On July 14th I was involved in my very first bike accident, and I think it was a fairly bad one.

I was riding my three week old Salsa LaCruz custom build home to Vancouver from work in Richmond. I was riding over the Oak Street Bridge, which entails riding on a sidewalk separated from the vehicular traffic by a guard rail.

I have absolutely ne memory of what happened to me. Looking at the damage to various parts of my bike, it looks like I struck the front wheel against something, causing it to tear loose from the fork. The fork then hit the ground, and I assume that I went over the handle bars and landed on my face. The forks are bent in a way that my bike mechanic has never seen before, and the front wheel was twisted all to hell.


I assume that this happened very quickly. All of the road rash on my arms is on the top, which indicates to me that I didn't have a chance to put my hands out to break my fall. I suffered a fair amount of damage. Road rash on both forearms as well as my nose and face. I almost bit through my lower lip, and my top lip required three stitches on the outside. I chipped a tooth and cracked a rib. I also hit my head hard enough to have bruising across my forehead from my helmet. I lost about half of the day prior to the accident.

They gave me tonnes of morphine at the hospital, which didn't take the pain away but made me not care.

I have since returned to the scene, hoping to either deduce what happened or bring back some memories, but nothing came to light. My bike is still in the shop being repaired, but once it's out I'm planning on starting the commute again. I just hope I don't freak out riding past that spot.

I hope you're okay and you figure out how this happened. Did you see if there were any traffic cameras pointing at the scene? I have no idea who you would ask to see such footage, but it may help.

For the front wheel to come out of the fork, it pretty much has to be that the quick release wasn't tightened down properly. Ordinarily you can kill a wheel twice as badly as that without it coming out of the fork. Take great care when putting your wheels on, and don't trust anyone else to tighten them.

Yikes! That sounds like a scary crash. Glad to hear you're well enough to post, and hope you're back on the bike again before too long. Good luck!

I agree with sammy, sounds like your front wheel was loose, you hit small bump, and your fork turned you into a lawn dart. If not that, it could have been a fork failure. Make sure you check that out too.

Heal well and quickly.

I thought of the wheel coming off too, but the threads on the axle were acutally stripped right off, and quick release skewer was broken.. I had not removed the wheel since bringing the bike home from the shop when I first bought it.

So you're thinking the QR just flat-out failed?

Yikes.

I'm sorry to hear what happened to you. That's horrible.

BUT

There's some good news in this. According to statistics, a bicyclists has a minor injury about once per three years and a major incident every fifteen years.

So, I'd consider that major.

You're good for another fifteen years.

Good Thought

I hope so. I think experiencing this once every fifteen years is quite enough, thank you.

No, I think an impact caused it to fail. I think if the front tire had just popped off on it's own, it wouldn't be damaged like it is and the threads on the axle wouldn't have been stripped.

Oh my god!! Any accident where you don't remember what happened is more than "fairly bad," it is "ridiculously bad." I'm glad you're okay!

Surviving that sounds like a good excuse to go out and buy a new bike....

No new bike. The one I was on was just three weeks old! A new fork for sure, though. And a new helmet.

glad to know you're doing ok. I'm sure a couple trips back over where it happened will get you over it fear wise.