russhawk

hi all, really like this forum idea, lots easier to read than a chat room. Anyway, let me describe my worst bicycle accident to you. When I was 12, i was pedaling down a very steep street, the decline was over 100 feet, spanning over 6 blocks. My house was on the right at the bottom of the hill, and my friends house was across the street to the left. I was pedaling my new BMX (82) as fast as it would go down the hill, probably reaching about 25-30 mph at the time, well, i was just about to lean toward home when my friend yelled for me to come over to his house, well, I leaned the other way, and tapped my brakes, but being brand new, the paint stuck to the brakes and temporarily locked up, which put my bike on its side with me on it, hurtling toward the curb at breakneck speed. the tires first hit the curb, and then i hit the bike, which occured 0.000004 seconds apart from each other. This sent me sailing in a 45 degree angle over the curb and sidewalk, with my bike seat firmly entrenched where the sun wasn't supposed to shine. I landed (measured it later) 32 feet from my spot of impact. I just laid there for a while, hoping that the pain would go away, or I would just die, one of the two. But I finally picked myself up and walked my BMXPOS over to my house. Never did find out what my friend wanted, as the accident scared him so bad, he ran off. Some friend huh? Mom took me to the hospital, but all they could find was remnants of my bike seat, and no broken bones.

Now I know that this story is nothing compared to some of your accidents, so lets hear them.

RoAdRaGeR

How did my worst accident occur? Well here goes.....
I was sleeping one night in my bed when CIA agents abducted me from my home. They took me to headquarters in Langley, Virginia. There, they drugged me up on LSD and some mind control drugs. Next thing I know, I was riding with rush hour traffic down the Beltway, when a big Semi hit the back of my bike sending me tumbling off the bike and rolling to a dead stop in the middle of this highway. And then it happened. A school bus loaded with children ran over my cranium, crushing it like how a sludge hammer would crush a watermelon! There was a big blood streak all over the Beltway that day. But my doctors were very skilled at what they do, and I recieved a skull and brain transplant from an african gorilla. I may look weird, but who cares! It's all good

russhawk

nah, seriously, i would like to know how bad you all have wiped out. I wasn't able to ride for a couple years after my accident, and then when I was able to ride, it made the small of my back hurt severely. I was not willing to get on a bike until I saw the dual suspension models come out. I test rode one and could not beleive how comfy they were, I now have the joy back for riding that I did as a kid. Whoever said that DS bikes aren't for in town and normal riding abviously don't have a bad back. I have noticed that since i have been able to ride again, that my back has become a lot stronger, any feelings or thoughts on this, care to enlighten us with your rehab or worst wreck.???

Stor Mand

2 incidents that I can think of - sorry for the length.

Not an awful crash but here goes nothing. Many years ago on my 10-speed, I was pedaling my arss off down a hill. As the road started to flatten, my speed was probably 35-ish, when this nice person in a pick-up, kindly sqeezed me to the curb. The bike met the curb, thus tossing me to the stoney springtime pavement. Did a nice belly slide with a little roll at the end. It could have been far worse had I landed on my head. The bike was totalled - needed new wheels, pedals, handle bars, breaks, etc.
Road rash really bites also. It's not just sand that you need to scrape off - sometimes there are good sized stones under the skin, that just happen to look like grains of sand at first glance, needing to be dug out. I didn't ride again for quite a while.

The next lovely incident happened a couple years later when I borrowed a bike from a relative. The brakes worked when I left but failed when a car was backing out of a blind driveway. I was carrying probably 25 mph and had plenty of time to stop if the brakes worked. They failed to function at which point I tried to swerve around the car. The bike lost traction and the bike & I slid into the side of the car, leaving both wheels and my legs under the car. Luckily he stopped moving. I think the driver got more of a scare than I, not because he feared a law suit (there wasn't much of that then) but more over concern that I might have been hurt. My injuries were minor but I shyed away from riding for a while.

LittleBigMan

Russhawk,

This is not my worst, but it reminds me of yours.

I was lusting after a steep hill (path) at the bottom was a creek/bridge. As I zoomed down it, everything was bouncing in my vision like some crazy earthquake!

I hit the wooden bridge at the bottom and bouced off both sides, and crashed in the grass.

(I respect downhills, now...)

bikeman

Lets see. I have a number of wipeouts.

Old Trek steel bike that had downtube shifters. I'd ridden 25 miles to the start of club ride. While leaving with my friends the shifter for the rear was loose and flipped downward at a six o'clock position. When I went to turn the front wheel it hit the shifter and I smacked down hard on the pavement in the middle of an intersection. Hurt my neck, skinned my knee, but was far from home. I did the club ride with blood trickling down my knee, then road home and had a good 75 mile ride. I was much younger then.

Story number two: Commuting back from work on my way home. Traffic was heavy and I took a few shortcuts, one of them on a sidewalk (I'll never do that again). As I came to a cross walk at an exit from a strip mall, a pregnant woman was doing a "right turn on red" and smacked me down onto the pavement and out into the street. Bent my wheel, and screwed up my neck (again) for a few days. She stopped of course, and was white as a sheet and shaking like crazy. Then I felt bad and thought "man I hope she doesn't have this kid in the parking lot". She actually called me up three days later to see if I was OK and needed anything. My cynical side (which is huge by the way) thought she was probably trying to avoid a lawsuit. I recovered.

Third story: Commuting home from work (another job and location), came around a corner on a quiet street, caught my front wheel in a deep trench-like cut in the road left over from sewer repair and down I went. Long story, but basically was knocked out cold, had a convulsion while passing out (I remember that part), neighborhood girl and her mother found me and called 911. I broke my collarbone, messed up my hip, and was sore as hell for weeks. Took 6 weeks to get over the break and a year to get over the weird feelings of dread in my head. Strangest thing was that I totally lost all desire to eat chocolate and could not stand the taste of coffee. Both of those had been favorites before the crash. Thankfully that only lasted a year or so. I'm back to full strength espresso and like those brownies

I probably sound like "Crash-prone Guy" but those are minor incidents compared to others I've seen and heard about. Great lessons learned from my experiences though and I'm a better and more careful rider as a result. Oh I forgot about last summer when the dog that chased a bunch of riders and I was at the back and he cut me off I went down in a major flip, missed the mailbox at the side of the road and tore up my knee pretty badly. As a result I basically hate all dogs on the loose. They and their owners all deserve time in jail or a morgue.

I guess that isn't too bad considering I've been riding for over 35 years.

Be careful out there.

oxologic

Hey Bikeman, a really cool pic you are using there. Anyway, I don't think any of my accidents are really big deal. The worst one probably would be the one I mentioned in my Cornering Safety thread. I really slide across with my hands a couple of inches. Didn't really hurt that badly, luckily my face wasn't bruised. The other time, my mother's friend fell and slide across just by walking and her whole face was like ......... Think you get the idea.

goodcatjack

ah, man, this is a good thread; nothing like war stories ...

this was a good number of years ago. I was hauling a$$ to school to get a paper done on time when I decided the traffic in that two lane road was too much, and I pulled onto the sidewalk. yeah, you know what happened next: a car pulled out of a blind driveway, I slammed on the brakes, went over the handlebars, bounced on my helmet and hit the car's left front quarter panel with my back, upside down. Left an Alex-sized dent. It hurt like hell, but looking down at my bloody fingertip I figured I could walk it off. I was more interested, in a numb, abstract way, about how I managed to tear off a cap of skin on my fingertip exactly like those days in grade school when I'd put glue all over my finger and then peel it off, carefully, in the shape of my finger.

I don't remember doing it, but the driver and I exchanged info and I went on to school. A friend in the computer lab finally convinced me to go the hospital where it turned out that I'd given myself a lovely compression fracture of the 12th thoracic vertebra, which is pretty much the middle of the back. Any higher and I would have folded myself in half, backwards. Spent several weeks in a brace until the bone re-ossified in its new shape.

Nowadays I'm a much more careful rider.

(and FYI, that friend who took me to the hospital went on to Duke Medical School.)

-alex

TotalKos

OK let me say, first off that I was a crazy kid. I mean I did some messed up stuff as as child. I probably should have been on one of those talk shows. I always had a bike (crappy tire ones). They almost always were called "War Machines". I didn't respect my bikes (or pretty much anything else, for that matter). I always took off brakes (for fun) and crashed into stuff on purpose.

Now, for my worst and most enjoyable crash: I was riding through High Park on my way home from a baseball game I was playing in. I was also doubleriding a friend at the time (I once had nine humans on my bike at once). Anyways, we are going down a path that joined another path like a T. Can U see where this is going? Going straight down (Woodchip path) about 30mph. Brief indecision about which way to turn. Split second I was going to go left. My friend says go right. That small hesitation sent myself the bike and my friend tumbling. All I can see is legs, and wheels, and arms, and metal, and heads. Yes we were tumbling all together. We finally stopped just a couple feet from a small cliff that would have plumeted us into the river.

I say it was the worse because if it had been pavement instead of woodchips there would almost definately had been some broken bones. It was the most enjoyable because other than being dirty as hell (and shaken up) we were fine. We actually just lay there laughing like clowns for ten minutes.

The War Machine stood up to it's name and we were able to get back on and double ride the rest of the way home.

WOW that was fun. I wish I was 15 again. Stuff just doesn't hurt when you're that young.

MediaCreations 

A couple of years ago I was cycling right across Australia. About half way, one of the guys in our group of over 30 decided to reach into his back pocket for a banana. He got his hand caught, lost control and brought several of us down.

He broke bones, as did one other rider. I ended up with scrapes on both knees, both hands, big bruise on my shoulder, lots of skin off the face and a wonderful black eye. I was still able to get back on and complete the ride. We did a total of 203 km that day.

MichaelW

Ive had one car take me out from an off side(not curbside) turning as I was riding down the middle of my lane.
I find that the further you travel after a crash, the less your injuries.
Ive had some close calls with kids riding brakeless bikes along the sidewalk across junctions I am trying to get out of. Usually these are at the bottom of a hill.

My last close call was riding along some empty sidealk late at nigh to avoid 2 right hand side turns (UK, so = LHS US turns).
A car comes out of a road junction opposite, then drives right across the road and into a driveway in front of me. I had to do an emergency stop. He must have seen all my lights and reflective stuff in his headlamps, but didnt stop for me.
Im so paranoid these days, that I have more emergency stops than crashes. We dont like the word "accident."

Bikes-N-Drums

1985: I was sprinting my cruddy little Mongoose mtn bike to an agreed-upon location between my friends and I. We had different ideas as to which way would be quickest, so we split up and pedaled like hell to the destination. I tried to bank sharply at an intersection when the bike hit an oil patch and dropped me. I rolled with the bike through the intersection right as my cronies were coming up the hill. Apparently, it was some sight as they laughed like hell. This taught me to ride with a helmet and a shirt on at all times.

1996: I crashed in my own gravel driveway. Sounds stupid, huh? I was about to turn into my driveway at a fair pace (17mph). I had to navigate around my neighbor's van which was always parked at the very end of the driveway except this time, there was company over and their car was parked directly adjacent to the van and out of my view. When I banked into the turn and saw the car I tried to steer sharply but my tires were already on the gravel. They stuck and I went over the top of the bars, landing in the driveway with most of my weight on my ribs, two of which broke. I've suffered chronic back pain since this incident and a recent MRI has revealed 2 herniated disks which I may have been walking around with since the incident. The bike was fine. Like the other accident, the people outside at the apartment complex across the street who witnessed it just laughed and laughed and laughed.

Pat

I was on a long ride. It would have been 70 miles had a I finished. I was with "R" and "L" and I was doing most of the pulling. At anyrate, I came off the pull, and "R" pushed it up to 25. There was a fair bit of traffic so we were squeezed over a bit. "R" neglected to mention or avoid a patch of bad pavement and potholes. "L" yelled "pothole" at the last second. I could not see up ahead. And I did not have time to react and I knew my only chance was to ride straight and hope for the best. I felt the handlebars twitch and then the impact.

I ended up injured side up about 15' off the road. I gone over the bars and landed on my right temple (caving in my helmet), I then hit on the back of my right shoulder and right arm. I just lay there awhile. I hurt too much to move. After awhile, I was able to get up. I was hoping to finish the ride but it was apparant that that was a patent impossibility. A guy with a van stopped and gave me the 20 mile lift to home. See not all motorists are cogenital jerks.

From home I went to an urgent care place. They were dealing with colds and flus so I was the high point of the day. The nurse who took the XRays knew her stuff and took good ones. I had a broken collar bone (clavical), a broken shoulder blade (scapula), and two nasty breaks in the elbow (ulna) right at the proximal end (the joint). I had a nice gouge in my shoulder over the clavical. The nurse cleaned it out with hydrogen peroxide (which fizzes out the dirt), betadine and something abrasive. They asked me if it hurt - I suppose they thought they should use a topical anesthetic before they fooled with it. Well, I don't have a really high pain threshold. It would have hurt a lot had that been the only thing. But with all the other injuries I had, my nervous system seemed to not even worry about that one. Interestingly enough, the torn muscles in my arm and shoulder and torso caused far more pain then the broken bones did.

By the way, I did not have any head injury. Not even a headache. The helmet gave me about 100% protection on that one and on the initial impact. The second impact caused 4 fractures. I am not saying that the helmet saved my life or anything, but I figure I got my money's worth on that one. I had enough injuries for one day.

Three days later I had an operation to repair the joint - they stuck a 110 mm stainless steel wood screw up the bone to hold the bones together and a figure eight wire (sort of like bailing wire) wrapped around the bone to keep it from flooping around. Looked impressive in the XRays. And I was not even offered the option of a titanium upgrade!

lotek 

I was riding home on my daily commute of 7 miles when this
bimbo in a 72 Dodge Challenger pulls up beside me. She
looks at me as the light changes. As I was over to the right and
there was a car turning left up ahead I took off huggin the curb
and avoiding the debris as best I could. Next thing I know she is
moving right to go around a car turning left (on a 2 lane road),
she pushes me into the curb, where my wheel catches and
torques me back towards her car. Somehow I managed to put
my hand out and avoid going under, but my glove caught her
tire and spun me off. I ended up sprawled on the road, my
elbow the size of a grapefruit. Needless to say she kept right
on. I did catch her plate number as did a car behind her,
who saw the whole thing. I had a deep contusion to my elbow,
lots of road rash and a 2 inch gash in my helmet (I have no idea
where that came from). I walked the rest of the way home, my
frame vaguely resembling a peice of modern sculpture, and called
the police. After ER etc. when we got to court the bimbo claimed
that she never saw me, or knew she hit me. The police photo's
of her car clearly showed handprints sliding down the side
of the car (towards the wheel). Of course she had no insurance
a suspended license. Her lawyer tried to say that I should have been on the sidewalk,
the judge said a bike is a vehicle its obvious
she ran me off the road and convicted her of felony hit and run
(in Virginia hit and run with injury is a felony).
That was about 22 years ago and I've been lucky since
(touch wood!).
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it!
Marty

Anders K

So far, so good. No major accidents as adult. When I was a kid the worst accident I had was when trying to ride a looong staircase, I made it all the way down but unfortunatley not on the bike Hurt myself pretty good that time, but no broken bones

Anders K
Sweden

horton

Cruising along the road I noticed a rattle coming from my crank, I looked down to see what the problem was and crash straight into a parked car.

I landed with my face on the windscreen.

Lost half a tooth, cut my mouth and side of my face.

I wasnt that concerned about the pain, I just felt like a fool because it was my fault.

fietser_ivana

Since I never had many dramatic falls I'll report all of them...

11 y.o. As a child I never really had any incidents,but for once when I challenged a girl in my class when I was about 11 y.o. that I could ride faster than she did.. I crashed (nothing hurt except bruises and pride) and that was the end of my trial to go fast...

During my secondary school period, my commute was even shorter than to primary school.. nothing happened.

1997: My first crash came when I had just acquired a new bicycle (custom fit!) and was trying out the bar end commanders.. I looked down and failed to see that I was going off the bike path . As you all know, trying to get back on the road with the front wheel while the rear is still on the path, is not a good idea.
This happened to me twice and both times I was sent flying forwards.. nothing damaged..

June 1999 : light touch from a car's mirror, caused me to crash.. touched frame with left knee and hit road with right knee. This damaged the cranks beyond repair. The tricky part was that it happened during a qualifying brevet of 600K in France and I still had to ride 400K more.. I managed to buy new cranks and finish in time.. whew.. knees hurt when sitting on them for another year. Bad news was that police refused to take statement AFTER the ride and the insurance refused to pay claiming it had been a road race.. (which it was not).

July 1999: when cycling calmly in Sweden, a piece of road was separated with concrete blocks to make it into a bike path. well, when these disappeared I moved to the left and consulted the map on my bar bag.. next moment I had crashed into a perpendicular concrete block which sent me flying in a somersault over the bars and I landed on my back. I lost my consciousness for half an hour.. luckily I wasn't alone and a passing motorist brought me to the hospital for observation... it had the interesting side effect of having my heart rate recorded every hour, so I finally knew my minimum HR really was an amazing 32bpm.

April 2002: got off the railway station and eager to get home, crossed a road that is normally not very busy, to turn left, and failed to see a car coming from the right.. nothing bad, except that the car driver hadn't indicated he was turning left, into my path... I flew onto the hood... but nothing was hurt, or so it seems, though perhaps my ankle was hurt. Hard to say, as I managed to trip off a kerb 2 weeks later and had a bone bruise on the same foot.

Part of the right pedal broke off though. I've received this guy's business card and sent him a note telling him he should pay 12,5 euro (costs for replacing the pedal)... he still hasn't done this.. though he had promised to visit this week.. I've spent another 3 euro just to call him :-( .

Nothing really amazing ... I must say that one of the reason for DNFing Paris-Brest-Paris in 1999 was a fear to crash on one of the many steep hills.. a few people broke a collar bone, and one guy even a hip.. the former DNFed , the latter finished!! Amazing, no?

Fietser Ivana

russhawk

wow, some pretty bad road rash happening out there, just getting this thread going again, hope to get some more war stories on it, thanx to all that have contributed so far.

uhm...yea.

heh heh heh. well, lets see:

at the age of 12(I turned 13 a couple weeks after, in the hospital), i got hit by a car doing about 40MPH, while i was doing about 30MPH. head on. Broke my leg. Spent 5 weeks in the hospital in traction. Another 7 weeks in a half body cast (I got a couple of people to try to punch me in the gut with it on though ) didn't get off the crutches for about 3 months after that, due to the atrophy in my leg, and was dragging my leg around for another 2 months after that. didn't get back on a bike for about 9 months from the crash. The suprising part was that I wasn't wearing a helmet, and I didn't even get a concussion.

at the age of 16, I was coming down about a 22% grade, at about 25 MPH. I needed to turn halfway down the hill, wiht an immediate 35% grade right after the turn. I tried to do it with only my left hand. as i went into the 35% grade, my front wheel wobbled, and i layed my bike down, frontside. landing on my top front teeth. Shattered both. They're both caps now. Still hadn't learned to ride with a helmet. I do now, though.

oceanrider

Picture this: 5 year old girl on first two wheeler with training wheels flying down long driveway (or at least it seemed long at 5 yo). Car coming down street. Little girl seeing car panics and freezes. Little girl on bike with training wheels makes contact with moving car running into passenger side door. No broken bones but very very frightened and a bit skinned up.

Then at 12, I was riding out of the saddle descending a bridge pedaling at a fast cadence. My foot slipped off the pedal and I fell on the step through portion of the frame. I continued to roll down the bridge on my legs. Can you say road rash?

Age 19, I'm cut off by my husband. Panicking (like I did at 5 yo above), I freeze and run into huge curb. Went flying over handle bars landing in a bed of soft green grass. I was fine but the front wheel was crunched and the fork bent.

Three's a charm they say.

Kathy

russhawk

I think that oceanrider has won so far with her three horrific crashes, anybody else?

fietser_ivana

Would you know that I forgot one crash:
September 2001

Was cycle touring the 100 mtn pass route in France. On my umpteenth pass, I noticed that my brakes no longer functioned.
I had worn out a pair of Koolstop brake pads and had them replaced a couple of days before.
However, it started raining a bit and I was descending a 10% grade pass with lots of hair pins...
This was one of the scariest crashes actually as I saw it coming from afar... I didn't know what to do, just froze.. rather than leaning the bike in such an angle that I'd crash no matter what..
Instead I managed 2 hair pins and then could no longer hold the bike, which crashed into an earthen wall.
With bloodshot eyes (a twig had hurt my eye) I continued, partly walking, partly cycling.. my bike seemed ok.
The worst part was that the next place to stay was already full, so I had to cycle another half an hour before reaching another hotel (this was the only hotel I stayed in during the entire trip.. the other nights were all either with acquaintances, in a youth hostel or in my tent).
The damage only showed 7 months later, when I was casually told by a bike mechanic that the down tube of the frame had a slight bulge and would break in a few months/years.. :confused:

Um, am going on a 3 mo. trip first, but will have the frame replaced in 2003.

Ivana

fietser_ivana

And a p.s.
A few days after the incident I found the Koolstop pads, but even those didn't work as well as before.. so when I returned home, I acquired V-brakes.
It seems that cantilever brakes and ceramic rims don't combine well once the first layer of the rim has been worn off...

That was SCARY guys/gals, to not know this before!!!

orguasch

My worst accident, cycling related accident, When the wifey found out that i have a $3,500.00 bike,

fietser_ivana

Indeed, very , very naughty of you!
Canadian or US dollars? My last bike cost me 2800 euro's / 2600 USD. The worst news was when I read that an aluminium frame won't last as long as a steel one.. I'd better not crash with that one!

Ivana