livedarklions

I think OP has made themself the hero of their own narrative, and is rather disappointed that we're not saluting them for routinely dumping their bike.

Maelochs

@delbiker1 -----I think you answer your own question: "I was a wrestler, and through practice and experience, learned how to fall, but, only through experience does one gain mind and muscle memory to stay loose and not panic."

I learned while practicing martial arts, and doing break-falls---"crashing" deliberately and in a controlled fashion so that I might develop some instincts for the times that were uncontrolled.

Like you I find that most of my crashes came too unexpectedly or happened too quickly to respond to or to respond to effectively---though possibly if I kept up my training it would help. Still I find I almost always try even a little to turn with or roll with or somehow mitigate any impacts .... not sure there is much anyone can do in most situations, but I think maybe some of what I have done has helped a little.

Whatever .....

livedarklions

Aren't the real ways to minimize damage from the landing to keep yourself from throwing your arms out and bracing? Seems to me the muscle memory we get as cyclists by keeping our balance is basic to the activity of riding, and trying to keep the bike upright right up to the actual crash will probably put you in the best position when you do land.

I don't think there's any effective strategy for dealing with the bike flying laterally from under you on a slippery surface. That puts people on the ground so fast that there's no time to react in any way, and you're going to land on your side no matter what you do.

MaxKatt

He shoulda aimed for the bush.

He can cheer up too. Coulda been worse if a car were coming.

rsbob 

My first 5 years of full time MTB were full of crashes. If I wasn’t bleeding or bruised I felt like I wasn’t pushing hard enough. Never broke anything but hit a tree at 15 MPH with my right shoulder which put me flat on my back in a nano-second with the wind knocked out. I was thrilled I could move my toes and fingers the impact was so hard. Took six months of therapy to recover. Since that crash I backed off and would crash only one time out of each five runs which lasted for three more years until I seriously screwed up my back lifting something way too heavy. Stopped MTB after that because my back would always hurt for days after each outing, Not worth it, so back to road biking. It was a good run while it lasted.

beng1

I think early in the thread, the gentleman who had years of Judo practice, building an instinct and reflex on doing it with no injury, is about the best training so far.
As far as losing the bike on a slippery surface goes, I think it makes a lot of difference which end of the bike slides out first, the front or back. Which end of the bike loses traction first depends 100% of the cornering style of the rider as long as the entire surface of the road is equally wet and slippery, this of course does not apply to a small oil-slick etc..

A group of kids in my town, one of which is a very good friend of mine, trained themselves to throw their bicycles into sideways slides on dry pavement at will in either direction, just as an ice-skater will throw their skates sideways and skid to a full and fast stop. A former Grand-National champion dirt-tracker in the USA named Carroll Resweber used the same method to bring his Harley-Davidson KR dirt-tracker to a slower speed or to a stop, throwing the brakeless machine sideways on the dirt-track to scrub off speed in a 100% controlled manner.

Anyone can ride 7000 miles without crashing their bicycle, their automobile, anyone can go through life without getting any STDs, trying LSD or getting their stomach pumped from alcohol poisoning etc.. I sure as heck don't want to be one of them or even hang out with any of them either. I have a friend who just about died climbing ice-cliffs a year ago, broke his whole body and is full of pins and took many months to get back on his feet. He is going back to ice-climbing this winter 100% for sure. And I am going to try that section of trail on my MTB I did not have the guts to go for last season after I walk it a few times and train myself as to what it needs and what it will take.

This thread is for people who are interested in living, not being the walking dead.

livedarklions

Well, keep it up and you likely won't be walking (if living), so there's that.

​​​​​Enjoy getting your stomach pumped.

BTW, this is the General Cycling forum, and you specifically mentioned having many road crashes.

And sorry, but this attitude in your 60s sounds like you're inviting permanent placement in some kind of facility.

koala logs

We all have different ways of trying to feel alive. Mine is eating red hot chili peppers and dreaming about an alien invasion when having my recovery sleep.

livedarklions

Don't wash your hands after cutting the peppers up and later you can simulate having a STD. OP seems to think that's a rite of passage.

Badger6

Don’t do it. How is this a thread of this length…I’ll see myself out now.

koala logs

I don't see his point of not wanting to associate with someone who did 7000 miles without crashing. If you wish to crash at least once in every 7000 miles, you need to ride beyond your abilities or deliberately ride in an unsafe manner.

OP's last post definitely sounds encouraging riding in an unsafe manner and should have this thread locked or even better, deleted. Even if you're the best stuntman in the world, crashing in public roads at high speeds presents so many variables, you can't account for all of them.

Kapusta

As someone who (as I mentioned earlier) pushes the boundaries on my MTB and have accepted crashes as an accepted part of the game, I had some empathy towards your point of view.

(I should also mention that I broke my back snowboarding, yet continued to ride at a higher level for years after that All this to say that I am not particularly risk-averse)

Then I read this post and realize that you simply do not differentiate calculated risk taking from immature, adolescent stupidity. To put an ice climbing injury in the same category as alcohol poisoning and getting an STD is quite telling.

There is nothing life affirming about getting alcohol poisoning, STDs, or wrecking your car. Yes, some of us did stupid things in our adolescence, including me, and it was perhaps just dumb luck that I never got my stomach pumped and never had a serious accident. But that was me being a stupid young man. To be in middle age and still be proud of that sort of stuff or think it makes someone cool is pretty sad.

livedarklions

I've avoided saying anything at all about MTB because I admittedly know next to nothing about it. I totally get that frequency of falls in that activity is high, and I'm only suggesting that people need to know there's a certain amount of irreducible hazard when they choose to do it, not that I think they shouldn't. But OP posted about crashing on roads often, and I don't think that's likely a matter of "pushing the envelope" so much as really bad judgment and technique. Routine crashing is not the norm at any level of road biking.

I'm not saying people can't choose to engage in high-risk road biking, but I think it's likely delusional to think that you can learn to land a crash in a way that minimizes risk. In the context of road biking where you're also dealing with the random but frequent appearance of heavy motorized vehicles, the concept is a lot worse than silly.


OP is mistaking me for saying "don't do dangerous stuff" when I'm actually saying "don't think learning judo is going to keep your 60+ year old cyclist body from breaking bones when you crash". His response is to insult me for not wanting to break my bones or get the clap or something. Pretty weird.

Ironfish653

Pretty much this ^^^
As long as the wheels are on the ground, KEEP RIDING THE BIKE! Started with BMX, then moved up to MTBs and Motos. As the bikes get bigger and speeds get higher, letting go of the bars becomes a worse and worse idea. Throwing a hand out, you give up your steering, brakes (and throttle) in exchange for a sprained/broken wrist. Kicking a foot out or 'dabbing' might be enough to save it, but only if you've still got control of the bars.
Stay with the bike, stay loose (flexed but not floppy) and you might even ride it out.

I don't know who said they "learned to "lay it down" if they were going to hit something, but that is such a dumb idea. "Laying it down" means that you've decided to initiate a crash rather than attempt to avoid it (and maybe make it) I don't know if that's more of a reflection of the bike's handling capability or the rider's skill level.
I'll take a slim chance of making it, over a 100% decision to hit the deck, every time.

livedarklions

I just want to go on record to say I've never had my stomach pumped.

Kapusta

“Laying it down” is something you do on a motorcycle, not a bicycle. At least not on purpose.

livedarklions

This is still about getting an STD, right?

beng1

My crash last November 27th where I tore my ACL, set my training back a few months, it was just that easy! ;

koala logs

Why the feck did you crash there?

You don't seem too fast and it didn't seem like you rolled on anything that can cause a crash. Ice patch or perhaps, or you're actually going a lot faster than it looks like on the video and you skidded on the wet parts of the road?

Kapusta

Well that is what you get for riding in the Penny Farthing lane.

Jeff Neese

To think that you can stop a bicycle faster with only the front brake, than with both front and rear together? Actually, it is ridiculous.

LarrySellerz

You might not trust me but maybe youll trust sheldon brown Braking and Turning Your Bicycle (sheldonbrown.com)

Maximum Deceleration--Emergency Stops

The fastest that you can stop any bike of normal wheelbase is to apply the front brake so hard that the rear wheel is just about to lift off the ground. In this situation, the rear wheel cannot contribute to stopping power, since it has no traction.


Most people are terrible at emergency stops and use the back brake far too much. Removing it from the equation can force one to learn how to properly emergency stop

Jeff Neese

This.

I have a black belt in Aikido and have also practiced a lot of Judo. I have performed thousands and thousands of rolls, and also what are called breakfalls. If I crash, I tend to believe that my muscle memory is still there and that I will INSTINCTIVELY perform a roll or breakfall. That's what I want to believe will happen, but there will be no thinking about it. Once I come to a stop after a crash, I'll figure out then whether I either did or did not perform one of those. But that will be after the fact.

Just "practicing" rolling or falling a certain way won't do you much good. The crash will happen in a split second and there will be no time to remember what you practiced and try to apply it. You will do whatever your muscle memory is trained to do. For example, the only way you won't put your hand down to try to stop your fall (and break your arm) is if you've drilled those breakfalls so many times that it becomes your automatic reaction. It takes a lot of repetitions to train muscle memory. Unless you're a martial artist, you're unlikely to have performed enough rolls and falls to accomplish that.

So the best advice is to not crash. Of course wear a helmet. And have good health insurance, just in case.

koala logs

I'm afraid to say that Larry is right about using only the front brake to stop in the shortest distance possible in a bicycle.

I also read from another article, different author saying about the same thing. And from personal experience as well.

However, braking to the point where the rear wheel is almost fully unloaded also makes the bike quite unstable and at the brink of the rear wheel sliding out or the rider doing an endo even if you don't engage the rear brake. The best way to deal with the situation is avoid getting yourself in situations where you need to emergency brake in the first place. Ride defensively and safely.

LarrySellerz

Thats really rough that you tore your ACL from that crash... sorry about that. I too find that knees are the most common "injury" I get when crashing. Lots of sideways forces applied. Dont really have any advice for avoiding this, does being clipped in make it worse?