Dwagenheim

Wow. Well, luckily you are still here with us. I hope your recovery is speedy! Hey, take some pictures. I'm sure you'll find it interesting in the future, though the whole thing is probably very distressing at the moment.

Get better
Dave

swekarl

My god, yes I'm too glad you're ok. I have to ask – what is safety lenses? Are they some special kind of contact lenses or do you just mean plain sunglasses? You don't have to reply until your wounds have healed!
(later)

John C. Ratliff

Actually, on Friday I picked up some Wilson ANSI Z87.1 Safety Glasses from Fred Meyer (a local Oregon department store). These are industrial safety glasses which look like wrap-around sun glasses, but have the impact resistence of safety glasses. For sun glasses, they are fairly cheap at under $10 US. I'm glad I was wearing them, but I wouldn't recommend this methodology of trying them out to anyone.

John

hyperdrive

I voted "helmet mounted", seemed closest to the one I use which attaches to the the eyeglasses stem(s). Once used to it, I find I like it a lot. Wouldn't ride without one now. We have some pretty aggressive and/or negligent drivers around here on everything from two wheels to eighteen, and if I can see 'em coming....I have no issue with getting out of their way.

aerobat

John, glad to hear you're more or less OK! We'll be really interested to hear what happened.

I just started using a third eye eyeglass mounted mirror, and it seems to be working OK. Of course I always shoulder check as well and frequently turn around and look from force of habit.

I like the eyeglass mount because it's always there no matter what bike I'm using, doesn't vibrate.

The bar end mirrors I used on my commuter never lasted very long from vibration, the bike falling, leaning against walls, and the occasional crash!

John C. Ratliff

Yesterday I was able to pick up my bicycle from the police locker, and meet Officer Lisa Erickson, who helped me during the accident. I also found out several things about the accident.

Officer Erickson stated that two or three witnesses said that I had "lost control" of the bicycle. One witness, who stayed long enough to tell Officer Erickson then left, said that I had swerved to miss a car. I am going with the latter observation by that one person, as the evidence points in that direction. I'll explain:

--All my injuries are on my right side; right knee, right thigh, right elbow and shoulder, and the right side of my bike helmet. Even the staples holding the cut on my head together are slightly to the right of the center/back of my head. My bike handlebar tape is abraided on the right side.

--My right hand is not injured. This means I was holding the top of the handlebars (I'm riding drops).

--Everyone agrees I was signaling for a left turn. If I had lost control during this turn, I would be injured on my left side.

--My bicycle was in good shape. The tires were still inflated, and everything was alligned correctly, except the chain (and that probably had come loose either during the fall or due to subsequent handling). The bar ends indicated I was in my lower front gear, and a middle range back gear. So I wasn't going terribly fast. Witnesses said I was going fast (this is a downhill portion of my ride), but 15-20 mph would look fast to them.

With this as physical evidence, my only other worry was that my handlebars had come loose. I had recently raised them to the maximum I dared, then lowered them about half an inch. I had tightened them hard too, but was worried that with raising them, they may have come loose at a critical moment, and caused the fall. This did not happen. The handlebars were rigid, and correctly alligned.

So I probably swerved to avoid missing a car which was quickly changing lanes in front of me. My bike was pretty heavily loaded with clothes and shopping (I had two panniers on the back), and that may have led to a loss of traction during the emergency.

I do know that I went down very hard, and shattered my helmet (GIRO, thank you for a great helmet!), was knocked into la-la land (yes, I was dreaming, of biking yet), and have no memory of the people helping me out or the ambulance ride. My first memory was about the time they were catheterizing me in the emergency room.

So that is my story. I'm in recovery now, and have not missed work, but am moving about a bit more slowely and painfully. I found out that of those staples in my head, if I press on the middle one, I start "swimming" (getting dizzy). 'Don't know why, but maybe I have some weird wiring up on top.

I do know that this is forcing me to look at bicycle commuting to determine if it is a viable option anymore. I have in my past participated in some very "dangerous" activities (scuba diving, parachuting--USAF Master Parachutist, parascuba jumping, helicopter rescue work, smoke jumping, mountaineering, etc.) and now, based on my personal experience, have to rank bicycle commuting as the most hazardous activity I have ever participated in. I have no good answers on this one.

John

neguypdx

John,

Where did all this take place? I often bike all around the Portland, OR area. We were ranked this year by Bicycling magazine as the top cycling city in the US, and though I have had problems I find that things here are definately better than other cities.

I hope you don't stop commuting by bicycle. The only way things will get better and more safe is by having more cyclists on the road so that drivers become increasingly aware of us. I saw a study that shows that accidents between cyclists and cars go down when there are more cyclists.

Get well soon!

J.O.

John C. Ratliff

This took place last Friday on Evergreen Parkway close to Cornell Road in Hillsboro (it's near the Hillsboro/Beaverton border). Good bike lanes, but they don't go to the left, hence the lane change.

John

John C. Ratliff

A week and a half since my accident, I'm recovering well. I still have some fluid under the bruise, but that should go away tomorrow (Dr.'s appointment).

While I have not yet resumed riding on the street, I've been doing 5-7 miles daily on my Schwinn Airdyne. The weather has not been too conducive to riding, and I've been doing a lot of research on helmets.

Concerning helmets, my helmet is now in many pieces. I found the main area of impact, and it was compressed by about 1/3, with fracture lines running out from this area. The EMT/Paramedics felt that mine would have been a fatal accident without the helmet.

I still have no clear idea of what happened. My son, Brian, feels that my front tire probably actually touched the rear of another vehicle (possibly one changing lanes into the one I was changing into in front of me). This, he feels, is the most likely reason for the violent crash I suffered. Anything else would be something I could have preparred for, and probably would not have led to head contact with the ground.

This is my first instance of head contact with the ground in all my falls (I've had at least five now). I have been trained in falling techniques by Judo training, and parachute training in the US Air Force.

The cause of my fall will probably remain unresolved. My next step is in simply getting on the bike again. But I won't do that until I pick up a new helmet.

John

Jean Beetham Smith 

I would vote both on my commuter, but only helmet on my road bike.

Jean Beetham Smith 

Sorry, that previous reply was made to the mirror poll. John I hope you continue to recover well. It is very hard to evaluate commuting when you can't remember the accident. Sometimes the memory comes back in several months, but most often that kind of memory loss is forever. Take it easy starting back.

Bikes-N-Drums

Two weeks ago I spun around to see if a car was coming and 're-activated' a pinched nerve. It's been a pretty painful two weeks and in retrospect I feel pretty certain it could have been avoided with the use of mirrors.
I bought a handlebar mounted mirror and a helmet mirror. I finally felt well enough to ride on Monday and love both of them. With the exception of a blind-spot on my left (no left side mirror) I finally can see behind me without looking behind me. The one on the bars is concave and good for wide-view but is bad for judging distance. The helmet mirror is flat and rear-view is capable with a glance to the side.
Of course, I do ride a commuter, not some speed-racer and have taken some ribbing from co-workers, especially about the helmet mirror. Oh well, what do non-cyclists know anyway?! Try them anyway. So far I seem to like them.

John C. Ratliff

I finally got on my bike yesterday evening; I had to see how it rode after my accident. In doing so, I think I've solved the problem of what happened. It was raining, and my brakes normally are okay on this bike in rain, but last evening when I braked my back break, the wheel hung and I skidded. This is an old Schwinn Le Tour, with center-pull brakes on a 27 inch wheel. The original wheels are chromed steel, but I had put an alloy wheel from another bike on it. Center-pull brakes were some of the best years ago, and more than adequate with the chromed steel rims. With the alloy rim, and new brake shoes, it stopped the wheel dead without much effort.

So apparently, the observations of the police officer were correct, and I simply lost control of the bike. It happened that I was going downhill, but at the bottom of the hill is a stop light. I needed to change lanes, and so I signaled the lane change, swung out from the bicycle lane into the traffic lane (one lane over), and was in the process of turning back to go straight down the hill when I applied the brake. This apparently initiated a skid to my right and the subsequent fall.

I don't remember much about a car because there probably was no car involved. The part of my memory which is not there is remembering any kind of skid, but that would have been immediately prior to the impact, and those seconds are most likely gone because of my fall.

So the situation wasn't as dire as I thought initially, and the fact that the helmet saved my head is a great advertisement for helmet usage. With this as the probable scenario, I can again go out and ride.

This started as a discussion on mirrors, and I turned it into a discussion about my own accident. My apologies about that, but I'll get back to the mirror situation. This whole accident scenario has me re-thinking my position on mirrors, and I will be picking up a helmet/eyeglass mirron with my helmet purchase. I will be experimenting on the mirrors, and may even be getting a different bicycle (20+ years with that bike may be enough). Thanks to everyone for your support during this time.

John

LittleBigMan

I am very glad you are healing well, John!

I went over my bars on August 31, 2001, on a friday evening after work. I was only 2 - 3 miles from home on a 14 mile commute...

I don't remember anything about falling, only several nice ladies (motorists) helping me up. They didn't look too pleased with my appearance--it's a good thing I couldn't see myself. I do remember some punk sticking his arm out in my path and me trying to block it. Now, I wear a mustache to cover the scar under my nose.

Seems mere falls can be dangerous. That's why I use a helmet.
But all in all, I think bicycling is one of the best things that ever happened to me!

Joe Gardner

Mirrors are there to tell you when its not clear, not to tell you when it is clear. I dont think most people understand that simple concept!

orguasch

Joe,
It also tells me if Iam good looking, ahh, just kidding, It really helps to have a mirror either on the handle bar or attached to the Helmet, But I never got to used one,

Dwagenheim

I just got a circular mirror that fixes on my helmet with glue. We'll see how it works!

I've been testing out a handlebar fixed mirror which is better than nothing but one gripe is that I am uncomfortable with looking down and away every time I want to check out the view behind me.

Dave

John C. Ratliff

I decided to give mirrors another try after my accident, and I rode Saturday with two. One was a handlebar on the bar end of drop bars, and the other was on my helmet.

The handlebar mirror suffered from several problems:

--I had to look down.
--It seemed to vibrate out of position.
--The view was sometimes through my elbow or arm (depending upon where I positioned my hands.

I found myself using the helmet mirror about 90% of the time on this ride, and decided to take the handlebar mirror off again. I will be using the helmet mirror every day from now on though, as I found myself being much more aware of traffic on both sides (front and behind) than I was before.

John

Inkwolf

I started out with no mirror, and was reasonably content. But when I needed to make a left turn, and looked back, I could only see the edge of my eyeglasses. Turn any further, and I was swerving into the lane, which defeated the purpose of looking.

So I got an eyeglass-mounted mirror about a week ago, and after only a few days, I wouldn't want to ride without it.