Big question. So let me pick out a few.

1) At age 16, I tried to leap over a large hole in the ground. I had no ramp. The bike was destroyed.

2) At age 17, I got doored by a Ford Galaxie. I knocked the door off its hinges, fortunately the bike and I survived.

3) At age 19, I popped a wheelie on my Peugeot and my front wheel fell off. The quick release was loose.

4) At age 21, I was riding slowly in an alley that took a blind 90 degree turn. A 4 year old on a small bicycle came around the corner on the wrong side and we hit head to head. He was fine. My front fork was bent.

5) At age 26, I was riding to work in West L.A. and stopped in a left turn lane, signaling my turn when I was run over by a Mustang. It knocked me to the ground and fortunately only ran over my rear wheel.

6) At age 27, I was in Inglewood, riding to school and found myself followed by 3 youths on bicycles. Suddenly a 64 Impala saw the situation and slammed me to the curb with their fender. The gang members in the car then swarmed out to get my bicycle. I was outnumbered 7:1. They hit me on the back with a bat, the blow was cushioned by books and a curly cable. I tried to use the bike to clear an escape path, but couldn't keep it up long enough. Last I saw of the bike, it was in the air between the two gangs. I walked to the police station two blocks away. The cops wouldn't even believe me till a witness who could identify one of my attackers called to report the crime. Then the cops sprung into action to take a report. Grand theft and assault with a witness and the name of one of the perps were not enough to get them away from their doughnuts.

7) At age 29, I was riding along on a dark and stormy night with just a leg light on an unlit backroad going home from school. I got the feeling that there was something ahead of me, but no matter how I moved my head I couldn't see anything. I used the reflections on the road for more information yet still saw nothing. Suddenly, I realized that there was a tree across the road, but suspended about 2 1/2 feet in the air. It was too late. I went straight into the tree. I went over the tree, bashing my knee on it. My bike stopped. Sitting on the ground, I thought my bike was destroyed. I remembered what had happened at age 16. I was sure that the forks or the crown were destroyed. I pulled myself up using the tree as support and looked at the bicycle. It was standing perfectly upright. I grabbed the handlebars and pulled them backwards. The bike rolled back easily and showed no damage whatsoever. The tire had wedged itself under the tree and came to a stop at exactly the top of the tire. It took all quarter for my knee to heal though.

8) At age 32, I was riding to work in downtown L.A. I was climbing a hill. A teen on a Stingray passed me and then swerved in, crossing my front tire with his rear tire. I went down. I picked my bike up and got riding again. The street was more level so I caught up with him just as there was a bobtail truck blocking the parking lane. And I started to pass him. He realized the situation, and decided that rather than brake and slow down, he'd rather stiff-arm me into traffic. I maintained control of the front wheel, but the rear wheel tacoed as it was pushed sideways. We both went down. I screamed at him, he shrugged and pretended to not understand a word of English. This was a gang neighborhood and I had no doubts that he was a member and I knew that I had to ride the neighborhood everyday so calling the cops would be very dangerous for me. I walked away and locked my bike on the Art Center campus and walked the rest of the way to work. After work, I came back and walked my bike home.

9) At age 35, I was riding my MTB home from work going down a path in the Los Penasquitos Preserve (Commuting through a nature preserve, Yes!) I caught a small berm wrong and went down. That kicked off a lymph node infection that took six months to heal and made bicycling much too painful.

10) At age 49, I was riding home from work in the desert. It was summer, well over 100 degrees. People water their lawns almost constantly to keep them green in the heat. I crossed through a small stream of water in the gutter and wiped out on the algae in the gutter.