Frankie Fixed

I had my most exciting crash ever this morning. I had my rear wheel off last night. I always try to check the tension carefully when I put it back on, but I must have missed something. I noticed that the chain had some slack as I started down our very steep road this morning, but told myself that it would hold until I got to work. Shortly after this, at 35 mph, the chain jumped off the ring and locked the rear wheel. Things became surreal. It was as if I was sliding on ice. The asphalt was damp and it's pretty smooth there. My rear end was fishtailing wildly. I was moving diagonally back and forth and trying to stay up until my speed came down. It was all in slo mo and I was thinking, "Geez, shoulda stopped and fixed that." Then the bike turned 90º and I went down. Thought I'd be sliding, but I think the edges of the tires dug in and stopped me pretty quick. I came out of it with a bruised hip, one scraped elbow and one raw elbow. Sorry I don't own a camera. My right elbow looks like a big juicy strawberry with the skin peeled off. The scar will be great. I picked up my bike and started limping home, but after walking a few yards, I thought, "What am I, a roadie?"

I flipped my bike over, reset the back wheel and headed off to work.

Next time I'll stop and deal with it.

666pack

shoulda just leaned forward and skidded it out.

that happened to me once. ended up destroying my rear hub.

*new*guy

Glad you're OK.

I had a fun one last night.

My rear tire exploded violently while I was making a high speed left turn onto a busy road. I slid across the pavement for a bit then got the bike and myself out of the road and started hoofing it. I didn't realize til a few hundred meters later that my shorts no longer had any material in the ass area, so the commuters were having a nice look at some fresh road rash.

teiaperigosa

this' happened to me a bunch of times, except I wasn't going at 35 mph....usually going over bumps with a slack ass chain...and then I skidd it out to a stop. I was getting pretty comfortable with my chain derailing (using the quick exit plan of realizing chain locking up, and looking behind to swirve out of traffic) until it started coming off with me coasting away (chain jumping off the rear cog too).


ride safe