Close call last night
 

Commuting home last night, I made a dumb mistake and crashed on the Central Park West bike lane. Low speed. Went over the bars a bit and Thankfully, I didn't fall into the traffic lane, but I did bang up my left knee and my left wrist a bit. This morning the knee felt fine but the wrist did not. Went to the Dr this morning, x-rays showed no fracture :thumb: Hopped on a CitiBike and commuted to work. Keeping the weight off my left wrist for now.

Glad you're not hurt seriously.

What was the dumb mistake?

Now that you got that out of the way you should be good for quite a while. Heal up!

Glad you're OK, but please tell us more about it, so we can all learn from your mistake! That's my favorite part about this forum, how we all learn from each other how to stay safe out there.

Dumb mistake: slightly braking with right hand while taking my left hand off the handlebar for a moment to adjust my helmet. Bike turned, tilted, and I couldn't recover in time.

I've been biking for 40+ years. Never did that before. Now I know why.

glad you are OK

I've used wrist wraps, from sporting goods stores, in their weight lifting dept, also from CVS section with wraps for knees, etc. something like that might be helpful for a few weeks. I found this one to be quite comfortable. it's neoprene & velcro. maybe I got it at Walmart

https://www.walmart.com/ip/ACE-Brand...&wl13=&veh=sem

https://i.imgur.com/Zw8Fp7qm.jpg

I've done that a million times. Why did your bike turn when you did that?

Well, then it's not a close call if you fell. ;)

Is your right hand brake connected to your front or your rear?


If anyone wants to learn from my mistake: don't attempt to put your gloves on while riding with your forearms resting on your handlebars, underneath your non-aero brake cables.

Unless I'm mistaken, right hand brifter should go to the back brake, no? Maybe the OP's goes to the front?

Edit: As usual, "it depends":

Right Front or Left Front? The usual system is to have the rear brake controlled by the lever on the side of the bicycle that corresponds to the side of the road that it will be driven on, i.e., right in most of the world; left in the British Isles, Japan, and other places where they drive on the left. (The European Union, however, has standardized on having the right-hand lever control the front brake).

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cables.html

This is my first bike with hydraulic disc brakes, I'm used to v-brakes and probably applied too much pressure. Maybe slowed down too much and lost balance? I had one fully loaded pannier and one lightly loaded, maybe that contributed to the problem too. Anyway, today's commute was beautiful weather, bike is fine and no pain in my wrist so it's all good.



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Glad you're well. We all make mistakes. At 61 I worry the next fall could break something important.

Sheldon adds that "Nobody knows exactly why this is". I had heard in the past that the US product safety folks required Left-Front to reduce the likelihood of over-the-bar launches, but the Europeans preferred Right-Front (not true, though, by my observations). I have all my bikes set up as Right-Front just because I want to use my dominant hand most effectively, but I can definitely see that this could be exciting with disk brakes. I have disks on only one of my cycles and I have almost "endo'd" it more than once. Of course, it has both brake levers routed to the front.

Maybe the weight got swinging, oscillating, at just the wrong time? I've felt that happening with a big load, even strapped on tight.

Yes, left hand front is the norm here in the US, but I asked because the rear locking up or braking hard is less likely to destabilize the bike.

This has been discussed here a lot (maybe in other sub forums), but a lot of motorcycle riders prefer the right-hand front brake for continuity. That was the case for me, as I was just so used to the right-front connection, as well as doing most of my braking with the front. Horses for courses.

Glad you are already feel normal again, dschwarz.

I wish I had started on a right-front bike. All the bikes I have bought or were given to me were left-front. By the time I had thought about the logic, I had so many miles on left-front bikes I knew there would be at least one bad crash from getting it wrong if I switched. So I never did.

Now, after my head injury, left-front was a plus. I had lost learned right hand skills (bruise on my motor nerves; putting my right side in seizure) so having my "educated but stupid" left hand on the important brake was better than having my completely illiterate right hand there. But it only took a couple of years before it was agian the smarter appendage.

Ben

That's where I am too. That's also how I feel about the Dvorak keyboard layout, although I still might give that a try someday, less risk of death involved.

Same here. I use left-front, and I rarely use my rear brake at all. I'm fairly good at changing habits, but I don't think I should change this one. I'm right handed, and I use my right hand for other duties, and my left hand has the reflex for braking, and it's coordinated and strong enough for the job. Fear of doing an endo is silly. I used to teach cycling skills, and my line is, "The risk of going over the handlebar from overuse of your brake is real but small."