Your Worst Crash

e0richt

I use a helmet mounted mirror... works great in my opinion...

Bob Ross

My worst crash? Summer 1975: I was 14 years old, riding my Schwinn Varsity Sport behind my friend Mark on a very fast & winding descent. Somewhere in the middle of this hill two *really* hot girls several years older than us are standing on the side of the road. As we speed pass, one of them calls out "Hi, Bob!"

Mark jams on his brakes. I do not; instead, I continue at high speed & sideswipe Mark's now-stopped bike. This causes two things to happen: 1) most of the skin on the side of my right pinkie finger is peeled off by the end of Mark's handlebars; 2) the jolt of the collision causes me to bounce up off the saddle and land on the toptube. Hard.

I continue careening down the hill at top speed, bleeding profusely from the hand and bouncing my nuts against the toptube, for at least another 50 feet...until the road makes a sharp 90 degree left turn, and, again, I do not. I collide with the 7" high concrete curb and go airborne, crashing into a hemlock tree in someone's front card.

Mercifully, I don't think I've crashed a bike since.

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Originally Posted by Don Quijote
You have an attitude that rubs me very bad, I do not like you, and I also wish you to banish from my thread.

mopar

It probably isn't funny to you but the way you said it made me laugh.

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The-tried-a-backflip-and-didn't-land-it-kid.

johnny67

Happened about 2 years ago. I was riding in a group of about 6 riders -looked over my shoulder to check the road behind and must a have drifted into the kerb. (the kerbs in the UK are nasty concrete blocks about 6" high with quite acute 90 degree corners - very unforgiving). Anyway I clipped the kerb and landed with my hip falling directly on that 90 degree angle. At first I thought I'd just given myself a deadleg and asked my fellow riders to help me back on my bike. I peddled one-legged for about a mile before the pain got too much to bear.
I sat by the roadside and urged my friends to carry on without me (I didn't want to spoil their ride) and phoned my girlfriend to come and pick me up.
On seeing me and realising I was in some pain, she took me straight to our local Accident and Emergency centre where I as x-rayed and found to have a dislocated fracture of my femoral head (same injury a Floyd Landis and the kind of busted hip that old ladies get!!) - a 1 in 100 biece of bad luck. I was preped for surgery and taken pretty much straight to theatre where I had 3 titanium screws fitted to hold the bones together.
Pretty much recovered now although it could all still go tits up if the bone dies but I'm back in the saddle again and trying desperately to shed the weight I put on during my convalescence.

God I LOVE cycling!!

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Creakyhip

Nasgul

My worst would have to be a bad and also embarrassed.

I was leaving behind this sort of chubby chick behind me which I saw that she was trying to catch up with me but whenver she'd get close, I'll speed up.

Anyhow, after about 5 miles of that, I looked behind me and she was way-way back and at that point I was coming under a bridge and I was low on the bars looking down when suddendly I looked up and saw pink.

Next thing I know I'm on the ground, my bike is like 12-15 feet away from me, my sunglasses are rolling down the road.......I couldn't figure out what happened and then I saw this laday, about 35-40 asking me if I was okay and she put her hand out to help me up and saw the palms of her hands badly scratched and a little bloody.

I hit her right on her back, she was totally okay, no other injuries and my bike's handle bars were unalighned, I couldn't believe that I did that, I felt horrible for her because of her hands but thank God nothing bad happened.

Other than that? the usual fall, get up and go thing which hasn't been that bad.

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Spiuk AURA + Dura Ace 9 spd: http://www.spiukusa.com/prod09-bikes/aura/index.html

Wurm

We go through this carnage and come right back and do this shet. Cycling is a form of insanity!

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"Bush is the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

- John Dean, former Counsel to the President (Nixon)

The aim of big corporations is to separate fools from their money all of the time and ordinary folks from their money most of the time. The rest of us must fend for ourselves.

kaikane

hope i'm not tempting fate here, but the worst crash for me happened last summer when i dropped a water bottle (i missed putting it back in the cage). i rode over it, lost control and ran off the side of the road. ALMOST fell off!

ooohhh...wasn't that exciting!

mopar

When I did a 9 hour BMX race, no jumps , I was REALLY, REALLY tired coming down with 30 or so minutes left, after pacing myself the whole race I decided to sprint the last of it for the extra distance. This story is kinda like that. Once you get really tired, you almost start to black out, get light headed and dehydrated and stuff. When I went into my pit for a 15 second stop, I couldn't grab my brakes to stop! I was sooo tired that I knew where they were, but couldn't get to them! I eventually found them in time, but when I got back on track and concentrated again, it was perfectly normal. But it was a LONG race, so even though I didn't win, and had troubles along the way, I was glad I even finished. But missing the brakes is like missing the water bottle thing, you're so tired you can't aim your coordination!

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The-tried-a-backflip-and-didn't-land-it-kid.

zorly

Wow... I hope some of the riders with the more serious injuries recover well enough to enjoy to enjoy things as before.

Personally, I have broken some bones on motorcycles and a few more on a job injury, but with bicycling it is mainly been road rashes and bruises.

I’ll run through a few accidents, because reading some of the other rider’s mishaps has helped remind me to remain cautious. It is very easy to get into an adrenaline rush and ride "No Holds Barred", without much regard for safety.

Anyhow, in my case, these are all road crashes. The MTB wrecks would be a story for another time.

The last wreck for myself, was a few weeks ago, when a car pulled through an intersection I was blasting through. Not much time to react, but got it slowed down a hair and went over the handlebars and did a body slam into the car, and dented the front quarter panel some. Firstly, I always wear a helmet, and this one needed to be replaced. Also ended up with a bunch of bruises and road rash. It was an older lady and her son, in the car, and they stopped, were cool, and apologized for running the light. Good enough. It took a few weeks to shake the paranoia with the intersections, though, which are abundant in Tampa, FL.

Time before that was going through a construction zone where I went through a patch of dirt, where they were paving, and it looked like hard pack, but was like fine powder. I was slung shot over the handlebars so quick I didn’t even have time to react. Did a head slam into the pavement just beyond the dirt patch. Again, thank the helmet, that I can still count to 10 and remember my name.

Another, was at the end of a road race where myself and another rider where sprinting through the final corner and simultaneously slid out on a gravel patch. That was the most painful ever! Road rash with big chunks of gravel embedded. More pain than any burn I ever had.

Before that one I was drafting a rider, at as fast as we could ride, and I took myself down by overlapping my front wheel with his rear wheel. He was forced to move over, and instantly I was sliding down the highway on my side listening to the bicycle grinding besides me.

Oh well, **it happens

geoinmillbrook

Can't decide which is worse -- all had a common theme , going downhill too fast and having 2 riders on the bike. Of the three I consider my worst crashes in chronological order:

8 years old, Haliewa Hawaii, riding down a big hill packing my sister. Can't remember what kind of bike. We were both barefoot riding to town to see a local rock n' roll band play at the park. She got BOTH of her feet/toes caught in the spokes of the rear wheel and tore them up pretty bad. Luckily didn't loose any. I felt pretty awful. I can still hear the refrains of "Louis, Louis" in the background ...

9 yrs old, packing my friend home from school in Oceanside California, on my new stingray with sissy bar and banana seat. Going down a steep hill near the school, hit a rock in the road and it tossed the front end in the air just enough to cross my bars, came down and somehow locked up the front end. My friend vaulted off the back unharmed, and I went over the handle bars...
skidded down the road on my chin. Broke 7 teeth, and tore all the skin off my chin and broke a cheek bone. I remember mumbling my phone number through a mouthful of blood and broken teeth to a nice man who came out and helped me, and I can still see my Dad tearing out of our yard in the car from the top of the hill - he was a Navy Medic, so he took me in to Camp Pendleton, stitched me up and pulled my broken teeth.

11 years old, Ledyard, Conn. Going down a big hill on my brand new Tyler (made in Poland) 10 speed. Practicing "no hands" steering. Just got my hands back on the drops to take a curve, and a little 5 year old kid ran right out in front of me chasing a ball. He Didn't even see me and I had no time to hit the brakes, or maybe I did but it had no effect on the outcome. I was probably going 35 mph. The kid got the worst of it and I was catapulted head over heels into the lawn and sprained my back. Felt awful. Even when the little guys sister told my Dad that it wasn't my fault, he was mad enough to throw my new bike down a big hill and smashed it up more. Navy drunk. Good riddens. Little boy was pretty cut up, I remember him pulling through though. I also remember my so called "friends" kicking my butt in the back yard because they thought it was my fault (but weren't there). It was the first bike I ever took completely apart and rebuilt.

Funny, in my 20's and 30's I toured thousands of miles in all sorts of conditions and never wrecked once. Guess three times a charm

Ah.. the good ole days ? Can we talk about something else ?

Geo

sogood

Yep, I've bombed bitumen with my water bottle twice in the past. Fortunately my bombing sight was poorly aligned and they both dropped to the side.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

mopar

Wow. You should publish that...

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The-tried-a-backflip-and-didn't-land-it-kid.

when eddy ruled

not that i remember the accident but it was july 18th 2000 around 1.30pm. i'd swapped shifts with a guy at work who needed saturday off so he did my tuesday. it was a beautiful sunny day so i thought i'd do some km's, heading home north up williams rd i remember crossing dandenong rd. apparently someone in a volvo ran the red and connected with me taking off with the green. all my damage was from hitting the road.

my next concious memory, albeit rather fuzzy, was in emergency as they cut my knicks and jersey off (the cold scissors on my leg woke me up). the first solid memory was when i woke up in icu. the damage - broken left humerus, broken lower jaw, 6 broken ribs, lacerated chin which needed 15 stitches, 3 front teeth knocked out and a ruptured spleen. i had emergency surgery to repair the spleen during which my asthma reacted to the anesthetic and i stopped breathing.

3 days in icu on a ventilator and in a neck brace and i was admitted to the ward. spent another 7 days in the ward during which i had more surgery to plate the broken lower jaw. it was then off to rehab for another 2 weeks and released home. all told i had 8 months off work in which i had plenty of rehab to do and dental work done. my dentist loves me, he did 7 root canals, replaced a crown that shattered, did a temporary plate and a permanent bridge, all told around 40 grand of work....and im still having dental work done nearly 7 years later, the canine tooth the bridge is connected to cracked to it looks like its implants for me.

i still get pains in the arm and teeth but thank god for the TAC as they paid for all my medical and dental work plus 80% of my wages for the time i had off work.
as for the bike, all the was wrong was the right ergo lever body was shattered...it looked ok but when you held it it and twisted it crunched and moved in your hand. the wheels were stilll truable and that was it. i still ride the same frame but with a newer groupset on it.

tumbleweed77

Out of the ones i've read here... that about takes the cake..