Road Fan

UO-8 death-fork? Where was the break?

txvintage

Somewhere around 1977/78 I was blasting down a great hill on a two lane road with no shoulder and a gully running along side of it. I was in the 53x11 and cranking, and that's all I remember.

The guy who was behind the truck that was following me said the truck mirror clipped my shoulder and launced me off of the road and into the gulley/ditch. He said he saw me go in and then the bike bounce up a couple of times. I had a concussion and I think one spot under my right arm didn't have road rash and or gravel impaled in it.

He stayed with me while someone went to call an ambulance and he offered to call my family and let them know I was on the way to the hospital. The guy who hit me never stopped.

I have had a couple of massive one side of the body road rash producing crashes in Crits. Those suck because you get to see other riders roll over your bike.

lotek 

long ago in a galaxy far far away (Queens, NY). . .
I was horsing around with some friends, sitting on a moustrap kind of carrier over the front
wheel on a friends bike as he rode up and down the street.
The attachment of the rack to the frame broke and the whole assembly
pivoted nicely on the axle. I went sprawling spread eagled down the road as my friend tried desperately to not run the bike up my back. That little trick cost me about 12 stitches in my chin and well lets just say I walked funny for a while too.

Lets be careful out there.
Marty

dudeona3V

A timely thread as I'm nursing a fractured collarbone from last Tuesday. Should be recovered just in time for the Gran Fondo.

jan nikolajsen 

Some great stories here, and one nice picture...

#1: Hit a parked police cruiser, with officers lounging in the front seats.

This was in 1984, Denmark. A lonely, straight highway going on forever. Stiff headwind, tired, pedaling along, zoning out. Don't know for how long I had absently stared at my spinning crank, when suddenly a bumper swiftly comes into my limited field of view. Real close, like 2 feet. A split second later I'm rolling over the trunk of a car and down on the pavement. When I'm focused again I stare up at two cops, asking what the hell I was doing. They were parked just off the white line having lunch, and had seen me approaching from a mile back.

After the usual police posturing, they actually just laughed at the incident, and drove off while I was working on re-truing my front wheel.

#2: Hit an ambulance.

Same vintage, also in Denmark. City riding, me a young dude too cool and going on the bike path on the wrong side of the road. Fast too, like you should. I need to cross a side street on the left. Ambulance is coming out from side street. Driver is rolling onto highway and looking only to the left, mostly concerned about vehicles coming from the proper direction. I'm thinking he'll look my way any moment and stop. Ahh, the naive assumptions of youth! Well, he goes right on, and I'm now too close to stop or execute emergency maneuvers. Bam.

The driver, again, was friendly and forgiving.

CV-6 

Okay...my war story. Riding with a friend south of town, coming off a hill and spinning the big ring. Got a bit too close to my riding partner and touched his rear wheel. Next thing I know I am on the ground. Went to the emergency room and got 40+ stitches in the mouth area. Palms nicely torn up, shoulders badly scraped. All this with no helmet, so I was real lucky. I can still feel the scar inside my mouth and as recently as 5 years ago worked a small piece of gravel out of the scar tissue. I had keloid scars on my shoulders that finally disappeared in the early 90s.

RobbieTunes

Minor ones:

A bunny hop off a loading dock (pre-BMX) on a West Point banana bike. Mostly teeth. I think I was 12.

Climbing hard, my RD (recently rebuilt by LBS) disintegrated, snapped around into the rear wheel, I high-sided into the road, ended up like a turtle on it's back, bike poking the sky like grass in the wind. I had only road rash, but the car behind me swerved to avoid, ran the oncoming car into the ditch, and they got out and started yellling at each other. I sighed, put my bike over my shoulder, said (quietly) "I'm good," and hoofed it home....

My father, when he was about 15, had a bike with no grips, common in those days. He was tailgating a milk truck, and it stopped. He put the bars into the insides of his arms at the elbow joint. He was told to drink lots of prune juice, eat raisins, and squeeze tennis balls to build his arms up. All my young life, I wanted big arms like he had, and wondered where he got the perfect circle scars. After he told me, I told him I'd probably just get a tattoo.

custermustache

What kind of tool do you use to hold the back of those chainring bolts? They are too long for a regular screwdriver.

Dave Armstrong

scars are better souveneers than teeshirts

calamarichris

Kudos. Your gf is not only beautiful, but also possesses an adventurous spirit.
A man or woman without scars is a sad, sorry animal.

phillyrider

I actually did something stupid Friday night. Riding no handed along the river in the dark enjoying the view - didn't notice the branch/rock on the path. The front wheel popped out of control, and screaming like a little girl, I went over the handle bars into the grass. Nothing broken, nothing bent - what was that sound - oh yeah, it was me with a face full of dirt.

Amani576

The Park CNW-2
https://www.parktool.com/products/det...=26&item=CNW-2
-Gene-

High Fist Shin

High Fist Shin image assist.







-Shin

RobbieTunes

I use a dime and a pliers.

gearbasher

noglider 

Jeez, gearbasher.

Say, is that how you got your name?

Business810

I have quite a few minor scars, especially on my shins from mountain biking. I did sprain a knee and brake a finger, too.

As for the road, my worst was road rash and a lingering scar on my knee (chain slipped on an old Schwinn climbing a steep hill, over the bars landing on my knee) and scars on the middle knuckle of all four fingers on my left hand from a bad wreck as a kid.

I don't mind crashing too much as long as cars aren't involved and I (and my bike) can still ride afterwards. Scars just add character.

Poguemahone

The only scars I've got are kayak related (got sucked into a hole at the bottom of a waterfall; couldn't roll up in the aerated water. Had to bail, wound up getting washed down a class three rapid, banged up my leg). Oddly, I've also done the James thru Richmond at twelve feet and have no scars to show for it. Bikewise, two stand out:

Accelerating on a fixed gear down Richmond's Laburnum Avenue, and I snap the crank in two. Face plant into the pavement, Slide across road, band my hip on the curb. Pull myself off the street and wait for an ambulance ride. Thought I'd broken my leg, but was walking (albeit slowly) within 24 hours and riding again in 72.

First nice day in Wisconsin, early 80's. Had put the gears back on the bike and was blasting around town and campus. Tear around a curve; unfortunately it was in the shade and therefore icy. I go one way, bike goes another. Wind up walking off, albeit with my jeans completely torn away on my right leg.

noglider 

I had scars on every single knuckle on both my hands when I was a professional bike mechanic, long ago. Most of them are faded away now. Others are covered by hair.

leftthread

I hate it when you crash on chip seal and can see into your body via the new holes.

divineAndbright

Chipped a tooth when I was young just jumping bikes, somehow managed to plant my mouth against the handlebars on a landing.

A year and a half ago I busted a hand when I got taken out in a sprint at a road race.. hey I think theres a video of that on youtube somewhere, also received stitches as a result, basically my hand holding the handlebars drilled the metal barriers they like to line the finish with, up until that point I was proud (actually kinda embarrassed) to say I never broke a bone or had stitches before.


haha, Props to the guy who hit a police car AND an ambulance, just a fire engine to go!

jan nikolajsen 

You need to take up rock climbing or some other low risk endeavor. In 3 decades of climbing I have only lost one finger.

Kommisar89

Jezez! I crashed a motorcycle at 110-mph and came out better than that!

Kommisar89

Let's see...just recently we had a beautiful 60 degree day and I went out for a ride on my Bottecchia Gran Turismo. On my way through Manitou Springs I came upon a shady spot with uneven pavement covered with water. The water was from the melting ice beneath. Too late I saw it and went down so fast I didn't have time to react. Fortunately it was so slick the only damage was a bit of bruising on my right hip and shoulder from the impact and a very minor bit of roadrash on my hip. The bike was fine, not a scratch on it but my white cotton bar tape was a dirty, stained mess. Lucky for me I had shellaced it but it was still a lot of scrubbing to get it clean.

More serious was the accident that took out my original Bottecchia back in '96 - I was on my way to class after work, right in the middle of rush hour, when the light turned red. Traffice was bumper to bumper and moving really slow as I coasted along the side of the road to the intersection. Before I got there the light turned and traffic started moving again. I was doing about 20-mph when I reached the intersection. Immediately to my left and slightly ahead of me was a tow-truck. He turned right at the intersection and took me out. I must have looked like a bug on his passenger side window. That all happened so fast I didn't have time to think but after I was on the ground I could see the big dually rear wheels comming at me. He stopped just in time. My helmet was crushed, my collarbone broken, and the right side of my chest and shoulder sore as hell. Initially I was pinned by my backpack pulling on my broken collar bone so I couldn't move until the paramedics cut the backpack off of me. IIRC now the Bottecchia suffered a crushed front wheel, bent handlebars, and the fork was jammed so I would guess there was some frame damage but that is just a guess. It didn't see any obvious damage so who knows.

sailorbenjamin

Not really bike related but I'm proud of it and you guys are pretty patient. Got this lovely powderburn when I was Master Gunner aboard a tall ship. It's faded a lot in the last ten years;

We were just off Ventura California doing an exhibition sail. There wasn't any wind and the sea was rolly and it was hot and I had a wicked hangover. We had 2 little deck guns on each side and I would fire them with a lintstock (a 3 or 4 foot stick with a smoldering piece of rope tied to the end so you didn't have to get too close).
As we came around the other boat's stearn (firing blanks, no balls) I had my hand on the rail to steady myself. I reached forward and fired the forward gun, then I reached back and fired the after gun. My elbow was just over the touch hole.
They say the backflash has about as much force as a 22. It spreads out, though. Cannon grade powder is pretty course, like gravel and it embedded itself in my skin and smoldered till it was done. I always wanted to have little numbers tatooed next to each dot so that when you connected them it would make a picture of something nautical.