So ive been commuting for 2months now and i cant get this out of my head. Has anyone here never crashed their bike? How long have you gone without crashing?

I feel that its bound to happen and i dont like that. So i hope to hear someone here has never crashed or at least in a long time to make me feel better.




EDIT 1/24/2011

Guess what happened today?


Yup... i crashed. I was going down a street as fast as i could. Figured it would be fun to take a hard right into a street w/out brakes. Bad idea! As soon as i took it I knew i was going too fast. Next thing i remember is being face down on the ground. First thing i did was go check out my bike. I picked it up and saw blood on it and though "shes bleeding! " Then i realised it was me and called someone to pick me up and take me to emergency. I ended up with 10 stitches above my eyebrow and a chipped bone somewhere on my forehead. Now im just kickin back at home on Tylenol. Will be takin a few days off from work.

Well i got it over with and learned to keep my stupidity in check

BTW.. My bike is OK!!! I dont know how or why but not much happened to it aside from small scratches and blood all over it.

I think it's more common than you would suspect.

For me I toured nearly 15,000km up South America and Canada and I only crashed once and it was after 13,000km. It was crazy windy and I was crawling along at 8km/hr. I was fidgeting on the bike and staring straight up into the sky asking why I was doing this when I went into the soft shoulder and ever so slowly tipped over sideways. It was pretty much what you'd expect to happen if you stopped and forgot your feet were clipped into the pedals. It was pretty pathetic but thankfully I was in the middle of nowhere so no one witnessed it. I then proceeded to just lay on the road and stare into the sky for several more minutes. Stupid wind.

Put on some pads, take a hard corner on some wet leaves and just get it over with.

I've crashed a few times on icy/snowy streets and a couple of other times during decent weather. Invariably it involved doing something stupid. It's been quite awhile though. I wouldn't worry about it.

I'm not helping, - am I ?

I've had 3 teenty-tiny accidents in 33 years of post-college cycling. Two were very minor falls at 2 mph, no damage, no injury. The third -- more than 20 years ago -- was a kid who ran into me on a MUP w/his bike. Again, no injuries.

Based on my record -- 10's of thousands of injury-free miles -- it's not something I think about, other than taking care to ride safely.

I've never crashed on the street. In my mountain biking days, if I wasn't crashing now and then, I wasn't riding close enough to the edge.

Yes, I crashed because I was texting and juggling sharp knives while riding with no hands listening to my music.

Sorry about that. Just can't resist to say that
Seriously, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was an adult. So it's naturally a yes that I crash my bike when I am an adult.

Chances are it's gonna happen. I did so on my first month of commuting when I put my landing foot down but the weight of my pannier being on the other side knock me off balance. So I just consider it as a learning experience...and who said you can't teach an old dog a new trick...wait, did I just call myself a dog? Duh.

Me. I've been riding for around 2 and a half years, so i've still got plenty of time.

Plenty of times on mountain bike trails. I've had numerous close calls while commuting, the majority of which were excellent learning opportunities.

As a kid, I thought if you didnt crash every week, you werent trying hard enough.

I commuted for about 8 years with no crashes.

Then I was worried about crashing.

Then I crashed twice in 3 months. One cost a bit of elbow skin, the second was more serious, broken collar bone, and a prolapsed disc.

I then went another year without crashing.

I went a further two years not cycling, due to location.

In the last 18 months riding in China I have crashed 4 times.

Once was because I was a little drunk cycling on a wet slippery sidewalk and somebody pulled out in front of me, I grabbed two handfulls of brakes and went down on my right elbow. I picked myself up, and rode on. About 100 m further up the road I was looking down at my bike to see if I had damaged it, and crashed into a guard rail, fell off and landed on my right elbow. I dont drive drunk anymore.

A few months later, I went around a bend on the path in school were a truck had left a thin layer of clay on the surface. It was wet and down I went on my right elbow.

A little later I was racing through the city, and tried to bypass a stopped bus on the left. A three wheeled taxi pulled out in front of me to see if he could fit down the gap, I crashed into him. I was unhurt.

Crashing doesnt generally hurt much.

I am not a safe rider. I split lanes, salmon, listen to music, and push hard in crowded areas.

Dont worry about it, and go out there and fall off.

z

I ride almost every day, crash-free...but a few years ago I lost it when my front tire got wedged between the sidewalk and the grass, spilling me onto the sidewalk (I felt like I busted a rib), and about a month later, I was riding through some sidewalk/street construction and my left handlebar got clipped by something, and once again I slammed onto the ground (without injury), and left a good-sized dent in my helmet (I don't usually wear a helmet, it was just my lucky day)-

My philosophy is: "if you ride a bike enough times, sooner or later you'll fall off"

Ill pretend this is all i read..... but its not.

I rode into a parked car once. Went down in soft sand once, I went down three times during one ride home last winter, I lost it in the middle of a turn last winter (over confident and going too fast even with the studded tires)
I have suffered no injuries from all of the above, I am still riding, I am still loving it

I had a front blowout just as I was turning in to my work. Bike went down NOW. Got some ribbing from my co workers after they saw I was fine.

If getting hit by a car counts, yes.
If you mean crashing purely on my own, yes. On the road bike i've crashed a couple times by getting the front wheel caught in a gap in the road. The last time was a few years ago while I was riding a recumbent. Ended up in the hospital for 3 days and then a walker for 8 weeks with a broken ankle and dislocated shoulder.
Most recently I've crashed a few times on my mountain bike on the trails but that's pretty much expected.

I've been in an accident only once. Never a real crash that was caused by failure of my gear or bike or something else.

I had my bike slammed away from underneath me by a car once. Thought there was nothing in front of me, although the bright Rabobank jersey, and the bright yellow bike told him otherwise. Was pretty painful the week after, but nothing serious except from 2 trashed bottle cages and a bent RD hanger.

I crashed for the first time ever about 5 years ago, after cycling for 30+ years. Slid out on a corner. There was no sand or gravel on the pavement, and I realized afterward that it was due to some new tires I had just put on my bike -- like 10 minutes earlier. The tires had hung in my garage awhile and apparently developed a glaze on the tread that made them slippery. I didn't get any serious injuries from my crash but lots of road rash, which is bad enough in itself. I go slower on sharp corners now.

crashed once riding on a road by the beach. took my hands off the bars for a sec to take off sunglasses and wipe face, and a huge gust of wind hit me and bars went wild.
and in like a month span got hit twice by cars turning with no blinker while i was in the bike lane. yay

Does it count forgetting to get out of the toe clips? How about riding to work at 0:dark 30 in the winter and the bike sliding out from under me without warning. Was on 26" home made studded tires, frozen slush, and had no other problems. I laughed about it. There was no one around to see it. Nobody else was awake or they were all at their puters.

NO. I don't ride to a crash and I don't have the expectation that I will crash. I don't succumb to the "doomers" that say it is inevitable, either.
It may happen; Im not naive. But I use good riding awareness, I know my limits and I listen to common sense - and ride so I don't crash.
I also push such thinking out of my mind and enjoy my experience.

The last time I was upended on a bike was over three decades ago and it was because I was doing something stupid.

"A man either gets more foolish with age, or wiser. Which, depends on choices the man consciously makes." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

hahaha
you are going down...HARD. i see it happening
you just jinxed yourself

I've been commuting on a bike for almost 40 years...since I was 13 years old (longer if you want to count just riding to school).
I haven't "crashed" while commuting since like 83, my last crash "riding a bike" was a couple of years ago during an impromptu race.

Crashes are rare....whoopsies, not so much.

This thread is not exactly what the OP was hoping for.

A fall is not inevitable and very unlikely to be fatal. Just forget about it. I probably wipeout once or twice each winter just walking. It hurts your ego more than anything else.

Have you played any sports since becoming an adult? I get the crap kicked out of me, way harder and more often playing goalie on an adult soccer team than falling off a bicycle.

Don't even worry about it. If you go down, brush yourself off and get back on. I've had four crashes in just over five years; three of those were braking and/or turning on wet pavement.

"There are two kinds of riders. Those who have fallen, and those who are going to fall".

I heard this from my bikers friends (as in motorcycle riders), and I think it's applicable to bicycle riders too.
So if I were you, I'd stop worrying about it. Forget about it. When it happens, accept it, embrace it, learn from it. And then come here and tell us about it, so we can learn, cry and or laugh with you.

Crashed once on a fun ride, before I started commuting or was that much into riding. First time I ever wore a helmet, saved my life. I attempted to hop a dip in the road...woke up in the dirt. I hopped out of the front wheel. Smashed helmet, concussion, 3 fractured vertebrae, lost a lot of skin.
Wife said the kids were playing with my bike that morning and saw the quick release undone. She wasn't home when I went for a ride. (pre-cell phone)

Bumped a curb early this year and sort of layed down the bike on the grass and stepped off of it.

Got run off the road last week into a field and did sort of a controlled bike lay down and rolled off of it, no damage or pain.