up, especially with the brain injury. Bones & skin are pretty easy to heal - the brain is a whole other matter.
The good news is getting hurt that bad is pretty rare - I've had about 10 crashes (out of 300+ races), only two of them involved broken bones.
I have a teammate that annoyingly says I only break bones because I didn't "fall right", and I've tried to explain that there's no time to tuck or do anything usually, you're down before you know it.. I also pointed out that if there is a "good way" to crash, why don't pros do it more often??
Anyway, keep racing and you'll most likely crash again - that's a fact. However, the chances of it being as major are not that big. That's what I tell myself anyway.
Fwiw I just got in a crash on Sunday, just some road rash, no broken bones this time.
Take you time healing up, especially with the brain injury. Bones & skin are pretty easy to heal - the brain is a whole other matter.
04-04-17, 12:24 PM
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Were these your first races ever? Riding crits to learn at age 47 is living life the hard way. Crashes happen. It takes race experience to "get" where we need to place ourselves to minimize the likelihood of being behind them. Some of this "getting it" cannot be set down in print. March of my second season, I was riding the early spring series. Pretty far back in the field. Started feeling nervous. Nothing concrete, but still ... So I moved up about a dozen riders. It felt better. Minutes later I felt a little nudge on my rear wheel then the sound of a big crash. One of my club vets said after the race that the guy who caused it was riding all over the place. That I did nothing wrong, that this was a crash that was waiting to happen and my rear wheel happened to be what he hit. Without that gut feeling, I would have been one of the downed riders.
Ben
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04-04-17, 12:49 PM
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04-04-17, 08:22 PM
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Long response. If I were your friend I'd tell you to do some drills to avoid falling and to do some tumbling drills to help reduce injuries if you do fall.
As a car racer you're probably versed in practicing things at a slower, more controlled pace. I guess in the old days they used to walk the race track, although I don't know if they do that now (maybe they ride it on a bike?).
Anyway, with the whole "confidence in a crit" thing, it's about being comfortable in close quarters riding. I've never raced cars but as a joke I once pulled up to my friend's bumper in my car and I have to tell you, that was really unsettling for me. However I rarely feel that unsettled when on the bike because I did a lot of drills with close quarters riding.
One question I have is are you rigid on the bike? Are your arms rigid? Do you elbows act as roll cages? If so you need to loosen up. Close quarters drills will help with this.
I look at one of the riders in this clip and I remember thinking just how uncomfortable he looked in the field. 8:24 in this
, rider in white to my left. I tried to avoid him because he exuded this feeling that "I'm going to crash if anything weird happens to me".
I've gone over the drills before but there are two types: side-to-side and front wheel. Side to side is easy and a very quick learn - you can do it at 10-15 mph on pavement with a willing/experienced partner. You lean onto the rider to your side and they lean back. You learn quickly that you can lean pretty hard but that you need to protect your bars, hands, and front wheel. Forearms too. Elbows move back and forth, shoulders are your main cushion. If you're shorter then your triceps are your bumpers, taller then your forearms. You need to be able to let riders bump into you - you can't just stick your elbow out and try and keep them away from you. You need to be able to absorb impact. I've had some pretty hard impacts with no adverse results - riders forgetting to turn in or simply coming in way too hot from the inside, but, after a bit of "wtf was that" kind of stuff, it was all okay.
The second type of drill, the front wheel stuff, is much tougher. You need at least one willing partner, realistically 3-4, and you need to be able to spend a bit of time on a soft surface (lawn/grass?) at slow speeds. You'll fall often, but usually you'll be able to unclip and put your foot down. A few falls will be quicker and you'll hit the deck. What you want to do is to learn how to touch your front tire to the other rider's rear wheel without falling over.
Here's the thing. You MUST be able to steer your front wheel to ride a bike. Lock your headset and unless you're a trials rider you're going to fall over. Bike work because we make minute steering adjustments to steer into falls, catching ourselves (watch a little kid ride and they illustrate vividly this concept). We make those minute adjustments with just our body for the most part, but if you lock your bars in place it won't take long to fall over. Lifting the front wheel and hopping it sideways has the same effect as steering into a fall so a trials type rider will be fine, but other than that you'll fall.
When your front wheel hits a rear wheel there are two problems. One, you are usually going in one direction, like say from right to left. Two, when you hit your wheel, the only logical way to recover is to go the opposite direction, like left to right in our example. Problem is that you're going to be falling to the left in our example and to stay upright you MUST steer left. The problem is that other wheel is in the way.
Normal reaction? Fall over to the left. You can't steer right because you need to steer left to catch yourself. The bike racing books I've read all say to "bounce" your wheel off the rear wheel (to the right in our example) but that's impossible because you're already sort of falling left. You have to go left.
Better reaction. Hold bars tightly (I advocate holding the drops as everyone here knows), stand up quickly (pulls bike back a few inches), and drive your bike to the left. You may scoot the wheel in front of you over an inch or three but the rider in front should shrug that off because they still have control over their front wheel. Once you're on the left side of the wheel (in our example) you'll be fine. You just need to get there.
If you've overlapped more than 3-4 inches you may fall, unless it's a hairpin turn. I've hit rear wheels almost at the hub and been totally fine, but only in hairpin turns.
I've also fallen when I overlapped wheels hard, so there's that.
What these drills did for me was to really tighten up how close I could ride to others comfortably. We all have invisible force fields / personal space we can't violate without feeling uncomfortable - I call it the Sphere. My Sphere in my car is maybe 10 feet in front at moderate speeds, like 60 mph bumper to bumper traffic on the highway (half a car length?). I snuck up to my buddy's bumper on an exit ramp while we were both at speed, maybe 2-3 feet maybe, and I was freaking out internally. I can do that in a kart, maybe 5-6", but I can see the front of the kart. In a car I'd have difficulty getting closer than a few feet.
On a road bike my Sphere is maybe 1-2 inches fore-aft, about 3-4 inches left-right of the front wheel. 3-4 inches off my knuckles. Zero inches shoulders, hips, elbows, meaning I can ride okay with contact at those points. I prefer not to have contact but any contact at those points doesn't mean much in terms of me staying up. Contact at my hands is significant because it'll turn my bars.
I've heard of pros jamming their brake levers into other riders' butts at speed, to get them to move out of the way. I certainly can't do that.
On a track bike, which has a fixed gear and no brakes, my Sphere about 3 FEET fore-after of the front wheel. Side to side, same as road bike. I slithered through the middle of about 6 riders on one straight on a 318 meter track, which both astounded them and sort of surprised me. I realized at that moment that it was the fore-aft that was killing me and it was because I wasn't used to riding without brakes. Side to side, no problem. My slither move generated some controversy because it was so tight there was debate if it was dangerous or not. I didn't touch anyone so the consensus was that the move was okay. To be safe I didn't repeat the move on the track ever again.
If after all this you hit the deck, it helps to know how to fall. I started crashing road bikes in 1982 (ha), racing in 1983, and broke my first bone ever in 2010. Other than a few ill-advised forays into road races, I've raced only crits. I did about 10 seasons of 45-55 races a year, maybe 10 of about 30-40 races a year, and it seems that I'm down to maybe 10 or 15 races a year now (2016 was really low, like 7 maybe). So a lot of races. I also sit in and wait for the field sprint so I'm at the back most of the time and get involved in all the aggressive riding at the front at the end. Pretty much worst case scenario. I can't control what other riders do, and I've gotten caught behind many crashes, and I've also been taken out late in races as wahoos go shooting up the inside and then lay their bike down inadvertently diving into the corner. However, I've had many, many, many minor incidents where I had some incidental contact and nothing happened.
When I broke that bone in 2010 it was my pelvis. Guy swerved sideways (on purpose) 500m to go, took out most of the field. I had zero chance to react, my front wheel was a foot up and parallel to the ground before I realized what was happening. I managed to tuck my head - the back of the helmet hit the road - but when someone ran into my hamstring at full speed my leg got pushed so hard that my pelvis fractured in two places. Other than that errant hamstring hit I had some shoulder damage. No real concussion (no loss of consciousness, no dizziness or headaches, etc), some road rash that, except for a gouge in my ankle, was gone within a week or two. The officials put in for a one year suspension on the rider, the move was so blatant and dangerous, and he eventually served a 30 day suspension.
I tumbled well but unfortunately the impact from the other rider ended up injuring me.
As a car racer you're probably versed in practicing things at a slower, more controlled pace. I guess in the old days they used to walk the race track, although I don't know if they do that now (maybe they ride it on a bike?).
Anyway, with the whole "confidence in a crit" thing, it's about being comfortable in close quarters riding. I've never raced cars but as a joke I once pulled up to my friend's bumper in my car and I have to tell you, that was really unsettling for me. However I rarely feel that unsettled when on the bike because I did a lot of drills with close quarters riding.
One question I have is are you rigid on the bike? Are your arms rigid? Do you elbows act as roll cages? If so you need to loosen up. Close quarters drills will help with this.
I look at one of the riders in this clip and I remember thinking just how uncomfortable he looked in the field. 8:24 in this
I've gone over the drills before but there are two types: side-to-side and front wheel. Side to side is easy and a very quick learn - you can do it at 10-15 mph on pavement with a willing/experienced partner. You lean onto the rider to your side and they lean back. You learn quickly that you can lean pretty hard but that you need to protect your bars, hands, and front wheel. Forearms too. Elbows move back and forth, shoulders are your main cushion. If you're shorter then your triceps are your bumpers, taller then your forearms. You need to be able to let riders bump into you - you can't just stick your elbow out and try and keep them away from you. You need to be able to absorb impact. I've had some pretty hard impacts with no adverse results - riders forgetting to turn in or simply coming in way too hot from the inside, but, after a bit of "wtf was that" kind of stuff, it was all okay.
The second type of drill, the front wheel stuff, is much tougher. You need at least one willing partner, realistically 3-4, and you need to be able to spend a bit of time on a soft surface (lawn/grass?) at slow speeds. You'll fall often, but usually you'll be able to unclip and put your foot down. A few falls will be quicker and you'll hit the deck. What you want to do is to learn how to touch your front tire to the other rider's rear wheel without falling over.
Here's the thing. You MUST be able to steer your front wheel to ride a bike. Lock your headset and unless you're a trials rider you're going to fall over. Bike work because we make minute steering adjustments to steer into falls, catching ourselves (watch a little kid ride and they illustrate vividly this concept). We make those minute adjustments with just our body for the most part, but if you lock your bars in place it won't take long to fall over. Lifting the front wheel and hopping it sideways has the same effect as steering into a fall so a trials type rider will be fine, but other than that you'll fall.
When your front wheel hits a rear wheel there are two problems. One, you are usually going in one direction, like say from right to left. Two, when you hit your wheel, the only logical way to recover is to go the opposite direction, like left to right in our example. Problem is that you're going to be falling to the left in our example and to stay upright you MUST steer left. The problem is that other wheel is in the way.
Normal reaction? Fall over to the left. You can't steer right because you need to steer left to catch yourself. The bike racing books I've read all say to "bounce" your wheel off the rear wheel (to the right in our example) but that's impossible because you're already sort of falling left. You have to go left.
Better reaction. Hold bars tightly (I advocate holding the drops as everyone here knows), stand up quickly (pulls bike back a few inches), and drive your bike to the left. You may scoot the wheel in front of you over an inch or three but the rider in front should shrug that off because they still have control over their front wheel. Once you're on the left side of the wheel (in our example) you'll be fine. You just need to get there.
If you've overlapped more than 3-4 inches you may fall, unless it's a hairpin turn. I've hit rear wheels almost at the hub and been totally fine, but only in hairpin turns.
I've also fallen when I overlapped wheels hard, so there's that.
What these drills did for me was to really tighten up how close I could ride to others comfortably. We all have invisible force fields / personal space we can't violate without feeling uncomfortable - I call it the Sphere. My Sphere in my car is maybe 10 feet in front at moderate speeds, like 60 mph bumper to bumper traffic on the highway (half a car length?). I snuck up to my buddy's bumper on an exit ramp while we were both at speed, maybe 2-3 feet maybe, and I was freaking out internally. I can do that in a kart, maybe 5-6", but I can see the front of the kart. In a car I'd have difficulty getting closer than a few feet.
On a road bike my Sphere is maybe 1-2 inches fore-aft, about 3-4 inches left-right of the front wheel. 3-4 inches off my knuckles. Zero inches shoulders, hips, elbows, meaning I can ride okay with contact at those points. I prefer not to have contact but any contact at those points doesn't mean much in terms of me staying up. Contact at my hands is significant because it'll turn my bars.
I've heard of pros jamming their brake levers into other riders' butts at speed, to get them to move out of the way. I certainly can't do that.
On a track bike, which has a fixed gear and no brakes, my Sphere about 3 FEET fore-after of the front wheel. Side to side, same as road bike. I slithered through the middle of about 6 riders on one straight on a 318 meter track, which both astounded them and sort of surprised me. I realized at that moment that it was the fore-aft that was killing me and it was because I wasn't used to riding without brakes. Side to side, no problem. My slither move generated some controversy because it was so tight there was debate if it was dangerous or not. I didn't touch anyone so the consensus was that the move was okay. To be safe I didn't repeat the move on the track ever again.
If after all this you hit the deck, it helps to know how to fall. I started crashing road bikes in 1982 (ha), racing in 1983, and broke my first bone ever in 2010. Other than a few ill-advised forays into road races, I've raced only crits. I did about 10 seasons of 45-55 races a year, maybe 10 of about 30-40 races a year, and it seems that I'm down to maybe 10 or 15 races a year now (2016 was really low, like 7 maybe). So a lot of races. I also sit in and wait for the field sprint so I'm at the back most of the time and get involved in all the aggressive riding at the front at the end. Pretty much worst case scenario. I can't control what other riders do, and I've gotten caught behind many crashes, and I've also been taken out late in races as wahoos go shooting up the inside and then lay their bike down inadvertently diving into the corner. However, I've had many, many, many minor incidents where I had some incidental contact and nothing happened.
When I broke that bone in 2010 it was my pelvis. Guy swerved sideways (on purpose) 500m to go, took out most of the field. I had zero chance to react, my front wheel was a foot up and parallel to the ground before I realized what was happening. I managed to tuck my head - the back of the helmet hit the road - but when someone ran into my hamstring at full speed my leg got pushed so hard that my pelvis fractured in two places. Other than that errant hamstring hit I had some shoulder damage. No real concussion (no loss of consciousness, no dizziness or headaches, etc), some road rash that, except for a gouge in my ankle, was gone within a week or two. The officials put in for a one year suspension on the rider, the move was so blatant and dangerous, and he eventually served a 30 day suspension.
I tumbled well but unfortunately the impact from the other rider ended up injuring me.
__________________
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
04-04-17, 08:23 PM
#7
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Ha, I didn't get the "this post is too long" message.
__________________
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
04-04-17, 08:25 PM
#8
Senior Member
I'd point out that depending on your location you probably have a long season ahead of you, and many after this one. Don't rush to get back into it. Recover well.
__________________
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
"...during the Lance years, being fit became the No. 1 thing. Totally the only thing. It’s a big part of what we do, but fitness is not the only thing. There’s skills, there’s tactics … there’s all kinds of stuff..." Tim Johnson
04-06-17, 07:15 AM
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Thanks all for the encouragement and thoughtful responses. Trauma doc just okay'd me to train as hard as I want one-handed, see the ortho tomorrow to find out "when can I ride outside". You guys confirmed that my injuries are normal but rare. I was partly worried I just had fragile bones. 
I have friends who cycle but none who race, maybe I'll sign on with one of the local bike shop teams and see if I can find some other old farts willing to knock around in the grass for practice, sounds like fun. Well, in a couple of months.
I keep a background loop running in my head when I race, on the bike it has been "head up, protect your wheel, keep moving up". Although I don't *think* I am death-grip on the handlebars I will add "stay loose". This makes perfect sense to me - the car racing equivalent is "light hands" and it's vital.
Thanks again!
I have friends who cycle but none who race, maybe I'll sign on with one of the local bike shop teams and see if I can find some other old farts willing to knock around in the grass for practice, sounds like fun. Well, in a couple of months.
I keep a background loop running in my head when I race, on the bike it has been "head up, protect your wheel, keep moving up". Although I don't *think* I am death-grip on the handlebars I will add "stay loose". This makes perfect sense to me - the car racing equivalent is "light hands" and it's vital.
Thanks again!
04-06-17, 08:27 AM
#10
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Just a few suggestions off the top of my head:
* Try doing master's crits to start. My experience has been that masters understand that A: They won't recover from a crash like a 20 year old, B: Know how to not crash. But be aware that masters races are FAST. I realize it may be hard to find a master's crit when you aren't a 4 yet though so YMMV.
* Stick with road races to start? Or atleast until you get your 4 then go back to crits.
Good on you though for not running away after having such a bad crash, it definitely is not common to have that many injuries.
* Try doing master's crits to start. My experience has been that masters understand that A: They won't recover from a crash like a 20 year old, B: Know how to not crash. But be aware that masters races are FAST. I realize it may be hard to find a master's crit when you aren't a 4 yet though so YMMV.
* Stick with road races to start? Or atleast until you get your 4 then go back to crits.
Good on you though for not running away after having such a bad crash, it definitely is not common to have that many injuries.
04-06-17, 08:45 AM
#11
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04-06-17, 10:08 AM
#14
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i find the complete opposite. more crashes in crits but they're pretty inconsequential for the most part. most of the crashes i see in RRs are relatively severe, although there are less.
04-06-17, 10:12 AM
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If you need help with pointers and crashing, the problem may be that you are dereferencing an invalid address, perhaps one that has been deleted or is no longer in scope.
Or, wait, sorry wrong forum.
Or, wait, sorry wrong forum.
04-06-17, 10:48 AM
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04-06-17, 11:34 AM
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My favorite programmer joke:
A programmer had a difficult problem, so he decided to solve it using threads. two Now he problems has.
Please let me know when we have achieved 0% on-topicness.
A programmer had a difficult problem, so he decided to solve it using threads. two Now he problems has.
Please let me know when we have achieved 0% on-topicness.
04-07-17, 09:20 AM
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A cat 4 rider on my team has broken his collarbone 4 times in about 2 years. There's certainly no guarantee you won't be seriously hurt again. Just yesterday a rider 2 bikes ahead of me almost went down in a straightaway with no one in front of him, merely because he was a bad rider. One of the senior racers on my team said that being in a crit is like Russian roulette. You don't have a lot of control...but you can increase your control by not being in the middle of the pack. Be in the front, or be on the sides, so there are fewer riders you can take you out.
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