Most embarrassing crash?
 

I was thinking last night about when I was at Uni about 15 years ago. I was leaving in a hurry to get somewhere & was running out of time. I was riding hard and decided to take a short cut through the Uni bar courtyard - it would be quiet at that time of day I thought. So I slowed down to make the tight turns into the courtyard, and powered into the straight thinking to myself 'nice job they've done with the new decking boards'. As I was about to leave the decked area and enter the Uni forecourt straight ahead of me, I completely failed to notice that the new decking now stepped up to meet the concrete. I'd ridden through here many times but not since they'd renovated the courtyard.

It was a short and uneventful flight. More of a brief catapulting as the bike and my person rotated around the axis of the front wheel hub.

I was lying on the ground with just enough time to register that I was lying on the ground, but not quite enough time to wonder if I was hurting anywhere when - suddenly (seemingly out of nowhere) - my bike landed on top of me. That kinda hurt. It made me groan at least. I think I might have been slightly winded too from hitting the ground.

...and then the inevitable "Are you OK?" from bystanders as the embarrassment set in and I quickly jumped up, checked myself over, assured the concerned I was OK, and checked over my bike. I was lucky I'd only got a front flat and some misaligned handlebar controls, and I had to run to my meeting, which quickly highlighted each pain in my body as the adrenaline wore off and my gait slowly degenerated into a limping jog.

Not so much the crash but the aftermath...

Back in the days when I was racing I was on a training ride around some of the local villages, on a wet day. Pushing through a corner by a farm I lost the back wheel on a patch of bovine by product and the bike went down, sliding across the road with me attached until it came to rest in a hedge. No one to witness the crash, or to help out, except for a few cows watching in bemusement over a gate, and it took a few minutes to extricate myself from the bike and the hedge (I was tightly strapped in with clips and straps, as this was before the days of Look pedals).

Standing up, making sure I still had everything attached, and straightening the bars I realised that one side of me was now plastered in the aforementioned bovine by product, that I had lost a significant amount of skin on my right leg and arm, that I had lost an even more significant area of fabric on my shorts, and that the quickest way home was through the town centre.

I went the long way home, with leg and arm feeling more painful with every extra yard. The tetanus shot from my doctor the next day was quite unpleasant too.

Reminds me of this classic thread:

https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespe...r-mishaps.html

Learning to use clipless pedals caused several embarrassing tip-overs. I recall once being on the side of the road, lying flat on my back with the bike in the air above me, because that was the only way I could get enough leverage to unclip one of my feet after going down. Cars just drove on past…

And, of course, they were a couple tip-overs in traffic, at red lights, when I forgot to unclip before stopping. Always happened right in front of a whole bunch of motorists.

Yeah, after using toe clips and straps for 25 years, clipless pedals were a bit of an adjustment for me.

I stopped for a pedestrian at a corner and somehow could not un-clip and they got a front row seat as I slowly teetered over and crunched myself.

I loosened up the clips a bunch after that .. lesson learned, check the release on new clips before giving them a spin!

Years ago, I had (stupidly) decided I was going to ride from Portland, OR to Oceanside, OR as a one-day shot, along OR6, a fairly hilly highway with marginal shoulders. Planned this ahead...I lived another 20 miles east, but drove in to a friend's house and left her and her daughter my Tercel and took off from there, with the understanding that they would meet me at ride's end, 86 miles along. I was ill-prepared, planning on buying snacks and filling water at the ma&pa store/gas-stations along the way. I started out from their house at 7am, and told them to meet me at the end around 4pm, allowing plenty of time for breaks, my plodding pace on climbs, etc.

I rode a stretch from mile 6 to mile 25 along US26...ample shoulder, once over the West Hills, pretty flat. I was flying along that, trying to gain some time, and a hawk flew right in front of me. I tracked its path, and failed to see the gnarly 2x4 across the shoulder, which I clobbered, flattening the back tire and breaking two spokes on that rim. But that wasn't the crash.

Limped into Forest Grove (where I now live) with the rear brake cable disconnected. Left the bike at a local bike shop when it opened at 9, where the owner insisted he would have the wheel back in true in an hour. I grabbed a pastry and refilled water while that was going on, and was back on the road by 10:30...only 7 miles or so off my route. I plowed my way over the Coast Range, making worse time than expected, and having lost a couple hours to boot. Back then, I wasn't good at refueling or staying hydrated, and it'd be safe to say I was throughly bonked as I pulled into Tillamook, about 10 miles from Oceanside. This was around 3pm..astonishingly, I was close to making it to the goal by 4. There was an ugly hill or two left to cross, but it seemed vaguely possible to my addled mind, even if I had to walk them.

Betty and daughter passed me right as I crossed US101 in Tillamook. They pulled over in front of the town hardware store to check on me. I was eyeing the hardware store, trying to decide if they would have some energy snack that I could quickly pop in and consume before going on, and didn't notice them swoop in. Ran into the back of my own car at 7mph or so. That taco'ed the front wheel, I got slightly scraped up. End of ride. Threw the bike in through the hatchback, and let Betty drive us on back while I recovered.

I was on a casual little ride with a girl I fancied.

While changing lanes, I got my front wheel into an expansion gap in the pavement. I hit the ground hard, nearly took her out, and almost rolled into traffic.

When I got up, my shorts were so torn that my goodies were exposed to the world.

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This doesn't sound like any rom-com I've ever seen.

In college I borrowed my brother's bike to go to school & work one morning. My brother's bike had issues. One was the front brake lever was loose. Coming off at inopportune times.

That morning it popped off and was dangling in the front spokes. In a hurry to get to class I kept pedalling, leaned way over the front wheel, cursing and tried to pull the lever out of the wheel. Of course it turned so it was completely across the spokes. Followed the rotation of the tire to the forks. The wheel came to a complete stop. The bike and I did not. Face plant. Of course this was right in front of a cute girl walking to class herself.

Scraped off a lot of the outer layer of skin on the right side of my face. Somehow I got my thumb under my chin, trying to get my hands in front of my face; so the chin was unscraped. Not so my thumb. My face was grotesque for several weeks.

Ran over a Biden/Harris sign just off an MUP trail while being distracted looking at my GPS. A couple saw me as I flipped over. Would have made a great "instant karma" video had anyone been recording

Was riding the MUP during a very early morning & as I was casually rolling along I noticed a person with a 4-leg cane walking my way. I could have sped up to go over the pedestrian wooden bridge to let them walk by, but instead I did a soft turn just before the wooden bridge. That soft turn meant I had to do a downward turn over a mild "speed bump". Before I knew it, I was on my side & busted my pride.
The person never went over the bridge, they did a turn before it & went down the sidewalk. They got to see a young buck take a fall, & just walked on. Glad I pack a small first aid kit. Taped up the bleeding hand, straightened the bar & components, did a quick assessment, then I rolled on.

have a few low speed crashes while doing a 180, at almost zero speed

Genius thread!

Clipped a pole that is in the center of the bike path. they had not had it up for awhile no clue how I missed it. i think the peddles hit it not sure. saddest part it was a tandem and it got me and my wife.

I was riding with my sister last spring and leading. I thought she knew to turn right, but I wasn't clear. I turned and she was on my inside but kept going straight. At the time we were going like 4mph.

She fell awkwardly and broke her tailbone. I didn't even realize she had run into my bike.
After a few minutes of rest she rode the last 8mi home, broken tailbone and all.

Pretty damn frustrating.

When I was 11 yrs old, my friends and I were playing around at a construction site. Long story short: something bad happened, I was hurt, we all knew we'd get in trouble if our parents knew what we'd been doing...So they put me on my bike, gave me a push, and I rode the three blocks back to my house -- with terrific difficulty and pain.

The next day, still in great pain, my mom took me to the doctor. Turned out I had broken my hip.

I entangled a shoelace so badly around the pedal and crank that the only way out was to lean to the side and fall to the ground to get the mess resolved. These days I stop turning cranks the moment I sense that something is not right there and I also tie the shoelaces with a double knot. On another occasion I ran at a full speed against a cloth hose delivering water to some road construction and expected the hose just to yield to my wheel. The hose turned out to be hard as a rock and I flew up in the air over the handlebars. There was a period when I was getting quite good in the flying :rolleyes:

If someone who works for the Hallmark Channel reads this thread it will become one.

I've had quite a few over the years.

One that comes to mind is I took a long hiatus from riding BMX. So when I finally bought one again the first thing I did was run down to the Skate Park to try it out. I wanted to start out with what USED to be basic easy tricks for me but turned out my balance just isn't there anymore. I was trying to do a trick called a tail whip and splat I landed on the pavement with the wind knocked out of me. But basically unhurt. Just about every kid in the park turned around in sheer horror and came up to me "Mr, are you OK?" , "Do you need a Ambulance?" "Old people need to be more careful". :lol:

Ohmigod I had no idea that thread even existed.

THANK YOU LOLOLOL :lol:

No chit there I was riding down rail trail with my brand new Trek 5200 watching a lady load her bike when I hit one of the bollards that prevent cars from driving on the trail..I had some great parts to transfer afterwards.

It's been a long time, so I don't remember all the details, but one time I was riding along and I was carrying something bulky and awkward, which forced me to ride one-handed. I was coming up behind a car parked on the side of the road and right at that moment there was a car approaching from the opposite direction. For some reason, I couldn't stop (or couldn't reach the brake) so my choices were to play chicken with the approaching car or go to the right and go around the parked car but most likely go off the road and into the ditch. So I wound up in the ditch.... Unhurt but scratched up.

Teaching my young niece how to ride a bike at the local sports oval with lots of onlookers. She got the wobbles and was about to bin it. I tried to run to help her, problem was I was also riding and was clipped in. I binned it too as I forgot to unclip. Not learning from the first time I did this, it happened again about 5 minutes later. I then put my bike away and walked fast as she rode.