Bent crashes, your experience?

crazybob

Very new to cycling but got the bug and after my first tune-up on a bent, knew that this was the only way to fly.

Crash happened on my first organized ride. Using a borrowed bike, to close to the guy in front who looked over his left shoulder at 15 +/-. He drifted left and tagged my front wheel and into the ditch I go. So quick I barely recall what happened.

However all the advice on clipless seems true. Big scrape on my right shoe but my feet stayed in the clips till the worst was over. Also a bit of fabric lost on the edge of the seat and that was all the evidence for the bike.

A true oweee on my right knee and assorted scrapes & road rash on my right arm and hand. (Great reason to get gloves) An impressive bruise in my right hip and, now being more than ever convinced that helmets are worth everything one could imagine 'cause mine shattered to uselessness. A sure trip to the ER if I was not wearing one.

But, picked up, dusted off and finished the ride.

Seems less distance to fall and the thing to do is let the equipment take the worst of the crash. Sure there will be damage but not as much as falling off/over an upright. And do you ever get used to the tiny seats?

Lessons: 1. Don't try to suck wind with other inexperienced riders. 2. Helmets are a necessity and work if you wear one. 3. Let the equipment do what it is supposed to do.

ncaudio

Bob,

I was involved in an accident almost a month ago, a kid in a car decided he was going to pass and then make a hard right turn sort of in front of me (more like he wasn;t really past yet), I was on my way to a ride after work. When I was leaving for work that morning I was out the door when I realized I didn;t have any gloves on and went back into the house to put on a pair, when I had the accidnet both hands hit the ground to keep upper body from hitting the ground, the gloves were shredded up, but I would not want to think aobut what would have happened to my hands if the gloves didn;t sacrafice themselves to the pavement. Re the helmet, when I had my first accident my helmet hit hard enough that it cracked and there are indentations from the pavement in the side.

Roger

Roger

tyler_derden

I was rear ended by a motorcycle on a busy street in Tokyo while riding my SWB about 16 years ago. I don't recall much about it except that I broke my helmet when my head hit the ground. My right arm and leg were limp for a few minutes and I was dazed and confused a little longer. When the feeling (mostly pain) came back into my arm and leg I brought my mind back with it.

On another occasion in San Diego I wasn't paying attention and dropped my front wheel into a sewer grate. I was launched into the air and landed on my feet about 6 feet in front of the bike. Someone in a car who saw it stopped and asked me if I was trying to do that.

TD

__________________
"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

re_biker@yahoo.

Today, while on a nice Saturday ride in Silverdale, Washington, I made a sharp banking left turn and went down hard in a crash on damp pavement. My left hip is sore, and my CG STX 'bent suffered only very minor scrapes on the steel seat frame and alloy left pedal. I was a bit hotdoggin' it on that sharp left turn, so after the crash, I lay on the pavement for a few minutes ahurtin'; a couple of concerned folks did receive my assertion that my hurts were very minor: nothing broken! Nice folks, though, as I told them that a header on any DF bike could have been much more nasty!

kamishki

The last and only time I fell on the bent (GRR with Full front fairing) I was rolling down a hill (Central Park NY). THe HIll was curved and there were some people in front of me. I tightened up the turn to pass on the inside and the front wheel broke loose and I went straight down.

SO...Got a bit of road rash on my lower leg. I ended up squeezing into the fairing so it could grind into the road and I I didn't.

Here is the lesson. I have ridden clipless for years. It is a great idea to get pedals that will clip out in BOTH directions.

I was ridding Speedplays at the time and they do not clip out when you twist in. SO When I was laying on my side, my foot was trapped.

I have switched to egg beaters. They will come out from either side;I feel safer knowing I can get out if I am sliding so I don't leave chunks of leg on the road. The fairing helps protect the rest of you if you can scoot into it.

ncaudio

Kamishki,

Speedplays (at least the cleats used with the X1, 2,3,5 series), do have a provision for clipping out while twisitng inward (heel going toward center of body), if you look at the cleat, you can see they have a plastic "ramp" that unclips the cleat when it is rotated inward (not even that far) so one would not get stuck on their side with a bike on top of them unable to unclip if they couldn't lift the bike. It's kind of an awkward movement and of course the pedal has to be in a position where the foot can rotate without interfereing with bike parts. Speedplays are great, I've used them for years and the only 2 complaints I have is that I have to carry a pair of street shoes for walking around and the replacement cleats are kind of expensive and do wear out.

Roger

kamishki

Sorry....Speedplay Frogs not X. And you can always file off the stop on the pedal if you want. But the point remains the same. Being able go clip out when you are lying on your side is a plus.

bkaapcke

I saw a wipe out coming on my Sun EZ Sport LWB bent. I planted my left foot, let the bike go, swung around and planted my right foot. I had my hands ready to hit the pavement, but there was no need. Not a scratch on me. A few on the bike. Needless to say, I was amazed. bk

CCM_Evox

Today, I was riding in the rain that was supposed to be the aftermath of Ernesto up here in Ottawa, Canada. The streets and bikepaths were wet and I started down a long turning descent, down the side of a hill, but still on the bikepath. I remember thinking that there was no one else on the trail so I would just let my old ReBike 707 coast down the asphalt bike path. When I got up to 15 kph, the back wheel slid out from under me and the bike spilled me onto the pavement. My left elbow and knee made contact with the asphalt and at the same time, the left pedal also dug into the ground. The sudden ground pressure on the pedal swung the crank around forcefully and the right pedal stung the back of my right ankle with a painful blow. Apparently, this was not enough torture because my body and the bike continued to scrape along the pavement as I continued downhill for another agonizing 3 seconds or so. That may not seem long to someone reading this post but close your eyes and count three steamboats while thinking of my predicament. When I finally came to a halt, I lay like a heap on the ground under most of my bike. When I gained enough strength to dislodge myself and stand, I inspected my injuries. Fortunately, I suffered roadrash only on my left knee, and I had a nasty gash behind my right ankle. My elbow will be purple tomorrow but I was otherwise unharmed. The worst injury, by far, was to my pride by having to phone home and have my wife rescue me with the car and bike rack. She patched up my scrapes but I think I will be stiff tomorrow when I discover the full extent of my wounds. The bike is fine; those ReBikes are definitely made of tough (heavy) steel. I'm lucky the old clunker doesn't go much faster or I would have been worse for sure. After a crash like that, I always try to remember if I turned too sharp, or touched the brakes, or hit a patch of gravel, but I didn't. I will put the blame for this crash on my over-inflated tires because I just recently mounted a 100 PSI tire on the rear so there would have been very little traction on that tire. I will drop the pressure to 70-80 PSI next time it rains and see if I have better luck.

Ray Haynes

My new EVOX is a ball on corners. Normally just keep pedalling...it feels like carvinga turn on skiis (mayby the low C of G) BUT because of the rake of the fork and a smaller contact surface on the front tire IF you brake and turn on a wet driveway (as I did last week) you go horizontal very quickly AND there is no time to ge a foot out there. BAM. Contact points: end of bar, edge of pedal.
No damage to mirror or seat. ME: thigh and knee only. A week later...almost OK.
I got up and finished my ride (one way) with one leg. This was probably NOT at a great idea. Rather cool it ...with ice.
Great bike ...we are back togeather again..all is forgiven.

Slugster438

Random thoughts....

---I have not ever owned a trike--but it seems like a lot of people have said that typical tadpole trikes do NOT do well at high speeds. The length of the control arms tends to be rather short, and it's difficult to make precise adjustments. Yes,,, there's lots of IHPVA trike streamliners that go 60+ mph, but they generally do not use an unmodified production frame.

---It's common for bents to wipe out while trying high-speed turns in gravel, and it's my suspicion that a lot of bent riders run front tires that are too narrow and overinflated besides.

With two-wheeled recumbents, you can usually improve the steering a lot by using a wider front tire, and also by running the front tire at a lower pressure. You always want your front tire to have more "cushiness" than the rear; if the rear slides sideways a bit you can often recover from that--but if the front starts sliding, you usually can't. At the very least, when you are sitting on the bike, both tires should visibly sag the same amount, if the front does not sag more--so [assuming that most of the weight is on the rear tire] the front tire pressures should be adjusted down proportional to the weight distribution, and then adjusted down again according to the relative tire widths.

For example: if you had a LWB with 66% weight distribution on the rear end, and you were using 1.5" wide front and 1" wide rear tires, and both had max inflation pressures of 100 PSI.

To find the front tire pressure-
First you multiply the rear tire pressure by the weight distribution ratio: 100 x (2/3) = 66 PSI,
then you multiply by the relative widths, if they are different: rear tire width/front tire width = 1/1.5 = 2/3, and 2/3 x 66 PSI = 44 PSI. Assuming the rear 1" tire was at 100 PSI, you should not inflate the front 1.5" to anything over 44 PSI.
~

poweredbysweat

This summer I wiped out in a mist, when my Bike E hit a wet railroad track at about a 45 degree angle. Boom! It happened so quickly - Sore hip and bloody strawberry on knee. As far as the bike, there was some scraping on the tubing of my aluminum seat frame. Not too bad...

__________________
Jim
Make a BOLD statement while cycling.
www.oilfreeandhappy.com

NORECUMYET

I should have read this first. I finally got my Velokraft VKII. It's been interesting. I started out in a park on the grass. The first four or five take off attempts had me on my hip and hand. The grass really softened the blows of course. I eventually was able to take off every time and got tired of trying to negotiate the thick wet grass. This lead me to the sidewalks in the park. This was day two. I probably never went faster than five MPH and was unpleasantly surprised to find that virtually without warning I could go down at these slow speeds. I have stopped myself from falling several times by braking and putting my foot down. As Kenny Z states if you're going very fast you can jam your ankle. I'm still limping a bit. It only affects walking but not riding thankfully. I'm on day four now and have graduated to the streets. Now I guess it's a matter of time before I lose the apprehension that builds when I go into a turn. So far as long as I'm going Five MPH plus turns feel pretty stable. I hate to admit though that my fear of going down in one of those unexpected situations is currently making my rides much less enjoyable. No one said it would be easy though and like you're heard your whole life anything worth having is worth working for. Water skiing, hang gliding, flying an airplane, kite sailing, etc. etc.. All things that are extremely satisfying but none of which can be done on the first attempt.

Going 25 miles an hour on a flat takes virtually no effort on this thing and going up a steep grade is easier than on my mountain bike. Going around a corner at 25 is like a roller coaster. It's all good. It just takes perseverance and a strong desire to overcome fear. Gloves and something to pad your hips are also a good idea.

poweredbysweat

Wpw Recumyet! That's quite a story. Did you start out with this lowrider before riding any other recumbent? I now have an Optima Dragon. It's not near the lowrider that the Velocraft is, and I'm pretty good on it now, after about about a month. If I don't ride for a few days, it feels a little foreign again.

__________________
Jim
Make a BOLD statement while cycling.
www.oilfreeandhappy.com