Your Worst Biking Memory
 

Most folks here post about the positive stuff and that seems only right. I was just wondering, what the worst bike related thing that has happened to you?

Mine happened to a friend. We used to ride our bikes to school. 6th grade to be exact. BMX was all the rage. He used my bike to jump off a set of stairs and the fork snapped off midway up. He landed hard on his face and knocked all of he upper teeth out. The bottom teeth got snapped off and he spent a week in the hospital and required some surgery.

The upside was that his dental implants glowed under black lights at the stoner parties in high school.

I wasn't there, but here is mine: A high-school friend was riding home from my house on his dad's brand new 10-speed. Quick releases were newish, lawyer lips non-existant, and when he went over a bump the front wheel dropped out, and the fork then drove through the spokes, halting the front of the bike.

The same thing had happened to me, 2 weeks earlier, on MY dad's bike with the giant wing-nuts that were tough to get properly tight. I went flying over the bars, destroyed my gloves, but not much else.

My buddy's hands were caught in the brake cable loops, preventing him from braking his fall. He landed smack on the side of his face, and got a serious road rash. Plastics work was good, but he still spent all that summer indoors to avoid sun on the new skin and scars.

1) Having my Moulton Mini stolen.
2) Crashing headfirst in a tree wrecking my Gazelle.
3) Picking up a blind date for a party (not even my own date, mind you) way on the other side of town, find out she's a perfect walrus - right down to the 'stache - and bikeless, so she had to ride all the way on my rear rack. To add insult to injury I was in tails and she in a sort of billowing sail in a vague mockery of a prom dress that kept getting tangled in the spokes. Good thing the booze was free and my date wasn't as portly.

My 14 year old giving a ride on the rear pegs to my 10 year old. Off a bump the 10 year old lands on the rear tire :eek: His shorts, underwear and presummable the family jewels :o get sucked under the brake bridge!!! Luckily everything was intact, only lost all the skin in his crack...owwweeeee!!! He dosen't ride the pegs anymore :thumb:

When I was about 16, I was coming around a corner and a car was coming the other way, right at me. I over-reacted and crossed the front wheel up, sending me over the bars and on to my shoulder. Broken clavicle and had to spend the next 6 weeks in one of those lousy figure 8 braces. Could have been much worse. Knock on wood.

same thing happend to my brother... brand new shogun selectra, with the quick release tires, didn't clamp the tire down.. hit a bump and was superman for a few seconds, then landed on his face... busted the forks on that thing.. spent the weekend in the hospital and a bout 300 stitches later.. that bike was never ridden again and was left out front for a scrapper

Hitting a right front fender at 90 degrees of car that pulled in front of me at 21 MPH (my speed), then bouncing off the the roof/windshield (broke it with my hip) and landing on the street ~30 ft down the road. Fractured scapula, broken rib with slight puncture of the lung, boken humerous (plate with 7 screws), road rash on left knee and left side of face, damaged left eye (showed up 6 months later). Beyond repair damaged Motobecane Le Champion Frame and fork after ownership of 36 years. Oh yeah, the driver was uninsured, medical bill was $62,000.

I've had a few over the years; I'm sure most of us have. Wiping out on ice...falling while taking a MTB down the art museum steps...sticking my foot in the spokes of my front wheel as a kid...getting knocked over by a fed ex truck...getting wiped out in a cat 4 race (10 bikes involved)...breaking a finger (and riding home with it) at the North East training ride. The worst is last year's head on hit by an SUV. It was the first broken bone I've had in a bike incident (not counting fingers) and was the first accident where I was side lined long term. It really spooked me and I ride scared now.

I want to start the same thread.... but minus bike wrecks. Almost everybodys worst moment will be a wreck. Would prefer to hear some different tales.
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Understood. I have a three skeletons in my bike wreck closet, including the death of one close friend and disability retirement (TBI) of another.

However, the wrecks (mine or those of others) and the close calls are my only "worst biking memories," because everything else has been positive, even when I have "suffered" through fatigue, cold, heat, or rain. When I was a nerdy fat teenager, passing car passengers would sometimes yell or laugh at me, but none of that seems important now, because 50 years later, I am having a hearty, long, loud, last laugh.

Luckily mines not as bad injury wise as others. I dont know how many here are familiar with fish flies, (called may flies some places) but when I was a kid they would gather on the ground under street lights so thick that you couldnt see the pavement and there was a thick goo from squished ones. I came around the corner at speed on an old Schwinn cruiser I had modified. Sure enough it slid out from under me sideways and I layed my knee on the ground and slid though the rotting fish fly goo. It ripped my knee up good and filled the wound with the gross goop. It's enough to turn my stomach still. I limped home and proceeded to spend the evening scrubbing the gross bleeding mess of my knee with a stiff bristle brush and hydrogen peroxide to try to clean it out. I still have the scar.

Oh man...did not ever want to think about this again. I was 10 and at church choir. I was not feeling well in the gut and could almost not move without feeling like I was going to crap my pants. I hated using public bathrooms and after church I very carefully started to walk away wheeling my Raleigh Rampar BMX. I sneezed and slipped and fell on the damp grass and just as I lost my concentration the worst happened and diarrhea was flying.

Of course there was another kid just walking out and he was like did you just **** your pants?

So my worst biking memory as a child was riding home two miles on my Rampar while standing up because I had a load in my pants (of course they were corduroy and brown). Got to love 1981.

The minute I walked into the door, my Mom said "Let's go bowling". I ran upstairs and hopped in the tub to wash my ass and tossed my soiled tighty whities in the hamper and went duckpin bowling :-)

I know what you mean. The hard times can look like fun in hindsight. The trick of telling the story, though, is to make them seem hard again, at least to the reader. I dont know if I can do it justice.
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There was the time I chased instead of blocked in a collegiate circuit race. Our team had two guys out of the three who were well off the front with about 10k to go. I was an idiot mt biker who was feeling very strong and basically towing the pack up to our guys.... until I realized how stupid I was being and dropped back in shame.
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Then at the last moment I sprinted back up to at least get a few points for the team. But I was pretty red faced.
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Racing a dog on the R, never saw the one who came from the L.
Technium crumpled, dog bit it, fork toast, wheel folded.
Wrist, collarbone, a spoke through a calf.
Dog owner screamed at me.
Sweaty, dirty, bloody, mad, helpless.
No health coverage.

No more road bikes for 15 years or so.
That was the worst thing, looking back.

Now thats just a bad bad cycling moment.
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Went downhill too fast and hit my privates on the top tube. It hurt bad. I was 5 at the time. The doctor said "Ouch that's just one big bruise you'll be fine."

The worst part of bikes is that it was because of them I met fender1. Aside from that:

Racing as a kid (the way kids race, not Cat# anything). One kid cut me off, his rear wheel went into my front wheel. i went over the bars, through the air, land on my head/shoulder. I'm face down laying on the asphalt and I do a push up motion with my arms to get up. My left side suddenly is on fire and i collapse back down. Broken collar bone.
BTW, they can't really put broken collar bones in a cast. Two weeks later I rode in the back of a Chevy Blazer from Philly to Miami for 24 hours. That was almost as bad as the fall.

I also damn near went off the side of a mountain in the Adirondacks while fully loaded up with gear on a Montreal - Philly tour about 10-12 years ago. But that was just scary, not painful. I haven't used a Bob Trailer to tour since.

When I was still in high school - I used to ride my three-speed every day. I pulled away from a stop light and got up to speed in a hurry. Just then a car passed me, and seeing a hitchhiker, immediately turned into a driveway to pick him up. I hit the side of the VW Beetle at the rear wheel. Hitchhiker came running up to me - the girl driving the Bug never even knew she hit me. I got the handlebar stem right on the sternum, tearing the cartilage holding the ribs. Hurt to breathe for months afterwards.

Worst non-accident experience while riding was going on a charity ride of 90 miles - on a cool Spring day. Again, I was still in high school, but at least now I had my first road bike - a heavy-as-a-tank Fuji Special Tourer. Weather forecast was to be partly cloudy and in the low-mid 50s, so I had dressed accordingly. However, a non-forecast cold soaking rain came up around mile 40 and didn't let up. Temps never got above mid 40s, and I was soaked to the skin. When I finished the ride, I literally had to pry my fingers off the handlebars. I had ridden 12 miles to the start of this ride, but was too frozen to ride back home. I went into a restaurant, called my mother from a payphone to come and get me, and sat in the warm restaurant drinking hot chocolate, shivering uncontrollably.

Coming down a hill going almost 30, didn't notice a set of deep train tracks crossing the road at about a 45 degree angle. Went over the handlebars into some gravel, which I picked out of my hands and elbows for about an hour that night. I'm pretty sure I saw my bone where the flesh is thin near the elbow. It could have been worse, though, because some part of my bike (rear rack, I think) came whipping down on top of me because my feet were still in the clips, cracking my helmet.

I had a broken collar bone from a bus accident as a kid...they are the freaking WORST.

My best kid crash was one like you describe - two kids racing BMX. My friend turned into me trying to back me off and somehow got his front wheel into my pedal. He had a POS Huffy with plastic mag spokes...almost no damage to his bike. My much nicer Raleigh BMX ended up with busted spokes, a broken pedal and me cut up.

New kid moved into my east coast neighborhood from California in the 70s. Tore down my Schwinn and rebuilt it, BMX-ified. Still a heavy little tank, but man, it was so cool looking compared to what it was... definitely one of my best bike memories. An 'endless summer' of dirt riding. You all can keep your worst biking memories, we all have death/wreck/theft stories aplenty!

Riding my sisters bike in the park and I stood up and put pressure on the handlebars which promptly fell off sending me over the handlebars and cutting my knee pretty badly.

I still have the scar even tho i was wearing jeans.

When we were very broke and couldnt afford a puncture kit then my partner got a puncture 7 miles from home. That was some walk home :(

Man, you said it. I don't know if they use the same thing these days but that friggin figure 8 brace wore a nickel-sized hole through the skin under my arm.
And having to go to school with elbows raised as if you're about to start flapping and take off. I hated that episode but in retrospect, I figure if that's the worst thing that has happened to me on a bike, I'm in like Flynn.

I did crash one time coming down Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah when my front tubular decided to de-attach itself from my rim, but it was all just rash. Lots and lots of rash, but no broken bones. Thank Bog.

I was born with a broken collarbone. Seriously. So far, I reject my calling as cycling messiah.

Day 5 or 6 of our Oregon to Maine tour really sucked. We werent trained up for 100 miles day after day, and I think that was a physical and emotional low point.
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