brbbiking

Has anyone with a fair amount of racing experience (say, >= 2 years?) never crashed? I was considering racing some crits around here, but after reading some threads about crits and all of the crashes it doesn't sound like much fun anymore. Is it just crits that are this bad as far as crashes?

Thanks

Scummer

I've gotten lucky so far. Only crashes that happened were right in front of me I was able to avoid, or right next to me which were nearly misses.
Other than that I've crashed during group rides turning on a street with gravel on.

ericm979

I've come close a bunch of times but never went down in a race. That's out of 50 or 75 races. Not a lot of crits but I did do a weekly twilight
"practice" crit series for a while.

However I've had two bad crashes in group rides in ~15 years of riding.

But some people seem to crash frequently and others rarely. Asking others their crash frequency won't tell you which group you'll be in.

gnome

I'm too slow and haven't been racing long enough to have crashed. Ask me in 5 - 10 years.

waterrockets 

I've been racing since 1992 (minus a couple years off) and crashed in a race once in 1994. Just road rash from that one.

El Diablo Rojo

Yeah your too busy crashing me out to bother crashing yourself

bostongarden

Isn't this a question to which no one should respond affirmatively? Isn't cycling replete with superstitions?

waterrockets 

oooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh.

ouch.

Tell you what: one free wheel dish for your trouble. Now get in your car.

Racer Ex 

If you're worried about crashing take up golf. I've hit the deck more just out riding than I have racing.

heckler

Not to make you paranoid, but I am 2 crashed for 9 races in 2 years. So for the most part I am as bad as it gets.

The first one was less than 2 min into my first race, a guy just came across my front wheel, lesson learned = don't go to cat 5 races earlier in the season and better protect my front.

2nd crash was just last weekend where I had a pedal strike and slide out, lesson learned = pedaling through every corner isn't the best idea/ don't get cocky with cornering.

Quite frankly crashing isn't as bad as it is made out to be. Both times were about 20 mph and no one hit me, just lost some skin. Uncomfortable for a week and back to new in 3. Breaking bones and whatnot are really quite rare, Both times I attempted to keep racing.

I have seen about 7 crashes beside my own. Most are solo stupid moments. I haven't really seen a huge field pileup, which seems like what some people have the most concern for

waterrockets 

That sucks. It seems I manage to brush a pedal almost once per race, but I've never gone down because of it, even with the rare pole-vault. Most of the time, I'm just barely past where I shouldn't be pedaling

Creakyknees

yah that one right hand bend at the top of the Driveway has a tendency to promote pedal scraping... don't think I've even once gone thru there thinking "yeah, that was the right line"

carpediemracing 

I didn't crash in a race for about 5 years, not that I remember or recorded. I only crashed in training (group rides, solo rides). But then I crashed pretty consistently for the next 5 years in races, but not really on training rides. I went for a long time after those first 10 years, about 15 years, before I fell again in any situation (except one embarrassing topple at a light).

I think that in general crits are safer than road races. Top speed is lower, your learn the course after a few laps, and everyone thinks crits are more dangerous.

Crashing at 50-60 mph on a fast, wide, straight-ish descent... that's scary.

Road rash is not that bad. Tegaderm (search for that here, there are a lot of road rash threads) works wonders. I took a spill on a Tuesday evening at 30 mph and was healed by Sunday morning. I raced the Monday after the crash with absolutely no injuries. (This was one of two crashes I had in the last year - that one was my fault).

cdr

Nate552

Once. I don't remember much about it though. We were headed for a hot spot during a road race and the next thing I knew I was on the side of the road wandering around looking for my bike, which was about 15 feet up the road. Hopped on, straightened my bars, and finished much to the chagrin of my wife (she's a nurse).

brbbiking

Thanks guys. I went ahead and did a crit tonight.

grolby

I crashed twice in my first year of racing. Both in road races. Both in the rain. One on a sketchy downhill turn when another rider crashed in front of me, the other when riding over a nasty set of train tracks at the bottom of the hill when a bunch of other riders crashed in front of/with/behind me. Notice anything in common? Well, to lay it out for you, hazardous course features, wet pavement, other riders, inexperience, road race.

Not that the road race part necessarily means anything; I've seen crashes in crits too, just never been caught up in them. I do agree with cdr, though; I think RRs are probably more dangerous. Crits have a reputation for danger, IMO, because they are intense. As a result, everyone is hyper-alert. People zone out in road races. In one of my early road races in 2008, a kid hit one of those holes with a pipe head in it going down a hill at ~35 mph. Not a big deal, but he wasn't paying attention and wasn't holding onto the bars all that tightly. He popped right off and took down about half the field; the resulting carnage spread all the way across the road. I am not particularly experienced, but I've never seen anything like that happen in a crit. I've seen it happen a couple times in RRs.

Crashes happen, but I wouldn't say they happen enough to make me particularly fearful. And it's not usually random, which is probably why experience helps. You start to recognize danger factors and avoid them. I feel pretty good these days about avoiding crashes. Some of it is simply a matter of knowing what's risky and not doing it; for example, not cutting inside lines in a crit. Sometimes you can't do anything about it, like riding over wet railroad tracks in the rain, but at least you slide on wet pavement. Seriously, keep your head up and your wits about you and you'll be pretty safe.

EDIT: I should add that I was not particularly hurt in either of my crashes. I don't want to understate the potential harm of a crash, but MOST racers walk away without serious injury. I was especially lucky; I didn't even get road rash: in the one crash, I hit the other guy's bike and endoed, landed on my back on a nice, soft pine-needled bank on the side of the road. In the other, I slid down down the road on my butt. I had a couple of little scrapes on my elbow or something. No big deal.

ridethecliche

I don't know why this question matters.

There are two kinds of cyclists: those who've crashed, and those who will crash.

grolby

Seriously dude, you've been hitting the Tough Guy Hot Sauce Attitude stuff lately. What's the deal? Are you grouchy? Does work suck? Did your gf leave you? It's just not you, and it shows, because you don't do it all that well. Leave the curmudgeoning to the pros around here, we've got plenty of them and they do a good job.

echappist

i'm gonna play the downer here because i've earned the right to

make sure you have good insurance if you do decide to race. if not, at least get supplementary insurance. i was taken to the ER & had 5 broken teeth when a dumbass caused a pileup. the medical cost alone will probably set me back a good 3k. i can explain away the medical as i've never gotten comprehensive insurance since i've been in grad school, and that would have set me back a good 2.5k had i gotten it all this time. plus, my bike and helmet are fine, so no cost there. however, i am screwed for dental as i will need dental implants. in the most fortunate case (read, less than 5%), i'll be down 500 if the insurance company covers it; there's a 30% chance that it will cover a portion, leaving me 2.5k down; and in the most likely case, i'll be down 8k, and that's considered cheap (read, 70% off) for dental implants.

a friend of mine got a punctured lung and then some when he had a crash

racing is fun, and i don't want to scare you away. but i think if people actually know the possible costs, at least they'll think more before they pull some numb-skull move

brbbiking

Sorry to hear that.. Hope you're part of the lucky 5 or even 30%.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to take my time and prioritize riding skills over trying to place better right now.

ridethecliche

None of the above?

This is a 'are there more crashes in crits?' thread. If there were a couple of people that had NEVER EVER EVER (!!!) crashed in a race, I don't know what that would prove. You can crash in training or racing, but those in training are normally worse since there are things like cars present.

I still hold to my first post.

gsteinb

Unfortunately my last bike crash makes that pretty unlikely. Thanks for bringing up such a bitter memory.

carpediemracing 

I realized that I did go off road in my first road race (on a 5k circuit), in my second year of racing. I was inexperienced and hadn't figured out how to take an off camber, acute turn, with a big drop in the middle of it, at high speeds. The finish was 200 meters up the hill from that acute turn, and we came down another hill into it (finish line was at the Ledyard High School or something in CT, and it's still there).

I attacked coming down the hill, wanting to get a top 6 and go to Nationals (one guy had already lapped us - he got 6th or something at Nats - and a group of 4 had gone away, so 1 place left).

I came flying down the hill, set up timidly for this very aggressive turn. When my front wheel dropped a couple inches in the middle of the turn I realized I wasn't going to make it. I straightened up, bunny hopped the curb, and went flying into the bushes.

I never actually fell - the bushes were so dense I only leaned a bit, and they were thorny, so they held me up pretty well. I literally had to pull my bike out while holding the back wheel with both hands.

Later, a kid (Paul Ruhlman - the Naugatuck Crit on July 18th memorializes him) told me he had done the same thing but he hit a tree trunk. He couldn't believe that I didn't hit anything - I didn't notice it then but apparently there were a lot of trees in that bit of woods.

Anyway once I got out it looked like a whole bunch of kittens attacked me - super fine scratches everywhere. To top it all off, my team's van (well, the shop van full of teammates) was stopped at the turn.

"Hey, he attacked!... Wow, he's flying!.. Um, where did he go?"

And the district rep was marshaling that turn.

Another interesting tidbit from that race - one Senior racer was taken to the hospital - he took some amphetamines at the start and went into convulsions or something in the parking lot. He recovered but it was a messed up situation.

Lessons learned - doping can kill. And learn your turns before you attack through them.

cdr

grolby

I'm saying that your first post emphasizes tough-guy machismo over being actually helpful. It may be that racing means that you're likely to crash at some point. Okay, so? The macho "only two kinds of racers" bull**** is useless for assessing the actual risk of racing your bike. It IS useful if you want to stroke a tough-guy self-image, and impress the n00bs with how badass we Cat 4 manly-men are, but exactly how many crits have you raced this season? Oh, right.

Pointing out that crashing in training may actually be worse, under many circumstances, is a good thing to do. So why not say so before? I guess it just doesn't have that satisfying ring to it that a useless dumbsh*t cliche does. There's already way too much friggin macho, self-important horsesh*t in this sport - which is supposed to be, y'know, FUN - and it bums me out to see you pushing it.

mattm

I'd be careful grolby... don't you know rtc lifts weights?!!