Stupid Crash Stories

On a commute home, I didn’t secure the bag strap well enough and it dropped into the front wheel. Did a superman over the handlebars and got a “boxers fracture” (broken pinky metacarpal). Carried the bike to the train station and took the train back to the station near my house before going to the hospital.

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Was doing the local Wednesday night ride last year, and it was one of the longer routes, I think like 42 miles or a little more for me. I basically didn’t sleep the night before, and ate nowhere near enough food, and bonked horrifically. Like can barely turn the pedals over bonk. Anyway, I was riding back alone, in the bike lane, but they had tarred the road that day, and my sleep deprived brain knew that the tar was not dry, so I needed to ride on the concrete bit of the road so as to not get tar on my bike. What my awake brain would have known, was that some of the storm drains built into the curb were not flush with the road, and some were 2-3" recessed. I didn’t see one of the deeper ones until it was too late, and although I did have enough time to steer around it, there was nowhere close enough time to hold it up. I ended up landing my hip directly on the curb, and scraped up my front wheel pretty good.

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Of the four (touch wood) crashes I’ve had on bikes, two were as a kid on BMX so they don’t count (first into a hedge while trying to learn to ride one-handed, second off the deck just as I realised you had to actually jump in order to do a jump). I had another one as a teen when I slipped my foot off the pedal and went OTB, still have the scar on my forehead (I told everyone at school that I’d been hit by debris from a motor racing crash I’d seen the same weekend, not sure if anyone believed me).

The worst was not long after a got my first road bike, but before I bought any gloves. I was rolling through my little podunk town, coming to a junction. I spied a dropped curb and moved to roll up it onto the pavement, as the junction was full of cars. But the curb wasn’t flush, must’ve been less than an inch proud of the road. Front wheel washed out, I hit the deck hard, hands first. I couldn’t write or feed myself properly for about a week after. Oddly enough, I had my first running fall only a few weeks ago, about 25 years after this crash, and cut my hands up almost as bad, although only one side this time.

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Ouch! Hand injuries suck! Luckily I was wearing gloves on this ride. And one is torn up from the wreck.

Arriving at a bike park in Wales and not having ridden off road for a while I was excited to say the least. I was son excited my usual briefing to myself went out of the window which usually went along the lines of , you are here to have fun , the aim is to ride and not damage yourself or your bike so ride within your abilities and allow room for errors.

Now that usually works as it resets expectations and provides a calming outlook.

No such thought passed through my grey matter, so I went off hit the first rock garden way too fast for my ability and hit a rock head on. I went over the bars and as I flew through the air I glanced at my possible landing spots. It didn’t look good and I remember thinking , this is how facial reconstruction happens, before landing in an undignified heap groaning and looking up a beautiful blue sky.

My mates head came into view, looking concerned, asking if I was ok while saying my dismount looked spectacular. I think my reply was something along the lines off trading the pain for a modest looking dismount.

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Anyone who has ridden in Palma Mallorca will probably have seen this and avoided it… Not me! Followed a mountain bike rider through this sea inlet that covers the bike path, didn’t expect it to be slick with moss. It was 7am and I had to ride the rest of the 115 mile day covered in smelly sea mush… Lovely.

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One other one in college.

Coasted to a stop on the sidewalk in the middle of campus and when I went to put my foot down it was over the street and by the time I realized I was leaning awfully far it was too late. Foot eventually reached the street but I couldn’t manage the extra 6-8" difference in height and fell over into the street.

Sprang up like I’d landed on a trampoline and looked around if anyone saw. A guy walked past and just said he didn’t see a thing.

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Just a couple months ago I had a very similar crash. I was riding a shared path to some more open roads, riding one handed to get something out of my pocket or something. I went under an overpass so it was dim and shadowy. And out of nowhere my bars get ripped from my hand, turn to the right, and I go OTB. Luckily I managed to roll pretty good so I got away with a slight rip in my jersey and some small scrapes. But I look back at there was a drainage pipe under the sidewalk that had pushed the concrete up to make a little 5 inch tall ramp that I just hit at 20mph. Sucked pretty good but luckily everything was okay and I was able to shake it off and continue my ride. But it definitely had my adrenaline pumping for the next hour.

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This happened when I was a teenager and didn’t know that chains could get rusty enough to snap. Pedallng down a gravel road with some friends I stood up and stomped on the pedals. The chain snapped, I went over the bars and put both my ungloved hands down on the gravel road. I lost about half of the skin off each palm and embedded a bunch of gravel which had to be removed later.
Since then, I’ve worn gloves the vast majority of the time I’m on a bike.

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Chain snapping reminds me of another (long time ago) crash - I didn’t fall, but I sure crashed some body parts… old 5-speed freewheel, badly threaded on an aluminum hub. It stripped clean off the hub in the middle of a steep, standing-on-the-pedals climb. I did crash - my family jewels on my top bar.

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I was riding in Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and passing cars in the bike lane. A van decided to make a right hand turn without signaling and I ran into the side of it. I’d say the blame went 50/50 with his driving and me not being careful enough.

The stupidest crash I’ve ever seen was in college. The finish of the TT was near a turnout for a construction site. A truck was turning into the road and my college teammate went to wave it down because it would get in the way of the finish. Somehow he didn’t notice a guy finishing and dragged his bike into the guy’s path. The TT guy ran into the back wheel and crash. Nobody really liked that teammate.

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A friend cracked his pelvis when standing at a stop light. So you were lucky

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I went by the scene yesterday to take pics. It was a group ride with quite a few people so we were two abreast, I was on the left and didn’t see that there were bumps in the white lines. It was also starting to get dark so visibility was a little more limited than what you see in the pic. We were turning right onto a path there at that roundabout and I had one hand off the bar. Hit the bump and down hard, zero time at all to react. Just instantly down.

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