grom

Hey Liz, on the off chance you read this, I hope you get back on the bike soon.

Best wishes!

gsteinb

Any time anyone crashes it's a drag, but I'm pretty sure some other folks crashed this weekend. Am I really supposed to care more because she has big cans? What an enlightened society.

bdcheung

^^ nobody's telling you how you should feel, nor is anyone forcing you to keep clicking into this thread.

substructure

Jugs not cans. Big difference.

gsteinb

Right, and no one is telling you to care about what I post. We all make choices.

botto 

sure?

RoboCheme

If this was a crash, how come the front wheel isn't trashed? What this just a case of the fork failing by itself? In other words, how do you crash and cause the fork to fail, while everything else looks OK?

gsteinb

Hey man, while I'm all for playing 'lets dump on Liz Hatch,' it's kind of messed up to call it a publicity stunt

RoboCheme

I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm just wondering how this happened. Do I have to worry about my fork failing while I'm riding along? I have enough to worry about

substructure

Positive. It's the girl in the pic I posted. That was a photo from the event.

dmb2786

yes

Hammertoe

Lots of debris on the road...

Could have been a stick she picked up and sheered the fork...

Maybe a squirrel (anybody look around for road kill)...

BigSean

At this point there is nothing I can find to explain that. She does not remember much right now. However there was some mention of pine needles on the road and a cattle grate crossing.

save10

seriously

botto 

you're the one posting pics of girls, not me.

BigSean

Ok, here is what happened from Liz's Blog on Missing Saddle:

I was participating in the “Ride the Route” fundraiser for the Women’s Tour Of California Criterium. It left from Santa Rosa and went to Calistoga and then doubled back to Santa Rosa. I arrived a bit late due to traffic and was attempting to catch the main group with few friends. On the last descent into Calistoga I was a bit off the front and enjoying a great time down the hill when I came up on a corner full of pine needles a bit too quickly (understatement) and my only choice was to try to lay the bike out or hit the guardrail… Apparently the second choice was better (???) and I went head first into it at 45k. Specialized helmets, THANK YOU! Also, ROOLY glasses!!! I am so glad I was wearing those things, they kept my eyes protected and all of the dirt and pine needles that ended up in my mouth, nose and ears, yes ears, didn’t touch my eyes! Not only that but they look like new post crash, cannot believe it.


https://www.lizhatch.missingsaddle.com/2009/01/alive/

waterrockets 

Sucks about the crash, hope she heals up fast. It looks to me like she nailed something with the front wheel that broke her fork. A radial hit to a wheel may very well stand up to a force that could break a fork w/out a wheel taco...

Daytrip

Never too hurt to get those endorsement plugs in, either. You go, girl!

obra3

Lizzers is a good rider and fast. Most of the VK squad is a bunch of critters and a great bunch of gals. I'm lucky enough to know one current racer and one former racer from the team.

I wouldn't go as far as saying she could ride 90% of the people in this thread off her wheel. Here's what she likely could do:

Not get dropped- You're unlikely to drop her no matter how fast you are.
Crush you in a sprint. She'd sit on your wheel and just come around.
Pull through in a p/1/2 pace-line.
She could probably ride some people off of her wheel depending on their fitness level.

SushiJoe

She's faster than SushiJoe, I bet.

Basil Moss

I've crashed and bent a big steel fork without the wheel going the least bit out of true. It can happen, if you crash straight on. I like the way her bike still looks really shiny and new, despite having been crashed. Do you think her mechanic cleaned it up a bit for that photo?

BillyD

Dear Liz,

I'm sorry to hear about your accident. Hurry up and get well soon.
Don't concern yourself with these blokes' disparaging remarks,
I'll clean you up and take you home in a heartbeat.

Ciou, Babe!
BillyD

invwnut

look at that helmet. Boys and girls.....this is why we wear helmets in cycling

botto 

this isn't a helmet thread. thanks.

bitingduck

That's not unusual at all-- I've seen a few steel forks and frames seriously bent back while barely knocking the front wheel out of true. I've done it myself. The most impressive I've seen was someone's Merckx track frame had the down tube bent with a big arc in it, exactly the radius of a wheel and bending the tube in an inch or more, while the ends of the tube were pretty much still straight. It was like something out of a cartoon.

The wheel is designed to take really big radial loads over and over around any point on its circumference. Think about what happens every time you hit a pothole- occasionally you'll trash a wheel, but usually you're just mad at the person in front of you for taking you over it. The fork and head tube are designed to take those loads pretty much pointed up from the road, not back from the front with a large lever arm (the fork length). Forks are generally pretty weak against the kind of force you get when you plow into something like a guardrail at 30 mph and will bend, as would the head-tube to down-tube joint on steel bikes.