.... am I simply bad luck for fellow riders?

Today was a monsoon of a bike commute and when I entered downtown I came to a stop west bound on Cordova at Burrard. This courier crosses right in front of me and bails ass over bars in a complete flip and back on to his feet. A very smooth execution of what should of been a nasty bail. He just chuckled at me and rode away.... The thing is I did the exact same crash at the same intersection 4 years ago during the Olympics except I went down hard and fast and ended up crashing into a large group of tourists waiting to head off to watch the Olympics (Welcome to Vancouver). The reason I am comparing both crashes is what caused them was the same thing. This intersection is a raised street with roads underneath and in the intersection are joints where the concrete "slabs" meet. In the rain they are deathly slippery and you can even get your tire stuck in them if travelling in the same direction as the seam.

Point is heads up if you encounter the same hazard. I learned the hard way.

Cheers,

Dave

Lucky guy.

And stay away from me tomorrow. I should be back at it for a semblance of my commute.

Well you are in luck today is my Friday and I am off tomorrow

report the safety hazard. give the good guys a chance to correct it! who knows, you might save a life or a disfiguring injury

Back in the 1970s a bike shop owner in Ft Lauderdale, FL was going along on a Colnago with the default skinny tires/wheels, and took a header in a situation something like that. Here in FL they sometimes cut a strip out of the asphalt to lay an electrical wire in, and then cover it back up. For counting cars, checking speed ...... I don't really know why, but they will do this here and there.

So they had cut the notch and left it as is, without finishing it. He came along and his front wheel caught the notch, and over the bars he went. Landed on the point of his shoulder and broke the ball/socket. The wheel was ripped apart by the force of the sudden stop. The hell of it was, they had to re-break his shoulder because it didn't heal correctly.

I've only gone over the bars on the road twice. Bruised ribs and road rash on arms and legs the first time, broken collar bone and road rash the second. Off road I cannot count the times I've gone over the bars. Dirt is much more forgiving than asphalt if you're lucky enough to land where there are no rocks, or roots. Be careful out there.

super common with Straßenbahn tracks where they cross the roadway.

I've had something similar happen, a guy where I work has crashed twice in front of me on the road from the train station. He's got lucky since.

Are these flangeway style rails or heavy rail style? The gap should only be about 3/4 an inch, so if you're using normal tires and not skinny mini road style, you should be ok.....

- Andy

pretty easy to catch on a rail you're running parallel with even with 2" tires when wet. fatter tires do make them easier to deal with, of course.

when going across them or expansion gaps mentioned earlier in thread, cross at greatest angle you can. pop wheelie the front wheel over, then unweight the back wheel when it crosses. If you have to deal with a lot of these, consider backpack or messenger bag instead of rear panniers, as they can make efforts at unweighting rear of bike less effective.

On the plus side that obviates the need for a kickstand.

until the tram comes

Very common problem with the shared road/tram lines here in Athens.
I've seen a cyclist go down hard when his front wheel slipped into the gap and needed to be taken away in an ambulance; of course not wearing a helmet didn't help the situation.

https://www.google.gr/maps/@37.96823...!2e0!5s2009-05