bvancouv

When it works, I love it. But it hasn't been an easy transition.

In chronological order:
1. When I first got on my new bike, and I started applying pressure backwards with my legs to brake, I would always bang the same spot on the inside of my right knee on the top tube. I did it so much that I got a nasty purple-brownish silver-dollar bruise that hurt a lot. Lesson learned: keep my legs straighter all time I ride, and especially braking. I've broken myself of that bad habit, and the bruise has healed.

2. Skidding requires a lot of my quads, and I rode so much when I first got fixed that I ended up really working my quads til they were sore. The left one especially, and especially the tendons connecting the quad to my hip. Lesson learned: ride more, get stronger. My quads feel great now.

3, and this is the worst. I think of the ground as lava, and I don't want to touch it. I can trackstand, but not all the time, and not all that well, really. BUT I insisted on tightening my toe clips so much that it's difficult to get out. I fell over once, on the right side. Ow. I fell over again, also on the right side, about a week later: now I feel some slight pain when I rotate my arm. But today? I fell over again, right at the intersection of Lincoln, Fullerton, and Halsted, so in front of like 500 people. But I toppled over, and fell HARD. Right on my right arm. Now I'm in a LOT OF PAIN. I feel like I really damaged something. I'm waiting for my neighbor the doctor to get home, and I might go to my girlfriend's house to get some Vicodin, but I just want to take whiskey shots and feel better.

Thanks for listening.
Ow. F&*k.

PS you can keep your 'that's what you get, leave it to us track stars.'

shants

loosen your straps?

matt_savvy

loosen your straps, get a boombox or a friend on a fixie, and then head to an unused parking lot and work on your track stands. practice makes perfect.

bvancouv

edit: Lesson learned- loosen my straps.

emayex

aside from a bunch of cuts, and a bunch of broken helmets...im doin pretty good after almost 2 years

bostontrevor

I did a superman over the bars and landed on my shoulder and it hurt to move it for about a month afterwards.

Oh, and this one time I chopped of my finger in the drivetrain.

dolface

wondered if you were gonna mention that

nothing serious so far, other than getting lightly knocked down by cars a few times (but i'm old and cautious).

bvancouv

did anyone ever think of makng a section of the BF for health and medical issues?

cabana 4 life

my cog was loose and i stood up to pedal and it slipped. that stem came awful close to my boys! in stead i just had this big nasty bruise on the inside of my leg, kinda like when you sack on a handrail skating. oh and sore shoulder from the fight with some jacka$$ driver who tried to run my freind down.

Grimlock

I'm not sure I'd trust health advice from people who, at best, MIGHT be medical professionals.
That, and the horrible and inevitable "What's this on my penis?" photo thread.

Portlandonian

ha, I'm having the same experience with track stands, I suck ass at them.

I was trying to figure out how to skid for the first time but my chain was too loose and when I had the most back pressure it popped off and I lost control, hit a curb, and flew over the front. My elbow was messed up until I woke up the next morning.

mrRed

you mean besides hurting my wallet?? O_o

CF4L

pretty good here for my 10 months of fixed. then again i dont really try to do anything too crazy. only fall was from another person on bike flying around a blind corner and knocking my front wheel out of true. but thats all fixed.

morbot

i always thought that picture on sheldon's site of the cut-off finger from fixed drivetrain looked fake.

how does it happen? i mean, i understand why it gets cut, but who puts their finger in there? does the chain somehow pull it in?

jim-bob

bostontrevor, do you want to field this one?

karmical

i still think my favorite has to be riding victory wheelies after trainning rides with your straps to tight to pull your feet loose, not once but several in a row, until you not just flip over backwards but then vaulted/bucked forward out into traffic...

to this day i do not know wtf i was thinking

peter74

Clipped by a car after rolling the dice at an intersection.
Dislocated shoulder, mincemeat face, cracked helmet, busted wheel, pissed off wife.
Everythings healed/been replaced but the wife is still pissed.
Not sure which hurts more?

crushkilldstroy

nice scar on my left hand from getting clipped by an explorer. my elbow flipped the mirror back, exposing a nice sharp piece of plastic to rip my hand open.

random scar on the inside of my upper calf from trying some stupid mount and getting cut open by the metal part of a toe strap.

chainring scar on my left calf from a random fall. still not really sure how the hell that happened.

Revit

good idea

teiaperigosa

's funny how different people experience diff stresses to diff muscle groups depending on their own strengths and "lowest common denominators" (ie...someone might not be able to do pushups because of bad lower back strength, while someone else may feel tire in their arms first)
when I backpedal, skip, skid...I feel it way more in my hamstrings than I do in my quadriceps

zip22

the wheel was a lot of momentum. on a normal bike, if you're wiping off the chain and you spin the pedals to get the chain moving, either the wheel doesn't move at all, or the wheel moves, but the drivetrain stops whenever you stop pedalling.

with fixed, the momentum of the wheel turning keeps the drivetrain going and has quite a bit of force. a rag doesn't stop it, and if your finger is wrapped up in the rag, your hand won't stop it either.

treechunk

I've got a "short-finger"

The rag I was using to clean a chain got sucked in and so did my finger. It was fast and didn't hurt much, but then they had to cut the bone down to close the end of my finger up.

Ain't no joke, that is the REAL DEAL. Spin the wheel by hand instead of using your cranks.

bostontrevor

Yeah, that's my finger, the second one.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevors/sets/1057307/

There I was, a mild-mannered chain-cleaning guy when my rag slipped away and got caught in the cog. Quick, grab it!

DOH!

bostontrevor

Rongeur, mother ****er!

It's amazing how much it doesn't hurt.

efarrar

Most of my wrecks are purely car related. But my last one was a fixie issue: I got a dislocated shoulder and a "mild" concussion when my pantleg got caught in the chain at roosevelt and state. Or that's at least what I've pieced together, I didn't remember more than 30 minutes of that entire day. Then I broke my hand when I got back on the bike when I arbitrarily took off my sling a week later.

If you bike in jeans like I do, don't forget that ankle strap.