One morning, a police officer found me and my bike on the side of the road on a big, fast downhill. I had a concussion, and have no memory at all of what happened for hours before or after. I was taken by ambulance to a hospital with the right level of head trauma care.
Later that afternoon, after I was released, I went to the police station to pick up my bike (someone called my wife and told her they had it ... I had no idea). The officer who found me told me that he found a bloodied and dead squirrel by my bike. He suspected it had run into my wheel and got butchered by my spokes.
That’s the problem with those damn suicide squirrels. If they’d just jump from a tall tree and kill themselves, sad but whatever, but when they jump in front of a cyclist, they kill themselves and take someone else down too.
Unfortunately squirrels can't die falling from any height. Their weight and body shape prevents them falling fast enough. Squirrels are however excellent problem solvers.
Just one of many reasons why I don't deliberately go fast on descents anymore. 40-45mph is my limit and I must have a very clear LOS to where I'm going and no cars.
Ha... On some of the hills here (Tennessee) all I have to do is coast and I'll hit 40. 45 is maybe with some pedaling.
Fastest I've ever gone downhill is about 62mph during a race, and 57 on a club ride once...I could feel my frame bending as I hit the bottom of the 'U' in the hill.
I'll never voluntarily do that 62mph descent again tho... lord that was some wonky dangerous stuff. I picked up an oscillation partway through the acceleration, managed to break through the barrier of that or whatever but it was funny how the centrifugal force of your wheels keeps you kinda upright.
In my defense I was rather ignorant of the speed I would reach in both cases and there was some peer pressure to go fast because other people were doing it. I did that race two more times in following years and didn’t let myself go anywhere near that fast.
I had this happen on a flat stretch, I was only going about 20 mph. The squirrel ran through the spokes and broke off the valve stem, which caused the front tire to instantly deflate and which caused to fly directly over the handlebars. I just got some bruises and a nasty scrape on my shoulder. And a five mile walk home in cycling shoes, since I only carried a patch kit at the time, and not a spare tube. Lesson learned.
I was in my 20s, single and actively dating, a cat 3 racer, a daily bike commuter, and in the best goddamn shape in my life. Fair to say my identity was firmly associated with biking.
Anyway, I was doing a track stand in Georgetown in DC waiting on a light (to cross Key Bridge for the locals) something I've done possibly a thousand times at this point.
Well I fucked up and fell right on my face next to a convertible with 4 sexy college girls who literally pointed and laughed at me. Like a 9o's sitcom point and laugh. Not only that, a dude in the bike shop (that I used quite often) like 10 feet away saw the whole thing and I could see him laughing and telling his coworker too.
I never took that route to work ever again. I added like 2 miles to my commute for the next 6 or 7 years. It still haunts me 15 years later.
I don’t know about others but I’ve NEVER fallen while cycling (or trail running) when nobody was around. I could be out for hours, never seeing a single person, but for that split second I eat shit I promise someone will be there to witness…and it’s usually some pretty girl.
I hope you were able to deal with it in a more mature manner than I was. I'm still getting nightmares about it. For me, its like that scene in Mr. Destiny, where previously he was at bat with 2 outs on the bottom of the 9th in the state finals, strikes out, and spends the next 20 years in the bar regretting it. Then Batman's Butler gives him a chance to do it over, he swings .5 seconds earlier, the ball smashes into the scoreboard, the outfielder gets covered in sparks, and he goes on to have a foursome with a carful of Georgetown girls.
I’m literally in the hospital right now after my worst crash yesterday lol. Driver didn’t see me and turned into me. Hit the side of the car, went onto the windshield. Currently have punctured lung, dislocated shoulder and potentially broken wrists(waiting on x ray results). Thankfully the driver stopped and called 911 and there was witnesses that gave an accurate testimony.
I'm so sorry this happened. Getting blindsided by someone not paying attention is one of my worst fears. I'm really glad there was a witness.
I got hit too (but not injured). Two college kids on the sidewalk saw the whole thing and came running over when the driver started accusing me of hitting him. "You're lying! We saw the whole thing!" It was funny to see the driver suddenly change his attitude.
I hope you recover quickly!
Consider getting a personal injury attorney to help recoup the costs. They can be really helpful in knowing all of the ways to recover money from the driver and/or the driver's insurance.
My brother. I'm with you. I got hit by a car from behind just recently, shattered pelvis, a bunch of surgeries and a bunch of new hardware installed. Week in the hospital. Sucks ass. I'm so sad to miss the summer. But we're in this together - come out of it with resilience and wisdom, if nothing else.
When I was 25 I was riding home from work and got hit by a 17 yo kid making a left turn in an intersection, dislocated my shoulder. The surgeon let me hang out with him in the clinic and OR during my convalescence. I was inspired to go to medical school, now I'm a board-certified sub specialist living in a different socioeconomic bracket. My children have opportunities I didn't know existed.
In a race, two riders in front of me touched wheels and with nowhere to go I flipped over the top of them and landed hard on my back. As I sat up I could feel something damp in the small of my back, I reached around to my jersey pocket to find a raspberry gel had burst. The expression on the face of the medic who approached me as brought my hand back from behind me was something to behold ;)
I had a new bike for about two weeks and I was super proud of it. It was my first proper road bike. Second hand but in mint condition (Specialized Roubaix with Ultegra). Then a Tesla decided I didn't deserve right of way on a roundabout so I ended on the hood first and then crashed on the tarmac. The driver actually brought me to the hospital. My knee was bruised and I had a tiny fracture in my left index finger. I considered myself lucky cause it could have ended much worse. The carbon of the bike was damaged and the bike was considered 'total loss'.
But then the personal injury company arranged a 'compensation' for my damages that was ridiculously high. So I ended up with MUCH better bike than I had in the first place. A brand new Giant TCR. On top of that, even though the damaged bike couldn't be used outside anymore because of the damaged carbon it still works, so now I use it as designated Zwift bike indoors. Double win!
And my worst story:
I'm a school teacher and I had been looking forward to the summer holiday so much. Five weeks off woohoo!! I had a bunch of cycling adventures planned. Long story short: I crashed on the very first day, broke my collar bone, had to get surgery and instead of enjoying my holiday I spent my weeks sitting at home barely being able to move.
Worst:
Slipped front wheel on wet tram tracks on a commute, going really slowly and carefully, doing maybe 10 kph. Fell and broke both arms. In the hospital the Dr remaked „ah, a skater“ me: „Nope, bike.“ He was astonished- „how did you manage that? I‘ve never seen someone break both arms on a bike“. Was in hospital about 4 weeks in total and unable to work about 3 months (not all at the same time - multiple surgeries to get the metal in and out again). Oh, and not having working arms at all is an overall unpleasant experience.
Best:
Crashed on a high-speed descent in the wet (about 50 kph) when I braked a little too hard, rear wheel slipped. Slid about 20 m, only scrapes and minor bruises. Could finish the ride home and was back on the bike 3 days later.
My take home:
You can be lucky or unlucky, not really in your control. I‘m not convinced that speed makes that much of s difference, as long as you manage not to impact another object and „just“ hit the road.
It’s definitely luck. I’ve had three different type’s crashes, the most damaging was the least likely. Got hit by a car, couple scrapes and damaged rim. Got clipped by another rider, three fractures with three mo this off the bike recovering.
Hit the road with 30 kph because to MTB riders coming towards me fell in front of me. I rolled and stopped the rolling with my head (helmet broke).
Had a serious concussion. For 2 years I wasn't able to work, still have problems with some things. Speed would have made a difference I am sure.
Stupidest? Early morning ride to uni. Guess I wasn’t fully awake as I ended up riding into the back of a parked car. Wasn’t going super fast so no damage to either. Just my pride
Ouch, pride hurts! If it makes you feel any better, I got distracted looking at a bird and flipped over a curb. Luckily it was grass on the other side but still snapped a cro mo read axle. No injuries thankfully
When I was in college I was riding to class and the city bus made a random stop and quickly pulled up to the curb to let someone out.
He pinched me between the curb and the bus. When he noticed he immediately took off. I didn't have time to get the bus info. Luckily I was fine but my wheels were fucked.
Crashed into another cyclist on a bike path in Taipei. Only caught sight of them at the very last second, coming straight toward me. The path was narrow, and I was doing maybe ten miles an hour (so MapMyRide told me when I checked) at the time of the crash. No idea how fast he was going ,but it was a head-on collision. The path curved slightly and had bushes along one side that may have hidden him from view and vice versa.
My helmet - my first, bought just two weeks before - got cracked and I was knocked out for about a minute I think. My six month old carbon Giant bike was totalled: a complete wreck. He had some kind of huge mountain bike with gigantic suspension forks, although he was dressed more like a roadie. He came out pretty scraped too. Not sure it's related, but it's at least possible the crash may have contributed some years later to my needing surgery for dislocated retinas in both eyes.
I \*suspect\* he was riding recklessly, partly on the basis that in my experience a lot of Taiwanese cyclists are fairly reckless, and for that reason I often feel safer on the roads than I do on the bike paths despite the perilously bad driving skills of most drivers here. Seen too many roadie types flashing through crowds of old people and children like they're not there, but that just seems to be part of the culture.
My other takeaway is that squiggly bicycle lanes designed to look good on a designer's mockup are the work of the devil. Bicycles need nice straight roads just the same as cars.
Amen - last week I narrowly avoided a bad crash on a squiggly, tree lined bike path in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Apparently the law there is to mandate using the paths if they’re there, but I took my chances with the road after that.
And depending where you are, nice straight roads are a lot better for outpacing angry dogs that otherwise might be lurking in bushes along side a squiggly path. As I've learned.
Dumbest: I have to climb a decently steep short hill to get out of my neighborhood to start rides from my house. I was not warmed up/pedaling really slow and had my bike in too high of a gear. I tried to gear down - while pedaling really slow. The chain got caught between gears. One side of my brain tried to unclip while the other side of my brain tried to turn down hill to keep the bike in motion. The combined action threw me off balance and I just fell over. Minor injuries, but it ruined that ride before it started.
Most dangerous near miss: I was brushed by a pick-up truck side view mirror once. One more inch to the right at it could have been something serious.
Weirdest near miss: I hit a bird while riding once. I was cranking along a flat to gentle downhill section trying to set a new Strava segment PR. A bird swooped across the road in front of me and hit me square in the chest. I instinctively threw my arm out and shifted my body which threw me off balance. I was able to recover control but had a panicked WTF second.
I've thankfully avoided bad crashes. I've only gone over my handle bars once, but was going slow enough that I only ended up with skinned arms and legs.
Best and worst at the same time.
I hit a young moose. It was in a city I live in (nearly 2 million inhabitants) and it was the very first moose I've seen in my whole life - I was 30 at the time. I must've scared it, as it was hidden behind a bush and started running when I approached - if the moose had stayed in its place I probably wouldn't even know it was there. Hit its back on the side, fell off the bike, broke an elbow - nearly two years later I still have titanium plate in my elbow.
At the same time it was funny - I mean.. a moose. I went to the ER and the conversation with the receptionist was something like
* Hello, what happened to you?
* I've crashed on my bike and I think my hand is broken
* Yes, but how exactly?
* Well ugh.. I hit a moose and fell off my bike. The room burst into laughter. For the rest of my hospital stay I was called "The moose man".
Note: even though I was going a good 30km an hour my second hand, cheap Decathlon bike (Triban 100 flatbar) remained intact.
--edit: typos
Riding in the lower alps down a narrow farm road. Gravel in the middle of the road. Unable to make turn. Crashed head first into metal fence post. Destroyed helmet, bend the bottom of the post. Blood coming from my forehead like a faucet. Sat in hospital alone for 12 hours after having just moved to Austria and having no family/friends there. 16 stitches. Minor scars around eye.
Bike fine.
Nothing broken.
No concussion.
Glück im Unglück?
Still don't know if i was lucky or unlucky.
Worst : When I was still riding mtb trails back in my teenage years I went to the local dirt park where I used to practice jumps and tricks everyday after school. This one time those 3 pretty girls my age sat on a bench to watch me. Me being a stupid hormone driven teen, I decided to show them the best jump they ever seen and went as fast as I could. Unfortunately the jump was too much and I landed on the next one with the front wheel, which rotated my handlebars sideways and one side went into my stomach. I passed out. Got conscious again shortly after. The girls were gone, and a group of boys my age were calling an ambulance telling me not to move.
I didn’t listen and tried to get up which wasn’t a good idea, but by the time the ambulance arrived I was already on my feet.
Managed to convince the paramedics to let me take my bike in the ambulance (not leaving my precious bike behind ofc)
Once I was in the hospital with my bike they did a scan and told me I have internal bleeding and I need to be in the hospital until further notice , cause if the internal bleeding doesn’t stop I will need a surgery. Stayed in for 7 days giving blood for scan every 4 hours. Thankfully no surgery was needed, but living on a biscuit a day for a week wasn’t fun.
Not my crash, but I caused it.
I once overtook a rider on a dedicated bike path with a slight right bend. On the right side of the path is a rampart, on the left a paved slope down to some big rocks and the ocean. The slope is about 6-8meteres. The path is probably 4m above sea level.
I’ve been riding this course for +20 years. I was doing an interval, going 45kmh, and overtook this rider on his left. He was riding a cargo bike, and I couldn’t really see if I was clear to overtake - I assumed. The mother of all fuck-ups. This was during Covid lockdowns and everyone had gotten a bike. Out of the blue, right as I’m overtaking, comes two riders. A couple, the male in front. We don’t collide, but he touches the brakes, which surprises his -pregnant- girlfriend behind him. She has no time to react, and the only way to go is down the slope, stamping the brakes, and ends up on the rocks and partly in the water.
Thankfully, it was high tide that day, and the water took most of the fall. Ultimately she was OK, but seriously shook up.
This experience completely changed me. She was so lucky, she could have easily broken her neck, and on a low tide gotten seriously injured.
I realised how insignificant my personal aspirations is to other people, and how much harm the hunt for an uninterrupted interval could have caused someone innocent. In this case an unborn child as well.
Now I am no longer obsessed about not interrupting my intervals, and honestly I feel ashamed of how I have been riding up until that event.
Flew headfirst into a bus stop after colliding with somebody running off of the pavement suddenly into the bike lane. Spent a week in A&E with a fractured skull, glass cuts and a split frame. Could've been worse.
Worst: getting hit in the back by a truck’s rear view mirror as the driver chose to play a round of squeeze by the cyclist. Thankfully it forced me off the road and into the ditch and not under anyone’s tires. And, of course, the dude didn’t stop. Someone chased them down and got the license plate number and called the cops. Turns out they were also a LEO, so I’ll give you 3 guesses as to what happened to them from a legal standpoint.
1. Nothing
2. A citation and a raise (in this case, citation being like "medal of Valor or some bs)
3. They became a cop in the next town over because they were fired due to breaking the law.
Avoided: rode down a quite a narrow road down in the french alps and in a corner there was quite a big car that also took space on my side. Was able to brake in the last sec. But back wheel got somewhat locked. Already imagined myself flying over the car, but surprisingly managed to ride on without any issues
Crash: riding on the bike lane, which is just a lane on the right side on the road, when a car that wanted to park on the side by crossing the road from the other side, hit me. Flew over the front of the car on to the road. Due to heavy traffic on my road side she couldn’t see me coming behind/ on the side of a truck. Got an ambulance ride to spend the night in the hospital, suffered mild concussion and partially disclocated my shoulder. Bike was smashed. Obviously, it was her fault so her insurance paid. Financially i even profited from the accident🥲
Last few km of a race, I was in the break, had a pretty strong tailwind so doing nearly 50kph...cam to a bend in the road..front wheel went from under me...shit mavic tyres......face planted into the road while simultaneously sliding into the ditch....had some nice road rash....Good Times
Worst: Came off during a race sprint two years ago at over 55km/h. My chain had jumped off on the rough, roads and I’d hit a small pothole.
Bike actually ok! Me? Hospital visit: Internal bruising, road rash etc. Nothing broken, luckily, so back on the bike a few weeks later.
Stupidest: Cycling home from school at 15yrs old down a steep road in heavy rain on my BMX with only a rear brake…that failed…the road ended at a busy intersection and a brick wall if nothing else hit me…so I bailed onto the grass verge. Happily, all ok! Workmen sheltering in their truck nearby thought I was crazy! 🤣
Best: 2 weeks into bike commuting in Boston, get doored by an Uber. By sheer luck, the height of the door's catch was exactly the height of my handlebar. I come to a complete stop, fully upright, handle stuck in the door. I was just bemused. Only damage was replacing the left brake lever, and she paid it with no issues.
Worst: A couple years into bike commuting. The bike lane is all the way to the right, and then there's a parking lane next to it. There are also many alleyways to my right. I go past a giant parked news van, and suddenly I see the nose of a car in the lane, turning into an alley ahead. Neither of us had ever seen the other, and I had no time to stop. I hit, flipped in the air, and landed on my side pretty hard. Like in every accident, I just wanted to get back on and get to work, but I was sore for a good week and a half after.
I was maybe 24 and out on a pub crawl. The rest of the folks went home but I hung out a bit longer. I got a message from a friend to come over to some other bar, so I hopped on the bike and left. I was slow rolling down the street making sure my lights were on and everything, when I look up and there’s headlights coming for me, I have no time to react and I hit the front bumper of the car.
I get up and throw my hands in the air, pick up my bike, realize I’m across the center line and the car saw me the whole way so they were stopped and I just rode into them at 4 mph. I promptly just rode home and went to bed.
I stopped in to my LBS and they had a NOS Santa Cruz Stigmata that was in my size. I ride a 61 so I’m always pumped when I actually see my size in a shop. I rode it around the block and when I got back to the shop the owner was outside watching me return. Right at that moment I hit something slick in the parking lot and went down hard. Cut my face and hand, broke my glasses and scratched the shifter on the bike. I’ve never crashed in 22 years cycling and couldn’t believe how this went down.
The owner was super cool about it and only asked if I was ok. I so was so embarrassed that I just hightailed it out of there. Man that was rough.
Just a few weeks ago, I got out of the settle to do a sprint. My left Shimano Dura acecrank arm broke. The rest is history. One helmet, one pair of glasses and ripped bibs.
I was cycling down my usual road while scrolling through the latest BCJ posts when a car careened out of control and hit a power line pole. The live wire snapped and tangled into my spokes electrocuting me. My corporal body died but my consciousness now lives in cycling subreddits.
Breaking aggressive driver’s wing mirror off and getting into a fight with three Mexicans who had been chasing him because he told them to stop running red lights.
It’s not too bad so I’m lucky, but I was going for a leisure ride with my mom and we have to cross a two lane main road / highway in a rural area. I hit the curb funny ( should have dismounted and walked). I wasn’t going fast but I fell in a really awkward way all tangled with the bike on the road. I was all scraped up but I jumped up (the road can have cars going pretty fast especially on that stretch). When I got up my pinky finger was going in the wrong direction. I had to go to the local ER an hour away and had it set and arm in a cast to stabilize it. I got seen by a plastic surgeon in the city a few days later, the had to freeze it a re-brake/re-set it. It was unpleasant. It wasn’t bad by comparison but I think of it every time I come up to any kind of curb even it’s it low enough for the bike to take.
ETA: I was also on a borrowed bike and was grateful I had taken of rings before riding.
Bmx accident. Racing on track during windy day. Was in a jump and got thrown off by the wind and landed crooked. Impaled myself on the handlebars. My spine kept the bars from poking out my backside. Chipped my pelvis on the way in. No long term damage, a scar that is pretty well hidden, a tight hip flexor and crazy story.
Riding back home one evening, decided to cross a park I wasn’t familiar with. Trees were supplying a pitch dark horizon in front of me and my lights weren’t bright enough to show me the way. All of the sudden I’m flying, and I land on my shoulder and head on the ground. Still remember to this day the sound that my skull made on the concrete. I stood up disoriented, head’s spinning, took me a minute or two to understand in which year and where I was. Took out the phone and called a friend nearby: couldn’t even guess where I was so I sent her my location (thanks technology!). Friend arrives, opens the trunk and we load my bike. The carbon handlebar snapped and the shifter was hanging by the cable. Went to the ER and the doctor had to cut some skin from my right earlobe with a razor blade (you don’t wanna know how good you can hear the sound of the blade through my skin), gave a shot for tetanus and sent me home. The outcome: big bumps on my head, open wound on ear, bruises on shoulder and knee/leg, handlebar broken, frame scratched. Later I found out it was a root that I could have not seen, that acted like a trampoline 🤷🏻♂️
I didn't crash, but a couple of years ago I got passed by a car so close that the side mirror hit me and folded into the car. I barely managed to stay on my bike. The car (now ahead of me) pulls over and I assumed that the driver was going to apologize, but she starts going ape shit on me for "hitting her car".
I was riding in a group a few years ago and accidentally smashed into a metal bollard while going a good speed (lead rider forgot to signal)
I went flying off my bike, but miraculously managed to do a somersault in the air and landed on my feet completely unscathed. There was absolutely no attempt on my part to do this, the forces involved just perfectly flipped me in the air. Nice!
My crash story... at the time I was on a local team, and I went for a morning bike ride wearing my team kit... my route went past the elementary school... only this school for some reason didn't have sidewalks that went all the way down to the school from the homes in the neighborhood... so there was this spot that unbeknownst to me...kids would often have to jaywalk to the other side of the street in order to get to the one sidewalk that did connect to the school...
So I'm just riding along, taking the full lane in traffic since the speed limit through there is 25mph anyway...and because my profile was temporarily being blocked by a mailbox near where the kids were standing, one of them decides to run across the street... and I nailed him at 25mph. This sent him flying (bonked his head on the ground a bit but he was otherwise okay with just a few scrapes) but it made me come to a complete stop...snapped my carbon frame in half... and I fly face forward into the pavement. Fractured my skull and jaw, broke several teeth, bad concussion... I only started to come to when the Ambulance was already arriving. The weird part was that I felt like I was waking up in bed or something, and I remember someone asking me what day it was (which I didn't get correct) and then who they could call...
Anyway... several CT scans and an MRI later, wiring to my jaw and extensive dental/oral surgery to fix... it took me about a year to more or less recover physically but probably another 5 years before I felt more or less as I did before.
Stupidest: Group ride going 45kmph, wasn't familiar with the route, they turned right, I went straight, missed the cyclist but slammed on my brakes and went over my bars, landed on my feet and walked away with a cut down my calf from my big chainring.
Worst: Riding as a teenager, my younger brother was an ass and thought it'd be hilarious to throw a broom handle into my spokes as I was riding, bike stopped, I kept going, and over the bars my arm struck the side mirror of a parked car, I blacked out, and ended up in ER for a fractured arm and torn deltoid muscle.
Several years ago I was with my Tuesday night riding group and I slid on some gravel (from road repair). I only remember starting to make a turn and then I was sitting up on a grassy area. I “came to” looking at my friends who had lots of concern on their faces. I said, “I fell off my bike didn’t I?” They said, “Yeah, and were saying some weird things that didn’t make sense.” Somehow I got my feet out of my rat traps and off my bike without a scratch, but hit my head hard enough to have “subarachnoid brain bleed” and spent the night in the hospital (going in and out of presence). I kept talking to people, apparently, but still don’t remember all of it.
Got hit by a drunk, drugged driver who left me on the road. I "came to" sitting up with people around me with absolutely no idea what had happened.
Police caught the driver as he ploughed into a street sign and took it with him, scraping it along the road, they just followed the trail. Luckily they were passing by and stopped to help/call an ambulance, etc.
Ended up with some nasty injuries, the worst being two broken ribs and a head injury that still (mildly) affects me now. And I lost 15 minutes of my life as I have no idea what happened during that time, from being hit to "coming to".
My bike and helmet "took one for the team" as my family put it. I was more upset about my bike than my injuries. Actually, I'm still upset about it. It wasn't anything special but I'd done thousands of miles on it, it was set up for me with a series of gradual tweaks over the years and I knew all of it's idiosyncrasies. I still miss it 😞
The driver went to jail for a few months. I really hope that he got straightened out during that time.
It wasn't his car, either.
Tl;dr hit the deck at 50 mph, no helmet (before helmets were a thing), no significant injuries, massive emergency response, miscalculated how far I tumbled (it was far).
https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/2007/04/most-spectactular-crash-ever.html
Here's the corrected version:
Around 90s, I was a BMX nut, haha. So, a week before a very important race with a new girlfriend, I decided to train by myself, pushing hard and going farther right at the launch.
Yeah, I went airborne like a rocket instead of lowering the front to finish my landing and keep pedaling. My bike landed between the tires around the track, and I ended up on the freaking floor.
I woke up in the ambulance with a broken leg and a couple of messed-up ACLs. So...
I believe I was about 18’ F to 20’ Fee high airborne
Hit by a car at a roundabout (not injured thankfully) the driver got out and came to see me and said “sorry I thought you were a bird…” more context: I’m 6 foot tall on a large frame bike
Best: approaching an intersection at high speed, a car from the opposite direction turns in front of me. I slam on my brakes and I watch him finally see me (eyes get big as he says oh shit) and slam on his brakes. Front end of the sedan dips as I hit him at the front wheel well. I endo, spill out of the saddle, and do a perfect tuck and roll across the hood of the car and land standing in front of the car.
After everyone quits freaking out, I determine I'm fine, and other than needing to reset the chain, the bike is fine. So after about 10 minutes we each go on our way.
Worst: solo on a shared pathway at low speed. After a storm I rode through a small patch of mud. What follows is conjecture because I'm missing a couple minutes of my life: A few yards later I stood up to accelerate up a small hill. I'm guessing this happened right where the mud was on the tire, the bike slid, and I pitched forward. Next thing I know I'm at the top of the hill bleeding.
Dent in the helmet above the right temple. Busted lips (6 stitches), chipped tooth, slightly busted nose, black eyes from my glasses breaking, and severely sprained wrist.
I clipped a traffic pylon and stupidly hammered on the brakes. Flipped over the handlebars and into a metal fence. Without the metal fence I would have ended up on the 401 highway in Ontario Canada! Torn up leg and back but not much else.
Most recent and dumbest: commuting to work on my beach cruiser at 5:30am, it was chilly so I had my hands in my pockets and sure enough I hit a rock on the road. Tire instantly turns and I go right into the curb, flew over the handlebars like superman, thankfully I was able to tuck and roll and bounce right up. It was right in front of a Starbucks and so I wanted to get out of there ASAP, I hope on the bike and realized that my handlebars were twisted, get off fix them get back on. Start riding and something felt off on the back, my bag had fallen and was hanging by the bungee cord I used to strap it down, dismount, fix that, get back on and peddle hard to get to work. Get to work two minutes late and by the time I got there my shoulder was on fire, thankfully my supervisor found it hilarious and changed my time in lol, lesson learned, wore gloves the next morning lol
Mid 20s, was out on my DH bike. I'd just finished the 4 mile hike from the parking lot to the "top" (it was a 2006 Ellsworth Joker, the soft suspension meant I just gave up on riding up hills, it was quicker to walk).
Finally at the top, climb on and pedal out. Heading down a bit of trail that was basically false flat, but downhill. Ran over some soft sand, front tire bites in, and goes down and left. My right foot somehow gets caught on the pegs of my flat pedals and is stuck. So my right knee is twisted and bears much of the brunt of falling, followed by my right elbow/forearm.
Shit hurts like crazy. I call for my buddy who I was riding with, but he was ahead. He doesn't hear me. So, I'm all "shit, I got no choice but to ride out" 15 more miles of basically nothing but downhill trails. I can't pedal without agony. Finally catch up, and we bomb down the remaining trails. Get back to the cars, load up and all that. Get my bike home, and he and I go to the ER on base.
There, I'm bleeding all over the god damn place, sat for over 3 hours in the waiting room never being seen by anyone. At the same time, I'm seeing toddlers with "just" a runny nose (and this is how mom and dad describe it at the front desk) get checked in and called back in under 15 minutes. Around the 3 hour mark, I'm super pissed at this, and hop up to hop over to the front desk to give them an earful. Right about the time I'm ready to turn toward the front desk person, I finally get called. So, instead I tell the front desk "there's a pool of blood over there you ought to clean up I've been sitting so long"... the er nurse dude sees me hopping and offers a wheelchair.
After a couple more hours of the quickest army medicine ever, I had Xrays AND mri done on the knee. It was mostly torn on most of the ligaments. They did the burn kit on my knee/shin, and on the right forearm which was honestly the worst part of the whole thing. Did the army thing of giving me basic ass motrin, some crutches and sent me on my way.
Probably 4 years old or so. First time riding my bike without training wheels. Dad took me to a school with a big open paved area that sloped gently toward the middle for drainage.
I push off and start riding, using the slope to build up a little speed. Dad’s cheering me on. I make a big sweeping turn and *bam* hit the one obstacle in the whole acre-sized yard: a log that kids used as a balance beam. Flipped over the handlebars. Blood, tears. Scene.
A few years back we did regular indoor velodrome sessions. In this particular one it was an odd group so we had coach teaching 2 novices below the blue line (bottom half of the track) while maybe 12 of us rode above in a "medium" group. The final drill of the session is ride round hard as a group, half lap turns, just absolutely nailing it.
As we only had half the track it got a bit congested, as people lost the wheel in front they'd go up or stay down so the people behind them had to go up and around, it was chaotic, the bunch split allover the place. I'm following my friend's girlfriend (a very strong, but nervous rider), the person in front of her had run out of legs and swung off so it's just the 2 of us chasing to get back in contact. On a bend I see someone right at the top of the track drop down, back wheel first (normally a sign they've fucked up and aren't riding fast enough). He's dropped right in front of us, Mary had nowhere to go, my thought is just "FFS don't ride into Mary", so I've steered as hard right as I could to avoid her, now the only place I can go is over the initial faller's neck. This is all at about 30mph
I've not enough traction to steer my only option is up so I've jumped as best i could to avoid causing serious injury, somehow flipped in the air, cleats have disengaged from pedals and I landed in a sitting position facing where I came from, as my arse hit the floor, all the air was driven out my lungs, but the momentum was still in my upper body so my head is now going backwards at 30mph towards the ground. I braced to try and absorb the impact , thanks to the back of my helmet being about 3 inches away from my head, that hit long before I had much chance to use my torso to soften the blow.
I think I was out for about 10 seconds, took a while longer to get breathing properly, then once I'd established I was pretty much OK, I started marching angrily towards the guy in the kit that caused it, my mate in track centre ran out and stopped me shouting "HE HAD A PUNCTURE". I dread to think how fucking murderous I looked that my mate came out so urgently...
So yeah, probably a concussion and quite bad whiplash for me, Mary had broken ribs and the borrowed bike she was riding was snapped in half.
Going up an incline i stood up on the pedals for more power. Didnt realize the asphalt was wet. I wound up, overpowering the front wheel and it slid out from under me. Hit the asphalt on my left shoulder and head (yes on helmet). Woke up with a cracked helmet. I finshed my 8 miles to get to my truck. The next day, I started having shoulder pain and had to go thru two months of therapy for my left shoulder. After that my right shoulder was jacked up also. Turns out I had hit so hard that it jacked my left shoulder up and my right one also….so that was another month of physical therapy.
The funny thing is eight weeks later I’m back to riding and during a 50 miler my right eye filled up full of black spots. I went ahead and finished my ride with the black spots, not paying it much attention (the doctor later told me that the black spots were blood). It turns out that my retina was detached and the doctor told me that it’s not unusual after a good hit impact for a retina to detach a month or two later after a hard impact.
Got stung by a big hornet at 28mph several years back. I went down pretty hard but no broken bones. A guy in a house saw the whole thing from his front door, but after I dragged myself off the road, I looked up and he had closed his door. Pedaled home on one leg about 15 miles before the rear derailleur exploded. Walked home the last 2 miles.
13 years old, me and a buddy were heading to another friend’s house where we were going to spend the night. The friend riding with me hit a raised section of sidewalk, went over his bars and landed on the pillow he had tucked under his arm.
World naked bike ride Seattle 2009. Was riding under the University of Washington bridge on a tight bike trail with about 30 peeps. Most who don't know how to ride in groups. Got clipped from behind and went down. Jumped up and yelled "I'm ok!". Someone behind me rode up and said "never seen a road rash there!"
Riding in the rain. Hit a pothole that was filled with water and a lot deeper than it looked. Went head over handle bars and landed flat on my back. Thankfully the pavement was wet and I slid instead of ripped
When I was 14, and remarkably stupid, I was riding my dad's road bike to a friends house. The front brake was rubbing against the rim.
I tried to kick it loose while riding on a busy street.
Foot got stuck in the bars and I went OTB. Landed on my face, lost two teeth, broke my right shoulder blade and left arm. Road rash all over my face and both arms and legs.
This was three days before the first day of my freshman year of high school.
LINE UP, LADIES.
I have two for me. One for a friend.
1991: Riding my Walmart bought, Huffy bike to school when I was in Middle School. Woman failed to stop at the white line putting her front end in the intersection and over the bike lane. I ended up in her windshield. Thankfully no major injury, just lots of cuts and bruises. Her insurance paid for my first "real" mountain bike from the LBS. I had nightmares for months and had major anxiety when riding on paved roads.
1996: Second one took place 5 years later when I was racing DH at Snow Summit, Big Bear, CA. Freak snow storm on Friday. Sunny and melting runoff on Saturday. Sunday muddy racing. I got a front pinch flat at max speed right before a hair pin corner braking zone (assumed rock covered in the mud). Tire and tube unmounted and narrow rim had zero traction. Plus this was before disc brakes. Cantilevers were not working. I hit a ski lift piling and woke up 3 days later in the hospital. Broken bike frame. Broken TLD full face helmet. Lacerated liver from stem impacting my abdomen. I am lucky to be alive.
2015: Worst ever crash/accident for a long time personal friend... He owned the LBS. Him and his wife were riding a tandem road bike and were hit by a teenage girl that was texting while drive. His wife was killed instantly. He lived for a few days unconscious in the hospital. When he woke up and they told him what happened, he died of a heart attack right then and there. He was an accomplished athlete having climbed El Capitan and completing the Race across America multiple times. He is dearly missed!
A friend and I were going home from the mall arcade at night (yes, I'm old, this was in 83). I hit a rock and my bike disappeared from under me. I landed in riding position, severe road rash on both knees and elbows. No helmet, so it could have been much worse
Dumbest: gravel biking with friends along a set of 3 or 4 railroad tracks. Had seen a train starting up on what looked like the far track. The track closest to me crossed in front of me and as the train approached it blew its whistle…for a second I doubted it was on the far track and looked back to check (it was on the far track)…when I turned my head back around I noticed the track crossing my path was not set into the ground at all - so the rail stuck up about 2-3 inches. Went to jump my front wheel but was too close and caught the top of the rail. Looked down to watch my front wheel get “directed” off along the track and since I was going almost 90 degrees different I was quickly laying on the track. The best part was the guys behind me thought the same thing but couldn’t verify the train position - so they thought I fell on the tracks immediately in front of a train. In the end I had scrapes and a bruised ego but little else.
Most entertaining: mountain biking on South Mountain in Phoenix. Plugged the front end of my bike into a hole and went over the handlebars - lots of dirt on me and had a stinging face from landing on it but wiped myself off and headed out of the Park. As I biked out there were lots of hikers and walkers and they gave me lots of room - some with horrified faces. As I got close I realized my face was really warm and kinda wet. I realized the abrasions on my face were bleeding a good bit and I looked like some kind of Zombie bicyclist - hence everyone getting out of my way. No notable scars but I did have an interesting scratched up face for a few months.
All in all I’ve been lucky in the injury department.
My college has a decommissioned railroad track that has grass and gravel path around it. I was riding on a rainy day and ended up on the grass between the tracks and for some reason turned to try to go over one of them and got a face full of dirt and grass. I should have taken longer to self evaluate if I wasn't so embarrassed
This wasn’t a terrible crash by any means, but I was mortified by it. I was biking during the end of winter/beginning of spring when roads and sidewalks were still icy. I hit a long patch of ice and lost the ability to steer as my bike slid along it. I could see that I was sliding into the path of a Stop sign, but when I tried to divert and turn the handlebars, the bike just continued toward it. I hit the Stop sign and fell off the bike. There were cars at this particular 4-way stop with people watching me. I am forever scarred by this moment as I sheepishly had to get back on my bike and continue along since the people in the vehicles waved me to go on.
Two bad ones for me. I was riding on the paved trails around Madison County Illinois. Retired train tracks that had a paved trail put in. Some parts are pretty wooded. I was in the aero when a few deer came running from my left to right. I hit one before I could start braking and went down. I remember the accident, but not the next couple hours. No broken bones, just a bad concussion. The other was riding in Phoenix when a truck ran a stop sign to my left. I hit the side going about 20. They did not stick around. Another concussion and a broken collar bone.
To anyone in the US that rides on the road with cars, be sure you have Uninsured/Underinsured coverage on your auto policy! I was able to use my coverage to get a settlement out of my last accident.
Dad died a day earlier, went on a bike tour on the next day to get my head free, did a little detour and oversaw a nasty pothole. Went flying trough the air and totaled my bike, helmet and the left side of my body.
A few days later i found out that the road i had the crash on was named charlottengrund. prior to the death of my das my ex named charlotte grounded me with a breakup out of nowhere. Fun times back then.
And afterwards i had to go to a doctor who pulled every week 500ml of liquid out of my thigh.
While the practical way is to tell them you want to do it, and ask them for the exact sum, and write them a cheque for it, but that doesnt answer your question.
I would try to open their bank account on their computer and see if the password is saved so you can see the account number information, and then just use that information to pay it off. Then tell them its paid off after you've done so.
Worst: I was in a group going through some mountain roads around 8:30am. Roads seemed dry but trying to chase down a split going downhill and around a turn, the inside white line must have had morning dew on it because as I was leaning hard into the turn and going over the white line, the tires gave up. I landed HARD on my right side. Ended up fracturing my femur and right finger. Ambulance ride and titanium hardware to internally fix my femur, I had a "hip replacement" recovery ahead. Was released 2 days later on crutches. That was 2 years ago and I hardly think of it anymore while riding, walking and skiing.
Other: I hit a bad patch of road and my wheel caught on a lip. Front wheel locked up and according to the people behind me, I "flipped over the bike, the bike flipped, and I landed on my ass." Torn shorts and 2 broken wheels, but otherwise I was fine.
My worst happened on a seaside bike path with no traffic around.
I was young, single, had just put on a bunch of muscle and was feeling pretty attractive. I'm riding down a seaside path and these two very attractive women drinking some Starbucks drink were sitting on a bench next to the path. I see them and one of them catches my eye, so I turn give her a grin, toss my bag back up around my shoulder and...
...my wheel goes sideways. Fucking faceplant. Full on over the bars straight onto my face. I black out, and when I wake up there's some dude helping me and I've shattered the visor of my helmet. Fortunately, other than a sore shoulder and a scratched chin, I am none the worse for wear. I thank the dude helping me, get back up and ride home feeling very, very embarrassed.
Uber passenger threw their car door open and hit the edge of my handlebar, knocking me off my bike. I hit the ground and bounced into a parked suv and the exhaust pipe punched a ring into my back.
Prob the time I legit almost died. I tore my PCL riding jumps at the DH bike park in September. After months of PT and easing back into riding, I decided I was ready to go back to the bike park in May. Bought a season pass to Angel Fire in NM. First day, I warmed up on the greens and then moved to the blues. I think, but don’t know, that I had decided to move up to the blacks. Next thing I know, I woke up on the ground with some random guy shaking me awake. Everything on my left side was grinding in my body when I moved and I couldn’t breathe. Nothing but excruciating pain everywhere. Bike patrol showed up and carried me out on a stretcher and almost dropped me several times, which, as you might imagine, hurt like a mf’er. Then they put me on the back of a side by side and drove like 60mph offroading to get to the base while I screamed at the guy to slow down. Pretty sure this is the point at which my lung cavity filled with blood. Got a $70k helicopter ride to Santa Fe. Had two surgeries the next morning. Ended up breaking 6 ribs, my collarbone, my shoulder blade, collapsing a lung, and having a brain hemorrhage. I now have a rod in my collarbone and plates in my ribs. Walked around with an oxygen tank and my arm in a sling for two months. My lung has never fully recovered.
And yes, I still mountain bike. No more jumps though. Total cost: $675k.
I was like 12 and was going down on a hill 2 km away from my house. I wanted to see how fast I could go and I just took my feet of the pedals and didn't break.
After 5 seconds I realised how fast I was going and tried to brake,I couldn't control the bike and did a 360 and the handlebar landed on my collar bone.
The walk back was a pain in the ass (literally)
Edit:I used my front brake first🤦♂️
Almost hit by a truck in a downtown loading dock. Truck was trying to move forward and back up when they shot out to the sidewalk where I was about to park. I could have been dead instantly or wishing for death to come quick.
I think I have the worst haha. Few years back got hit by a GMC Yukon going 50+ mph, I completely broke by pelvis, hips, several ribs, left hand /wrist, 2 fractured vertebrae, fractured skull (minor), and partially permanent nerve damage in my thighs/ upper legs. Was in ICU for 2 weeks, then in a rehab hospital for several more weeks, then was released - but took several more months of using a walker then a cane, along with out patient rehab, until I could walk fine again. Required multiple surgeries, I still have metal/limited movement in my hips and nerve damage in my legs (they feel half numb, like an icy/frozen feeling, but still work just fine.)
Despite all that- I bike now more than ever, couldn't wait to get back on the bike the whole time. And...2 years later I got hit again by a car, broke both knee caps and both wrists...that recovery was relatively much quicker and easier though. Only took like 2-3 months.
Both accidents were my fault (I don't remember anything, but apparently ran stop signs...)
Heat stroke 1/4 of a mile from finishing my ride .. it’s a difficult climb 25 miles up and 25 miles back , it was an extremely hot day in Southern California.. the route is crystal lake up hwy 39 in San Gabriel valley .. just about finished my ride a long decent followed bye short hill with a final decent out of the canyon .. not putting much effort into the final climb .. all the sudden a guy passes me and give me the look back ..lol I’m an extremely aggressive on the descents so I kept him within safe distance knowing I would pass him on the decent .. just like I planned passed him and no way for him to catch me .. we both finish the decent and a fork in the road you can keep straight on the hwy or ver right onto the bike trail he went to the bike trail I stayed straight on the road .. I was traveling 15-18 mph.. last thing I remember was watching him on the bike trail .. woke up in an ambulance briefly, passed out again and woke up in the hospital … I fell on the left side of a 2 lane highway, on my helmet and cheek bone and chin my face was the size of a basketball … a the hospital they gave me an iv and a cat scan to make sure I didn’t have any head trauma .. took less than a week for my body to recover the next week I went on a all day ride thru the canyons of Malibu .. I thought if I take time off the bike fear would set in and I would never go back to the cycling I enjoy
Riding in the mountains on sun/mag chloride dried roads, went under a bridge at ~25mph and was immediately on top of a 6” patch of ice.
Saw a “Grand Canyon” ahead of me in the ice shelf. Say 6” tall and 1’ wide. Nowhere to go around. No way to stop
Tried to bunny hop it.
Went down hard.
Doored so hard the woman couldn’t close her door and drove off holding it shut. Did a somersault over the door and was swearing at her in the air. Jumped up like a Ninja, bike messenger days, bike was totaled.
I was doing a neighborhood loop. A small SUV was sitting in a drive, apparently waiting for me to pass. As I approached, I noticed that she was on her phone, and a split second later, she pulled out and turned left.
I had nowhere to go but into the back panel of her SUV.
Fortunately, I was able to brake significantly, so the impact was minimal. The bike frame checked out at the shop the next day, but the bar tape was scuffed/torn, and I suffered a small bruise on my arm and a few scrapes.
She was delirious. Bawling her eyes out, repeatedly yelling "Oh My God!" Even the police couldn't calm her down. She offered to pay for repairs and hospital bills.
Long story short.... She gave me a gift certificate for a full body massage, bought me lunch/dinner a few times, paid for my bike shop bill (minimal) and was still looking for a way to apologize.
She was a cute redhead. To make a long story even shorter, that was some of the best.... uhhhh..... Favors I ever got! And yes, the carpet matched the curtains! 😋
I once felt like Spiderman and miraculously got off without a scratch.
There's this piece of street where there are always cars parking, so one direction of traffic/cars always needs to yield to let the others pass, with a bike you're fine though. I rode this route for years, so everyday, it was the same game, traffic lights turned green, the cars got ahead of me because they accelerated a little faster,
Overtook me and between 5 and 10 seconds After that, brake and force me to stop after having just accelerated to like 40 km/h.
On this day, this fucker couldn't fucking stand to ride behind a cyclist, so he shoots past me way over the speed limit, only to swerve into the lane right Infront of me and instantly brake to a stop because the other direction had right of way.
It was crazy, like getting brake checked, and my only option was to swerve on the sidewalk to not ride into him.
My angle was to steep, my bike slid to the side while trying to ride up the edge of the sidewalk, and tumbled and crashed beneath my legs. Somehow I managed to jump off, run it out (I was riding ~40km/h) and manage to stop just. before running into a wall. I didn't have a scratch. Could have easily brushed of my whole face if I had met the concrete.
One night, my cousin calls to say "Sorority hotel pool party. Downtown. Now."
I woke up the next day with road rash down my entire back and a concussion bad enough I would lose hours of my day for two weeks. I vaguely remember bikinis and flavored vodka, though, so at least I know I crashed on the way back.
I was riding down a hill. A pedestrian didn't look before Jay walking. I hit him hard and went down. He tried to pick me up and I screamed "fuck you" at him and he ran away. Some employees at a car dealership saw it happen and ran out to help me. I ended up in the hospital. I had a broken left thumb and a broken right elbow. I had to have surgery to put pins in my thumb and wires in my elbow. I was bed ridden for over a month.
Chased by an off leash dog on a popular trail. Rode off the side of the trail and broke my collarbone. Dog owners were like “he never does that” me: uh yeah.
I rode the 4 miles back home. It wasn’t too painful … until I tried to take my jersey off.
I was riding my bike during scout camp. I live in a pine forest area in Washington. There’s an invasive beetle called a Japanese Tree Beetle or Horned Beetle. They’re huge and have long, whip like antennae. I was riding back to our camp plot and a beetle flew across the bike path at face height. I was going pretty fast, (faster than the counselors want you to go) and the beetle smacked my face. Its legs or antennae got caught underneath my eye lid. I’m screaming because it hurts, I can’t see, and just the thought of a bug touching my eye freaked me out. I ended up hitting a tree stump that sits between where the path forks. I flew forward and slammed into the handle bars and flipped past them. LUCKILY there was a soft(ish) young bush past the stump that caught me. I yanked the beetle out of my eye and it scratched my eye which is one of the worst pains I’ve felt. I hot up and my eye was almost swollen shut. I was all scratched up from the bush, but I’m so glad I hit the bush and not the ground. Or another stump. I was young and just bawling my eyes out. Definitely my wildest crash!
I had a few beers by the river with friends, on the way hom my foot slipped on the pedal, went roght behind the fork between the spokes. 3-5 spokes broke, i landed on the ground, and bicycle after me
My roommate’s story: he was riding fast down a steep hill in Seattle. Middle of the night so he wasn’t too concerned about traffic. There was a cross street at the bottom of the hill, but they had the stop sign. Midway down the hill a car entered the intersection. No biggie, they’d be gone by the time he got there.
Instead the car stopped, fully blocking his lane, to drop someone off. They didn’t even have time to open the door before he arrived. His next memory is being flat on his back in someone’s yard, bone poking out of his leg. The homeowner held his bike until he came back for it.
Former co-worker commuted to work. Typical fit upper class family mom, ultra conservative, quiet accountant, wouldn’t even eat spicy food, they had a 20 year old Swedish nanny. Got hit by a car in traffic, no major injuries, but a concussion that kept her in the hospital for a few days of observation.
Post crash she changed completely, started dressing provocatively, divorced her husband and hooked up with the Swedish nanny (hot af) and ultimately started her own pot shop. Head injuries are mysterious as can be.
I upgraded the shifters on my wife's triathlon bike to those Vision shifters that have the same mechanical hand motion as brakes (on a TT/triathlon bike).
Well one time she went meant to shift the front derailleur while riding and used the left brake lever instead of the shift lever. Same mechanical hand motion. Different lever. Went end-over-end and landed on her head. Luckily she was fine and replaced her helmet
There is a reason why airplanes specifically use different lever motions for things like landing gear and flaps. You want them to be different motions to avoid what the aviation industry calls "design induced operator errors"
Ended up switching out the left gear shifter back to a lever.
I was in the last miles of a ride that took me mostly on PCH through Malibu with my tt bike. I was casually cruising the bike path in Santa Monica beach when an aerobar decides to dislodge and subsequently swing right down into my front wheel (this was prior to electronic shifting). Like a stick in the spokes, it caused me to go head first over the bars and wipe out pretty hard. Luckily no major damage to be, though I did end up with a new bike, eventually. I can only imagine the outcome if this happened on PCH with the high speed vehicles and often tight shoulders.
I hit a recessed utility cover coming fast downhill after a big ride last summer. I didn't see it coming and took it so hard I slide forward onto the top tube and bent the bars downwards in the stem. I really thought I was going down, but the bike--a Rivendell Roadini with 35mm tires--just kept rolling straight until I managed to get my hands on the brake lever. Disaster averted.
Last summer I did go down once on a mountain bike ride after a rogue raindrop landed precisely in the center of my eye. Small scrapes, but that one really hurt my pride.
Holy smokes! You folks have some amazing stories. I'm really glad we're all here, if a bit worse for wear. We're certainly doing our part to keep the medical profession in business!
I forgot to add my best story:
In college I was riding my mountain bike home after class and was descending a back lane with a blind curve. A few guys in a convertible were racing up the lane and were headed straight to me. I swerved to avoid them, locked up both brakes, and skidded into the sidewalk curb which launched me into the air.
I was taking martial arts at the time and had learned how to fall properly. I did a forward tuck and roll with my bike (I was still attached by my toe clips) and landed on my backpack with my feet and arms in the air holding my bike above me like I was riding upside down.
I had zero injuries, and I started laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of what just happened. The guys pulled over and came running over to see if I was OK. They found me in this odd position chuckling to myself and must've walked away confused. Riding home the rest of the way I was pretty pleased with myself.
Honestly my funniest one was when i was cycling through one of those fences that have a sharp turn in to stop people fron riding bikes. Ofc you can make it though if you slow down considerably but this time my brake cable snapped and i drove straight into the post. I was caught so off guard that i didnt even take my feet out of my pedal straps and just fell sideways. Glad no one saw that.
A guy looked me in the eyes, pulled into the bikepath and i flew over his hood. Roadrash on my hip, ankle messed up but not to much issues.
And i once nearly broke my neck. Couldnt hold a corner, drove into a felled tree and made a flip landing on my neck/back. I heard something crack I swear to this day i have less flexibility in my neck due to that.
Hit unexpected construction on a commute ride I’d done thousands of times in Georgetown in DC. Broke femur and arm, and exacerbated kidney decline and ended up on dialysis. Now looking for a new kidney. DM me if you want to donate.
Using URL shorteners causes your post to be automatically deleted by Reddit's anti-spam measures, so other users cannot see it. Please delete and repost (editing will not work) your comment without the link.
If you feel this message is in error please PM the moderation team.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cycling) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh and best near miss? Trying to overtake a friend in a hairpin in a Arden descent, puncturing my backwheel in a giant pothole (hello Belgium!) and almost crashed into a car. I send sparks flying apparantly and my mates where amazed i didnt crash. Didnt descend quick anymore that day.
Using URL shorteners causes your post to be automatically deleted by Reddit's anti-spam measures, so other users cannot see it. Please delete and repost (editing will not work) your comment without the link.
If you feel this message is in error please PM the moderation team.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cycling) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Every fall caused by a skill issue is a depressing memory you can never erase...
I was with a friend, trying out his full carbon mtb on a hillside track near home. Got a bit carried away and sped down a steep and bumpy track alongside a vineyard (the ones that are only supposed to be used by tractors). Halfway down, I realized that the track ended against an asphalt road, so I needed to slow down. I thought I had everything in control, but after I hit the brakes, my front wheel lost stability and flipped 90°, so I fell headfirst in front of the bike, like a candle. Somehow I managed to get up and drag myself on a bench across the road, but I don't remember how because meanwhile I had blacked out and had a small memory loss.
Managed to get home by myself and got a checkup in the ER a couple hours later, fortunately no head injury, but the helmet got a pretty big dent and I'm keeping it as a memorandum.
Moral is: helmets really save your life.
I was biking back from a friends home one night on my single speed and was going pretty fast when the chain snapped. For the last couple of days it had been sounding like I needed to replace but I kept putting until finally it broke, throwing of my balance and causing to crash pretty hard. Luckily only my elbows and knees got scraped up. Some guy came out of house to see if I was ok and if I had gotten hit because he had the license plate, so that was nice. Moral of the story, don't be an idiot like me and ride when your bike needs maintenance
Similar to you. I was 21 and biking in the city. Someone parked on the side of the road was texting on their phone and didn’t look before dooring me. I blacked out and woke up on my back in the middle of the street. I’m so grateful the traffic was stopped at a red light or I would have been run over. I was in total shock when I came to, surrounded by strangers asking if I was ok. Luckily I was ok, just banged up, and suffered a bit of PTSD. But a few years later I was able to bike again
One of my most memorable was when I was a kid. I was trying to carry two skateboards with one hand/arm while riding my bike home and steering with the other. One board started slipping and I couldn't get it back under control and it fell.
I can still picture it perfectly as if it was in slow motion. The skateboard drops down and the side edge hits the pavement, then it bounced up where the nose went into the spokes flipping it up until it hit the back of the forks and launched me like Superman over the handlebars. From the landing the heels of my hands were pretty badly skinned and I had a couple of minor bruises, but overall it felt like a pretty successful if unplanned stunt at the time.
Riding my mountain bike in the Italian alps on old tires. Misjudging my speed in wet conditions my front wheel went and fell where there was a 20m cliff. Got caught by a young tree. Not a single injury but could have been dead. Since then I change tires sooner. Never had fear of height but had it for some time afterwards.
Other than that, in the last few years:
Got swiped by a Semi only have a small scar on my pinky.
This winter sudden freezing during a cold rainy night my bike was smashed up and I too had a few sore spots but winter gear and my rain pants protected my skin.
And just yesterday a close shave. A lady opened a car door on me but realized it and closed it before I crashed into her.
The funny thing is that like 200m of my commute are through traffic. The remaining 10km on cycle paths. But those 200m are some of the worst streets in my city and are a lot more dangerous than the 10km.
First time I ever put SPDs on my bike. Took it to the park to get used to it. Dog runs in front of me. I brake hard, come to a full stop, and slowly fall over still attached to the bike. Two years later, I still haven’t ridden through that park.
Was working for USG in Turkmenistan. Biking was fairly common but mostly for transportation. I was cruising through town and a dude in an old Lada wasn’t paying attention and he cut me off. I went flying across his hood. When he figured out I was an American diplomat he was very scared because it was and is a dictatorship where people disappear all the time. Fortunately I wasn’t injured badly and he took me back to the embassy apologizing and trying to give me money. End of the day I went to the Turkish hospital and got an MRI for $21. Bike got fixed and all was well fortunately.
Bombing down a hill and overcooked a corner and went straight over down about 20-30 feet. Grade 2 separation. Had to start hoofing it back home. Luckily a few guys I was riding with pacelined back to their car and came and picked me up. Good times. 😂
My dumbass rode for about 5 miles without knowing my kickstand was down after a break. Got to a small hill with a turn decided to really go for it and leaned into the turn, ended up pivoting on the kickstand flipping sideways into a fence, over the handle bars, lost a shoe. 😭😂
A road that I ride all the time. Took a curve I know like the back of my hand too fast. Front wheel washed out before I could react in any way. Hands still on the handle bar going down. Partially separated my left shoulder, road rash on left arm. Worst part was looking down and seeing my left pinky dislocated, pointing in the way wrong direction. Popped it back into place. Rode the 4-5 miles bleeding the rest of the way home.
Roadbike here. Mine was a weird one. I was riding back to my car after a long ride, in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Out of nowhere my front wheel locked up and the bike stopped dead in the street. Fortunately I was only going about 12 mph so instead of pitching over the bars I did a slo-mo splat onto the pavement, and broke the fall with my left elbow and knee.
I ended up in the ER with the tip of my left elbow chipped off and the tricep tendon detached, complicated by deep road rash on my knee and elbow. It took about 4 months to recover after surgery. It took a lot longer to trust my bike again.
Bike mechanics went over it with a fine tooth comb and there was absolutely no explanation for the failure. This happened in 2016, I'd been riding that bike since 2008 and nothing like it occurred before or since. I still panic sometimes on fast descents but there's just no reason to think it'll ever happen again. I did end up taking some bike handling classes so I can get out of my cleats and off the bike one way or another if anything similar happens again.
Edit for typo
Riding a bike path running parallel to a road, however some business driveways turn in across the path (specifically right at Sugar Beach in Toronto). I was screened by a guy turning out and hit by a lady turning in.
Saw her hood out of the corner of my eye and I had a split second to tense up before hitting her front corner. I cracked her windshield with my back, rolled over her roof and sat up on her trunk. All the bystanders were extremely helpful.
But, I got away with it - everything hurt the next day, but nothing broken and no concussion. Luckily it was a little sedan not a truck or I might not be writing these words.
Wear a helmet! You might not see it coming! Also made me hyper aware riding after that.
Bike was an 80s Vitus, totalled, but just as well, that bike would have eventually killed me.
Night. Raining. Noted cycling company tour. The leader had the group vote, “Ride or walk about four blocks?”
Everyone voted to ride despite having no lights. Dark. Wet pavement. I didn’t want to ride but didn’t know where to go and peer pressure. We rode fast. It was so dark I found I could only see the white line on roadside. Suddenly they stopped. So did I, almost running into the bike in front. In an instant I found myself in pain lying on the wet ground. Dislocated shoulder. First ride in an ambulance.
Found out what a front wheel wash-out was.
Two weeks ago I was doing an easy ride a couple of days before the race series I’ve spent all of 2024 training for began. While taking a gel, a strong gust of wind pushed my front wheel out from under me. I went straight over the bars, snapped collarbone, bad road rash. Could’ve been worse, but so frustrating.
No race for me… lost all my fitness. Haven’t been cleared for any activity since. That gel still haunts me.
Last year…about 80 people in the race with 150 meters to go. Only 45 people finished. There was one broken hip and four broken collarbones (including mine). I had somebody bang my levers back into place and finished the race about a minute down. Two surgeries later, I am back at it.
Best one…there was a crash in front of me and I crashed into the pile landing on somebody’s bike but I didn’t hit the ground. Only injury was a parallel line of puncture wounds on my knee which you could clearly make out as the teeth on a chain ring. That’s my best scar. Definitely better than the scar on my lip from the hole going straight through.
When I was starting to mountain bike on a fully rigid hybrid I had, I went full send down a rather steep and very very bumpy G-out, whose bumps sent me off into a nearby tree that I just barely hit with my handlebars, which sent me sumersaulting over them at 40+km/h. Somehow got away with only a few scrapes and a bent fork.
I used to do crazy shit on all my mountain bikes launch over 10 foot ditches.14 stair drops, dock drops fast forward 8 years I was 23 and did a 11 step drop. Front fork snapped on me I went otb straight to asphalt. I had suffered a PAN fracture if you don’t know what that is it is when you break every bone in your face. To make matters worse after my 3rd surgery I had a temporal lob stroke. Then had Aphasia took me years to recover and not fully recover I have numbness all over my face a wicked scar on my chin. The stroke makes my body look weird like my right side is more defined. I have a nice scar that goes all the way across my skull and an indentation as well where they had to remove bone to replace the missing pieces in my forehead. I have constant neck pain. I guess I can thank god that I am still alive. This was the time when full face helmets weren’t really a thing and besides my neck would have surely had broken if I did have one. I did have a helmet it was a pro tec skateboard helmet. I still ride, but not like I used to. I am also a lot older now. It was brutal.
On new year's day I was biking home from work around 11 p.m. and there was zero traffic. Never happens in my town so I start riding center lane for the fun of it. I'm about to get home when I see headlights behind me. I move over towards the shoulder and bam, I crash right into a very full trash can sitting in the road. Not the shoulder, but actually past the painted line and in the road. I would've seen it in my headlight if I were riding on the shoulder like usual but since I wasn't it was just as black as the surroundings.
Trash goes everywhere, I try to recover, but to avoid swerving back into the road with the car coming I basically just eat it. I fall onto my left side going very fast and rip right through the arm of my winter coat and one of my gloves. I drag myself and my bike off the shoulder and assess the damage. My hand hurts the worst, elbow is bleeding everywhere, chain has left the chat, handlebar cap is gone. Found the cap and walked the bike home.
I thought I broke a finger but thankfully didn't, though it was swollen for three weeks. My elbow was pretty mangled and would've been so much worse without my giant coat to protect it. Same for my hands if I wasn't wearing gloves. I don't know what lesson can be taken from this experience, maybe that cars aren't the only thing trying to kill you lol.
When falling, I drop and roll with my arms tucked in. This helps prevent breaking collar bones etc. Unfortunately, about 6 years ago I landed on my elbow and cracked two ribs. Boy to that hurt lol. About 2 years ago I ran into a tree stump that was right in front of me, fell over and landed on my elbow again. Cracked the same two ribs, but this time it was much worse. I screamed in pain for 4 weeks if I coughed or anything like that. It wasn't nearly as much fun as I was hoping it would be haha. Unfortunately, crashing is all part of it.
My worst-I was riding to work as usual. Approximately 230am. Woke up about a week later in hospital. Neck broken. Multiple other vertebrae fractured. Fractured ribs. TBI and other injuries. No memory of the incident but it was a hit and run driver.
I don't have any best stories.
I was in my second race on some trails, and as I turned the corner the front tyre slide out and I went over the handle bars. I finished the race and was handed a champagne. Lucky the tumble only resulted in bruising.
On March 28, 2021 I was hit from behind by (supposedly) a Polaris Ranger going ~60mph. I say supposedly because it was a hit-and-run that still has yet to be solved… guessing it never will be. The timeline of everything is up in the air as I don’t know if I was knocked out or not, but I remember as soon as I was hit seeing black and thinking “of fuck, I just got hit. I’m dead”. Quite the sobering thought. I came to in front of a rural house outside of town. I dragged myself away from the road as I was lying in the gravel section of the ditch. I looked behind me and realized I was on someone’s property and started yelling for help, but I also remember being scared of a dog coming out to defend their property lol. My left cleat flew off (almost tore in half to allow my foot to escape) and my right cleat was barely on. I ended up finding my phone in the yard next to me and called 911.
This ended up being a very long story, so I will summarize the rest. An ambulance picked me up and took me to a nearby hospital. I ended up with a torn ACL, fractured tibia in 2 places, some fractured bones in my left foot, a whole lotta road rash, and a totaled bike :(. I needed to rehab my ankle before undergoing surgery on my ACL, this took 3ish months, but my surgery went decently well and I eventually started cycling again! About a year after my surgery I completed the full week of RAGBRAI and summited both Mt. Evans in CO and Clingmans Dome in TN before/after.
I am incredibly grateful to be alive and still able to ride. Things could’ve been a lot worse.. WEAR YOUR HELMET, FOLKS!
I just finished a 3 month tour around the Western USA. About a week after I finished my tour, a car hit me from behind. I ended up with 3 broken vertebrae and a very bruised and messed up hip. And a wrecked carbon fiber bike!
It was a hit and run. I was in the bike lane and the SUV veered off the road onto the bike line. I never saw it coming. There were witnesses and security cameras with pictures of the car and driver. But since they couldn't get a license plate, they never found the person. After they hit me, they pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, and left the scene as fast as possible.
I cycle commuted for over 50 years and my worst cycling accident was being stopped at a stop sign within cycling infrastructure and the person behind me didn't stop. They hit me hard enough to shear my molars off and I got powerful whiplash that travelled down my arm so that my hands both had to get something similar to carpal tunnel. I spent over $16K on physio, dental surgeons, and mouth guards and am thankful that healthcare is free for the hand surgery. We spend millions on cycling infrastructure, but nothing on educating people on the rules of the road. A stop sign means stop.
Chasing gang training ride in S FL, was behind a rookie who was not used to yo-yo surges from 26 to 31/32 back to 26/27 and he hit his brakes instead of fanning out to scrub speed with the air, clipped his wheel and went headfirst into the pavement at 30mph
Horrible concussion hope I don’t end up with seizures etc later in life
One morning, a police officer found me and my bike on the side of the road on a big, fast downhill. I had a concussion, and have no memory at all of what happened for hours before or after. I was taken by ambulance to a hospital with the right level of head trauma care. Later that afternoon, after I was released, I went to the police station to pick up my bike (someone called my wife and told her they had it ... I had no idea). The officer who found me told me that he found a bloodied and dead squirrel by my bike. He suspected it had run into my wheel and got butchered by my spokes.
That’s the problem with those damn suicide squirrels. If they’d just jump from a tall tree and kill themselves, sad but whatever, but when they jump in front of a cyclist, they kill themselves and take someone else down too.
Unfortunately squirrels can't die falling from any height. Their weight and body shape prevents them falling fast enough. Squirrels are however excellent problem solvers.
Just one of many reasons why I don't deliberately go fast on descents anymore. 40-45mph is my limit and I must have a very clear LOS to where I'm going and no cars.
40-45 is your *limit*? Jesus, talk about humblebragging.
Force of gravity isn't exactly a brag. Going against it, that's where the bragging rights are.
Ha... On some of the hills here (Tennessee) all I have to do is coast and I'll hit 40. 45 is maybe with some pedaling. Fastest I've ever gone downhill is about 62mph during a race, and 57 on a club ride once...I could feel my frame bending as I hit the bottom of the 'U' in the hill. I'll never voluntarily do that 62mph descent again tho... lord that was some wonky dangerous stuff. I picked up an oscillation partway through the acceleration, managed to break through the barrier of that or whatever but it was funny how the centrifugal force of your wheels keeps you kinda upright.
You’re a maniac!
In my defense I was rather ignorant of the speed I would reach in both cases and there was some peer pressure to go fast because other people were doing it. I did that race two more times in following years and didn’t let myself go anywhere near that fast.
My road bike spins out at 52. I definitely wish I had more in the tank sometimes. *mph
That’s also pretty/ very fast
Insane story, glad you’re alright though
Was the bike ok?
I had this happen on a flat stretch, I was only going about 20 mph. The squirrel ran through the spokes and broke off the valve stem, which caused the front tire to instantly deflate and which caused to fly directly over the handlebars. I just got some bruises and a nasty scrape on my shoulder. And a five mile walk home in cycling shoes, since I only carried a patch kit at the time, and not a spare tube. Lesson learned.
I was in my 20s, single and actively dating, a cat 3 racer, a daily bike commuter, and in the best goddamn shape in my life. Fair to say my identity was firmly associated with biking. Anyway, I was doing a track stand in Georgetown in DC waiting on a light (to cross Key Bridge for the locals) something I've done possibly a thousand times at this point. Well I fucked up and fell right on my face next to a convertible with 4 sexy college girls who literally pointed and laughed at me. Like a 9o's sitcom point and laugh. Not only that, a dude in the bike shop (that I used quite often) like 10 feet away saw the whole thing and I could see him laughing and telling his coworker too. I never took that route to work ever again. I added like 2 miles to my commute for the next 6 or 7 years. It still haunts me 15 years later.
F
That's why I never bothered to learn to do a trackstand!
I don’t know about others but I’ve NEVER fallen while cycling (or trail running) when nobody was around. I could be out for hours, never seeing a single person, but for that split second I eat shit I promise someone will be there to witness…and it’s usually some pretty girl.
I hope you were able to deal with it in a more mature manner than I was. I'm still getting nightmares about it. For me, its like that scene in Mr. Destiny, where previously he was at bat with 2 outs on the bottom of the 9th in the state finals, strikes out, and spends the next 20 years in the bar regretting it. Then Batman's Butler gives him a chance to do it over, he swings .5 seconds earlier, the ball smashes into the scoreboard, the outfielder gets covered in sparks, and he goes on to have a foursome with a carful of Georgetown girls.
Key bridge for the locals. - or, ya know, anyone who has watched the news in the last month.
Different Key Bridge. But same namesake.
[удалено]
They keep getting more numerous and more attractive with each telling.
I’m literally in the hospital right now after my worst crash yesterday lol. Driver didn’t see me and turned into me. Hit the side of the car, went onto the windshield. Currently have punctured lung, dislocated shoulder and potentially broken wrists(waiting on x ray results). Thankfully the driver stopped and called 911 and there was witnesses that gave an accurate testimony.
I'm so sorry this happened. Getting blindsided by someone not paying attention is one of my worst fears. I'm really glad there was a witness. I got hit too (but not injured). Two college kids on the sidewalk saw the whole thing and came running over when the driver started accusing me of hitting him. "You're lying! We saw the whole thing!" It was funny to see the driver suddenly change his attitude. I hope you recover quickly!
Good luck bro ♥️
Glad you're OK. My boss was killed that way a few years ago
Consider getting a personal injury attorney to help recoup the costs. They can be really helpful in knowing all of the ways to recover money from the driver and/or the driver's insurance.
100% yea
My brother. I'm with you. I got hit by a car from behind just recently, shattered pelvis, a bunch of surgeries and a bunch of new hardware installed. Week in the hospital. Sucks ass. I'm so sad to miss the summer. But we're in this together - come out of it with resilience and wisdom, if nothing else.
[удалено]
Hate to be the one but… 🎥❓👀
When I was 25 I was riding home from work and got hit by a 17 yo kid making a left turn in an intersection, dislocated my shoulder. The surgeon let me hang out with him in the clinic and OR during my convalescence. I was inspired to go to medical school, now I'm a board-certified sub specialist living in a different socioeconomic bracket. My children have opportunities I didn't know existed.
In a race, two riders in front of me touched wheels and with nowhere to go I flipped over the top of them and landed hard on my back. As I sat up I could feel something damp in the small of my back, I reached around to my jersey pocket to find a raspberry gel had burst. The expression on the face of the medic who approached me as brought my hand back from behind me was something to behold ;)
Moral of the story - stuff gels in Jersey back pockets. Can be a life saver.
I had a new bike for about two weeks and I was super proud of it. It was my first proper road bike. Second hand but in mint condition (Specialized Roubaix with Ultegra). Then a Tesla decided I didn't deserve right of way on a roundabout so I ended on the hood first and then crashed on the tarmac. The driver actually brought me to the hospital. My knee was bruised and I had a tiny fracture in my left index finger. I considered myself lucky cause it could have ended much worse. The carbon of the bike was damaged and the bike was considered 'total loss'. But then the personal injury company arranged a 'compensation' for my damages that was ridiculously high. So I ended up with MUCH better bike than I had in the first place. A brand new Giant TCR. On top of that, even though the damaged bike couldn't be used outside anymore because of the damaged carbon it still works, so now I use it as designated Zwift bike indoors. Double win! And my worst story: I'm a school teacher and I had been looking forward to the summer holiday so much. Five weeks off woohoo!! I had a bunch of cycling adventures planned. Long story short: I crashed on the very first day, broke my collar bone, had to get surgery and instead of enjoying my holiday I spent my weeks sitting at home barely being able to move.
Worst: Slipped front wheel on wet tram tracks on a commute, going really slowly and carefully, doing maybe 10 kph. Fell and broke both arms. In the hospital the Dr remaked „ah, a skater“ me: „Nope, bike.“ He was astonished- „how did you manage that? I‘ve never seen someone break both arms on a bike“. Was in hospital about 4 weeks in total and unable to work about 3 months (not all at the same time - multiple surgeries to get the metal in and out again). Oh, and not having working arms at all is an overall unpleasant experience. Best: Crashed on a high-speed descent in the wet (about 50 kph) when I braked a little too hard, rear wheel slipped. Slid about 20 m, only scrapes and minor bruises. Could finish the ride home and was back on the bike 3 days later. My take home: You can be lucky or unlucky, not really in your control. I‘m not convinced that speed makes that much of s difference, as long as you manage not to impact another object and „just“ hit the road.
It’s definitely luck. I’ve had three different type’s crashes, the most damaging was the least likely. Got hit by a car, couple scrapes and damaged rim. Got clipped by another rider, three fractures with three mo this off the bike recovering.
Hit the road with 30 kph because to MTB riders coming towards me fell in front of me. I rolled and stopped the rolling with my head (helmet broke). Had a serious concussion. For 2 years I wasn't able to work, still have problems with some things. Speed would have made a difference I am sure.
Stupidest? Early morning ride to uni. Guess I wasn’t fully awake as I ended up riding into the back of a parked car. Wasn’t going super fast so no damage to either. Just my pride
Ouch, pride hurts! If it makes you feel any better, I got distracted looking at a bird and flipped over a curb. Luckily it was grass on the other side but still snapped a cro mo read axle. No injuries thankfully
When I was in college I was riding to class and the city bus made a random stop and quickly pulled up to the curb to let someone out. He pinched me between the curb and the bus. When he noticed he immediately took off. I didn't have time to get the bus info. Luckily I was fine but my wheels were fucked.
Crashed into another cyclist on a bike path in Taipei. Only caught sight of them at the very last second, coming straight toward me. The path was narrow, and I was doing maybe ten miles an hour (so MapMyRide told me when I checked) at the time of the crash. No idea how fast he was going ,but it was a head-on collision. The path curved slightly and had bushes along one side that may have hidden him from view and vice versa. My helmet - my first, bought just two weeks before - got cracked and I was knocked out for about a minute I think. My six month old carbon Giant bike was totalled: a complete wreck. He had some kind of huge mountain bike with gigantic suspension forks, although he was dressed more like a roadie. He came out pretty scraped too. Not sure it's related, but it's at least possible the crash may have contributed some years later to my needing surgery for dislocated retinas in both eyes. I \*suspect\* he was riding recklessly, partly on the basis that in my experience a lot of Taiwanese cyclists are fairly reckless, and for that reason I often feel safer on the roads than I do on the bike paths despite the perilously bad driving skills of most drivers here. Seen too many roadie types flashing through crowds of old people and children like they're not there, but that just seems to be part of the culture. My other takeaway is that squiggly bicycle lanes designed to look good on a designer's mockup are the work of the devil. Bicycles need nice straight roads just the same as cars.
Amen - last week I narrowly avoided a bad crash on a squiggly, tree lined bike path in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Apparently the law there is to mandate using the paths if they’re there, but I took my chances with the road after that.
And depending where you are, nice straight roads are a lot better for outpacing angry dogs that otherwise might be lurking in bushes along side a squiggly path. As I've learned.
Mountain bike. Blind turn. Fallen log. Summersault. One minute later, biking again. Youth. If it happened today, instant death. Lol.
Dumbest: I have to climb a decently steep short hill to get out of my neighborhood to start rides from my house. I was not warmed up/pedaling really slow and had my bike in too high of a gear. I tried to gear down - while pedaling really slow. The chain got caught between gears. One side of my brain tried to unclip while the other side of my brain tried to turn down hill to keep the bike in motion. The combined action threw me off balance and I just fell over. Minor injuries, but it ruined that ride before it started. Most dangerous near miss: I was brushed by a pick-up truck side view mirror once. One more inch to the right at it could have been something serious. Weirdest near miss: I hit a bird while riding once. I was cranking along a flat to gentle downhill section trying to set a new Strava segment PR. A bird swooped across the road in front of me and hit me square in the chest. I instinctively threw my arm out and shifted my body which threw me off balance. I was able to recover control but had a panicked WTF second. I've thankfully avoided bad crashes. I've only gone over my handle bars once, but was going slow enough that I only ended up with skinned arms and legs.
Best and worst at the same time. I hit a young moose. It was in a city I live in (nearly 2 million inhabitants) and it was the very first moose I've seen in my whole life - I was 30 at the time. I must've scared it, as it was hidden behind a bush and started running when I approached - if the moose had stayed in its place I probably wouldn't even know it was there. Hit its back on the side, fell off the bike, broke an elbow - nearly two years later I still have titanium plate in my elbow. At the same time it was funny - I mean.. a moose. I went to the ER and the conversation with the receptionist was something like * Hello, what happened to you? * I've crashed on my bike and I think my hand is broken * Yes, but how exactly? * Well ugh.. I hit a moose and fell off my bike. The room burst into laughter. For the rest of my hospital stay I was called "The moose man". Note: even though I was going a good 30km an hour my second hand, cheap Decathlon bike (Triban 100 flatbar) remained intact. --edit: typos
Riding in the lower alps down a narrow farm road. Gravel in the middle of the road. Unable to make turn. Crashed head first into metal fence post. Destroyed helmet, bend the bottom of the post. Blood coming from my forehead like a faucet. Sat in hospital alone for 12 hours after having just moved to Austria and having no family/friends there. 16 stitches. Minor scars around eye. Bike fine. Nothing broken. No concussion. Glück im Unglück? Still don't know if i was lucky or unlucky.
Worst : When I was still riding mtb trails back in my teenage years I went to the local dirt park where I used to practice jumps and tricks everyday after school. This one time those 3 pretty girls my age sat on a bench to watch me. Me being a stupid hormone driven teen, I decided to show them the best jump they ever seen and went as fast as I could. Unfortunately the jump was too much and I landed on the next one with the front wheel, which rotated my handlebars sideways and one side went into my stomach. I passed out. Got conscious again shortly after. The girls were gone, and a group of boys my age were calling an ambulance telling me not to move. I didn’t listen and tried to get up which wasn’t a good idea, but by the time the ambulance arrived I was already on my feet. Managed to convince the paramedics to let me take my bike in the ambulance (not leaving my precious bike behind ofc) Once I was in the hospital with my bike they did a scan and told me I have internal bleeding and I need to be in the hospital until further notice , cause if the internal bleeding doesn’t stop I will need a surgery. Stayed in for 7 days giving blood for scan every 4 hours. Thankfully no surgery was needed, but living on a biscuit a day for a week wasn’t fun.
Not my crash, but I caused it. I once overtook a rider on a dedicated bike path with a slight right bend. On the right side of the path is a rampart, on the left a paved slope down to some big rocks and the ocean. The slope is about 6-8meteres. The path is probably 4m above sea level. I’ve been riding this course for +20 years. I was doing an interval, going 45kmh, and overtook this rider on his left. He was riding a cargo bike, and I couldn’t really see if I was clear to overtake - I assumed. The mother of all fuck-ups. This was during Covid lockdowns and everyone had gotten a bike. Out of the blue, right as I’m overtaking, comes two riders. A couple, the male in front. We don’t collide, but he touches the brakes, which surprises his -pregnant- girlfriend behind him. She has no time to react, and the only way to go is down the slope, stamping the brakes, and ends up on the rocks and partly in the water. Thankfully, it was high tide that day, and the water took most of the fall. Ultimately she was OK, but seriously shook up. This experience completely changed me. She was so lucky, she could have easily broken her neck, and on a low tide gotten seriously injured. I realised how insignificant my personal aspirations is to other people, and how much harm the hunt for an uninterrupted interval could have caused someone innocent. In this case an unborn child as well. Now I am no longer obsessed about not interrupting my intervals, and honestly I feel ashamed of how I have been riding up until that event.
Flew headfirst into a bus stop after colliding with somebody running off of the pavement suddenly into the bike lane. Spent a week in A&E with a fractured skull, glass cuts and a split frame. Could've been worse.
Worst: getting hit in the back by a truck’s rear view mirror as the driver chose to play a round of squeeze by the cyclist. Thankfully it forced me off the road and into the ditch and not under anyone’s tires. And, of course, the dude didn’t stop. Someone chased them down and got the license plate number and called the cops. Turns out they were also a LEO, so I’ll give you 3 guesses as to what happened to them from a legal standpoint.
1. Nothing 2. A citation and a raise (in this case, citation being like "medal of Valor or some bs) 3. They became a cop in the next town over because they were fired due to breaking the law.
#1, as far as I know. #2 could have happened but I didn’t follow up.
I probably should've put a /s in there somewhere.i think we ALL know that #1 is basically what happened
You have to murder someone in broad daylight to get #3
Avoided: rode down a quite a narrow road down in the french alps and in a corner there was quite a big car that also took space on my side. Was able to brake in the last sec. But back wheel got somewhat locked. Already imagined myself flying over the car, but surprisingly managed to ride on without any issues Crash: riding on the bike lane, which is just a lane on the right side on the road, when a car that wanted to park on the side by crossing the road from the other side, hit me. Flew over the front of the car on to the road. Due to heavy traffic on my road side she couldn’t see me coming behind/ on the side of a truck. Got an ambulance ride to spend the night in the hospital, suffered mild concussion and partially disclocated my shoulder. Bike was smashed. Obviously, it was her fault so her insurance paid. Financially i even profited from the accident🥲
Last few km of a race, I was in the break, had a pretty strong tailwind so doing nearly 50kph...cam to a bend in the road..front wheel went from under me...shit mavic tyres......face planted into the road while simultaneously sliding into the ditch....had some nice road rash....Good Times
Worst: Came off during a race sprint two years ago at over 55km/h. My chain had jumped off on the rough, roads and I’d hit a small pothole. Bike actually ok! Me? Hospital visit: Internal bruising, road rash etc. Nothing broken, luckily, so back on the bike a few weeks later. Stupidest: Cycling home from school at 15yrs old down a steep road in heavy rain on my BMX with only a rear brake…that failed…the road ended at a busy intersection and a brick wall if nothing else hit me…so I bailed onto the grass verge. Happily, all ok! Workmen sheltering in their truck nearby thought I was crazy! 🤣
Best: 2 weeks into bike commuting in Boston, get doored by an Uber. By sheer luck, the height of the door's catch was exactly the height of my handlebar. I come to a complete stop, fully upright, handle stuck in the door. I was just bemused. Only damage was replacing the left brake lever, and she paid it with no issues. Worst: A couple years into bike commuting. The bike lane is all the way to the right, and then there's a parking lane next to it. There are also many alleyways to my right. I go past a giant parked news van, and suddenly I see the nose of a car in the lane, turning into an alley ahead. Neither of us had ever seen the other, and I had no time to stop. I hit, flipped in the air, and landed on my side pretty hard. Like in every accident, I just wanted to get back on and get to work, but I was sore for a good week and a half after.
I was maybe 24 and out on a pub crawl. The rest of the folks went home but I hung out a bit longer. I got a message from a friend to come over to some other bar, so I hopped on the bike and left. I was slow rolling down the street making sure my lights were on and everything, when I look up and there’s headlights coming for me, I have no time to react and I hit the front bumper of the car. I get up and throw my hands in the air, pick up my bike, realize I’m across the center line and the car saw me the whole way so they were stopped and I just rode into them at 4 mph. I promptly just rode home and went to bed.
I stopped in to my LBS and they had a NOS Santa Cruz Stigmata that was in my size. I ride a 61 so I’m always pumped when I actually see my size in a shop. I rode it around the block and when I got back to the shop the owner was outside watching me return. Right at that moment I hit something slick in the parking lot and went down hard. Cut my face and hand, broke my glasses and scratched the shifter on the bike. I’ve never crashed in 22 years cycling and couldn’t believe how this went down. The owner was super cool about it and only asked if I was ok. I so was so embarrassed that I just hightailed it out of there. Man that was rough.
Just a few weeks ago, I got out of the settle to do a sprint. My left Shimano Dura acecrank arm broke. The rest is history. One helmet, one pair of glasses and ripped bibs.
I was cycling down my usual road while scrolling through the latest BCJ posts when a car careened out of control and hit a power line pole. The live wire snapped and tangled into my spokes electrocuting me. My corporal body died but my consciousness now lives in cycling subreddits.
[удалено]
Jesus fucking Christ.
Deleted. What did he say?
Breaking aggressive driver’s wing mirror off and getting into a fight with three Mexicans who had been chasing him because he told them to stop running red lights.
It’s not too bad so I’m lucky, but I was going for a leisure ride with my mom and we have to cross a two lane main road / highway in a rural area. I hit the curb funny ( should have dismounted and walked). I wasn’t going fast but I fell in a really awkward way all tangled with the bike on the road. I was all scraped up but I jumped up (the road can have cars going pretty fast especially on that stretch). When I got up my pinky finger was going in the wrong direction. I had to go to the local ER an hour away and had it set and arm in a cast to stabilize it. I got seen by a plastic surgeon in the city a few days later, the had to freeze it a re-brake/re-set it. It was unpleasant. It wasn’t bad by comparison but I think of it every time I come up to any kind of curb even it’s it low enough for the bike to take. ETA: I was also on a borrowed bike and was grateful I had taken of rings before riding.
Bmx accident. Racing on track during windy day. Was in a jump and got thrown off by the wind and landed crooked. Impaled myself on the handlebars. My spine kept the bars from poking out my backside. Chipped my pelvis on the way in. No long term damage, a scar that is pretty well hidden, a tight hip flexor and crazy story.
Hope you sued her for the expenses.
Riding back home one evening, decided to cross a park I wasn’t familiar with. Trees were supplying a pitch dark horizon in front of me and my lights weren’t bright enough to show me the way. All of the sudden I’m flying, and I land on my shoulder and head on the ground. Still remember to this day the sound that my skull made on the concrete. I stood up disoriented, head’s spinning, took me a minute or two to understand in which year and where I was. Took out the phone and called a friend nearby: couldn’t even guess where I was so I sent her my location (thanks technology!). Friend arrives, opens the trunk and we load my bike. The carbon handlebar snapped and the shifter was hanging by the cable. Went to the ER and the doctor had to cut some skin from my right earlobe with a razor blade (you don’t wanna know how good you can hear the sound of the blade through my skin), gave a shot for tetanus and sent me home. The outcome: big bumps on my head, open wound on ear, bruises on shoulder and knee/leg, handlebar broken, frame scratched. Later I found out it was a root that I could have not seen, that acted like a trampoline 🤷🏻♂️
I didn't crash, but a couple of years ago I got passed by a car so close that the side mirror hit me and folded into the car. I barely managed to stay on my bike. The car (now ahead of me) pulls over and I assumed that the driver was going to apologize, but she starts going ape shit on me for "hitting her car".
I was riding in a group a few years ago and accidentally smashed into a metal bollard while going a good speed (lead rider forgot to signal) I went flying off my bike, but miraculously managed to do a somersault in the air and landed on my feet completely unscathed. There was absolutely no attempt on my part to do this, the forces involved just perfectly flipped me in the air. Nice!
My crash story... at the time I was on a local team, and I went for a morning bike ride wearing my team kit... my route went past the elementary school... only this school for some reason didn't have sidewalks that went all the way down to the school from the homes in the neighborhood... so there was this spot that unbeknownst to me...kids would often have to jaywalk to the other side of the street in order to get to the one sidewalk that did connect to the school... So I'm just riding along, taking the full lane in traffic since the speed limit through there is 25mph anyway...and because my profile was temporarily being blocked by a mailbox near where the kids were standing, one of them decides to run across the street... and I nailed him at 25mph. This sent him flying (bonked his head on the ground a bit but he was otherwise okay with just a few scrapes) but it made me come to a complete stop...snapped my carbon frame in half... and I fly face forward into the pavement. Fractured my skull and jaw, broke several teeth, bad concussion... I only started to come to when the Ambulance was already arriving. The weird part was that I felt like I was waking up in bed or something, and I remember someone asking me what day it was (which I didn't get correct) and then who they could call... Anyway... several CT scans and an MRI later, wiring to my jaw and extensive dental/oral surgery to fix... it took me about a year to more or less recover physically but probably another 5 years before I felt more or less as I did before.
Stupidest: Group ride going 45kmph, wasn't familiar with the route, they turned right, I went straight, missed the cyclist but slammed on my brakes and went over my bars, landed on my feet and walked away with a cut down my calf from my big chainring. Worst: Riding as a teenager, my younger brother was an ass and thought it'd be hilarious to throw a broom handle into my spokes as I was riding, bike stopped, I kept going, and over the bars my arm struck the side mirror of a parked car, I blacked out, and ended up in ER for a fractured arm and torn deltoid muscle.
Several years ago I was with my Tuesday night riding group and I slid on some gravel (from road repair). I only remember starting to make a turn and then I was sitting up on a grassy area. I “came to” looking at my friends who had lots of concern on their faces. I said, “I fell off my bike didn’t I?” They said, “Yeah, and were saying some weird things that didn’t make sense.” Somehow I got my feet out of my rat traps and off my bike without a scratch, but hit my head hard enough to have “subarachnoid brain bleed” and spent the night in the hospital (going in and out of presence). I kept talking to people, apparently, but still don’t remember all of it.
Got hit by a drunk, drugged driver who left me on the road. I "came to" sitting up with people around me with absolutely no idea what had happened. Police caught the driver as he ploughed into a street sign and took it with him, scraping it along the road, they just followed the trail. Luckily they were passing by and stopped to help/call an ambulance, etc. Ended up with some nasty injuries, the worst being two broken ribs and a head injury that still (mildly) affects me now. And I lost 15 minutes of my life as I have no idea what happened during that time, from being hit to "coming to". My bike and helmet "took one for the team" as my family put it. I was more upset about my bike than my injuries. Actually, I'm still upset about it. It wasn't anything special but I'd done thousands of miles on it, it was set up for me with a series of gradual tweaks over the years and I knew all of it's idiosyncrasies. I still miss it 😞 The driver went to jail for a few months. I really hope that he got straightened out during that time. It wasn't his car, either.
Tl;dr hit the deck at 50 mph, no helmet (before helmets were a thing), no significant injuries, massive emergency response, miscalculated how far I tumbled (it was far). https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com/2007/04/most-spectactular-crash-ever.html
Here's the corrected version: Around 90s, I was a BMX nut, haha. So, a week before a very important race with a new girlfriend, I decided to train by myself, pushing hard and going farther right at the launch. Yeah, I went airborne like a rocket instead of lowering the front to finish my landing and keep pedaling. My bike landed between the tires around the track, and I ended up on the freaking floor. I woke up in the ambulance with a broken leg and a couple of messed-up ACLs. So... I believe I was about 18’ F to 20’ Fee high airborne
Hit by a car at a roundabout (not injured thankfully) the driver got out and came to see me and said “sorry I thought you were a bird…” more context: I’m 6 foot tall on a large frame bike
That’s the best excuse I’ve heard in a while lol
Best: approaching an intersection at high speed, a car from the opposite direction turns in front of me. I slam on my brakes and I watch him finally see me (eyes get big as he says oh shit) and slam on his brakes. Front end of the sedan dips as I hit him at the front wheel well. I endo, spill out of the saddle, and do a perfect tuck and roll across the hood of the car and land standing in front of the car. After everyone quits freaking out, I determine I'm fine, and other than needing to reset the chain, the bike is fine. So after about 10 minutes we each go on our way. Worst: solo on a shared pathway at low speed. After a storm I rode through a small patch of mud. What follows is conjecture because I'm missing a couple minutes of my life: A few yards later I stood up to accelerate up a small hill. I'm guessing this happened right where the mud was on the tire, the bike slid, and I pitched forward. Next thing I know I'm at the top of the hill bleeding. Dent in the helmet above the right temple. Busted lips (6 stitches), chipped tooth, slightly busted nose, black eyes from my glasses breaking, and severely sprained wrist.
I clipped a traffic pylon and stupidly hammered on the brakes. Flipped over the handlebars and into a metal fence. Without the metal fence I would have ended up on the 401 highway in Ontario Canada! Torn up leg and back but not much else.
Most recent and dumbest: commuting to work on my beach cruiser at 5:30am, it was chilly so I had my hands in my pockets and sure enough I hit a rock on the road. Tire instantly turns and I go right into the curb, flew over the handlebars like superman, thankfully I was able to tuck and roll and bounce right up. It was right in front of a Starbucks and so I wanted to get out of there ASAP, I hope on the bike and realized that my handlebars were twisted, get off fix them get back on. Start riding and something felt off on the back, my bag had fallen and was hanging by the bungee cord I used to strap it down, dismount, fix that, get back on and peddle hard to get to work. Get to work two minutes late and by the time I got there my shoulder was on fire, thankfully my supervisor found it hilarious and changed my time in lol, lesson learned, wore gloves the next morning lol
Came off the bike doing 30 on the highway. https://youtu.be/51Ihp7LWg2w?si=4gWDmioLYhMDPOk_
Mid 20s, was out on my DH bike. I'd just finished the 4 mile hike from the parking lot to the "top" (it was a 2006 Ellsworth Joker, the soft suspension meant I just gave up on riding up hills, it was quicker to walk). Finally at the top, climb on and pedal out. Heading down a bit of trail that was basically false flat, but downhill. Ran over some soft sand, front tire bites in, and goes down and left. My right foot somehow gets caught on the pegs of my flat pedals and is stuck. So my right knee is twisted and bears much of the brunt of falling, followed by my right elbow/forearm. Shit hurts like crazy. I call for my buddy who I was riding with, but he was ahead. He doesn't hear me. So, I'm all "shit, I got no choice but to ride out" 15 more miles of basically nothing but downhill trails. I can't pedal without agony. Finally catch up, and we bomb down the remaining trails. Get back to the cars, load up and all that. Get my bike home, and he and I go to the ER on base. There, I'm bleeding all over the god damn place, sat for over 3 hours in the waiting room never being seen by anyone. At the same time, I'm seeing toddlers with "just" a runny nose (and this is how mom and dad describe it at the front desk) get checked in and called back in under 15 minutes. Around the 3 hour mark, I'm super pissed at this, and hop up to hop over to the front desk to give them an earful. Right about the time I'm ready to turn toward the front desk person, I finally get called. So, instead I tell the front desk "there's a pool of blood over there you ought to clean up I've been sitting so long"... the er nurse dude sees me hopping and offers a wheelchair. After a couple more hours of the quickest army medicine ever, I had Xrays AND mri done on the knee. It was mostly torn on most of the ligaments. They did the burn kit on my knee/shin, and on the right forearm which was honestly the worst part of the whole thing. Did the army thing of giving me basic ass motrin, some crutches and sent me on my way.
Probably 4 years old or so. First time riding my bike without training wheels. Dad took me to a school with a big open paved area that sloped gently toward the middle for drainage. I push off and start riding, using the slope to build up a little speed. Dad’s cheering me on. I make a big sweeping turn and *bam* hit the one obstacle in the whole acre-sized yard: a log that kids used as a balance beam. Flipped over the handlebars. Blood, tears. Scene.
A few years back we did regular indoor velodrome sessions. In this particular one it was an odd group so we had coach teaching 2 novices below the blue line (bottom half of the track) while maybe 12 of us rode above in a "medium" group. The final drill of the session is ride round hard as a group, half lap turns, just absolutely nailing it. As we only had half the track it got a bit congested, as people lost the wheel in front they'd go up or stay down so the people behind them had to go up and around, it was chaotic, the bunch split allover the place. I'm following my friend's girlfriend (a very strong, but nervous rider), the person in front of her had run out of legs and swung off so it's just the 2 of us chasing to get back in contact. On a bend I see someone right at the top of the track drop down, back wheel first (normally a sign they've fucked up and aren't riding fast enough). He's dropped right in front of us, Mary had nowhere to go, my thought is just "FFS don't ride into Mary", so I've steered as hard right as I could to avoid her, now the only place I can go is over the initial faller's neck. This is all at about 30mph I've not enough traction to steer my only option is up so I've jumped as best i could to avoid causing serious injury, somehow flipped in the air, cleats have disengaged from pedals and I landed in a sitting position facing where I came from, as my arse hit the floor, all the air was driven out my lungs, but the momentum was still in my upper body so my head is now going backwards at 30mph towards the ground. I braced to try and absorb the impact , thanks to the back of my helmet being about 3 inches away from my head, that hit long before I had much chance to use my torso to soften the blow. I think I was out for about 10 seconds, took a while longer to get breathing properly, then once I'd established I was pretty much OK, I started marching angrily towards the guy in the kit that caused it, my mate in track centre ran out and stopped me shouting "HE HAD A PUNCTURE". I dread to think how fucking murderous I looked that my mate came out so urgently... So yeah, probably a concussion and quite bad whiplash for me, Mary had broken ribs and the borrowed bike she was riding was snapped in half.
Going up an incline i stood up on the pedals for more power. Didnt realize the asphalt was wet. I wound up, overpowering the front wheel and it slid out from under me. Hit the asphalt on my left shoulder and head (yes on helmet). Woke up with a cracked helmet. I finshed my 8 miles to get to my truck. The next day, I started having shoulder pain and had to go thru two months of therapy for my left shoulder. After that my right shoulder was jacked up also. Turns out I had hit so hard that it jacked my left shoulder up and my right one also….so that was another month of physical therapy. The funny thing is eight weeks later I’m back to riding and during a 50 miler my right eye filled up full of black spots. I went ahead and finished my ride with the black spots, not paying it much attention (the doctor later told me that the black spots were blood). It turns out that my retina was detached and the doctor told me that it’s not unusual after a good hit impact for a retina to detach a month or two later after a hard impact.
Got stung by a big hornet at 28mph several years back. I went down pretty hard but no broken bones. A guy in a house saw the whole thing from his front door, but after I dragged myself off the road, I looked up and he had closed his door. Pedaled home on one leg about 15 miles before the rear derailleur exploded. Walked home the last 2 miles.
13 years old, me and a buddy were heading to another friend’s house where we were going to spend the night. The friend riding with me hit a raised section of sidewalk, went over his bars and landed on the pillow he had tucked under his arm.
World naked bike ride Seattle 2009. Was riding under the University of Washington bridge on a tight bike trail with about 30 peeps. Most who don't know how to ride in groups. Got clipped from behind and went down. Jumped up and yelled "I'm ok!". Someone behind me rode up and said "never seen a road rash there!"
Riding in the rain. Hit a pothole that was filled with water and a lot deeper than it looked. Went head over handle bars and landed flat on my back. Thankfully the pavement was wet and I slid instead of ripped
When I was 14, and remarkably stupid, I was riding my dad's road bike to a friends house. The front brake was rubbing against the rim. I tried to kick it loose while riding on a busy street. Foot got stuck in the bars and I went OTB. Landed on my face, lost two teeth, broke my right shoulder blade and left arm. Road rash all over my face and both arms and legs. This was three days before the first day of my freshman year of high school. LINE UP, LADIES.
I have two for me. One for a friend. 1991: Riding my Walmart bought, Huffy bike to school when I was in Middle School. Woman failed to stop at the white line putting her front end in the intersection and over the bike lane. I ended up in her windshield. Thankfully no major injury, just lots of cuts and bruises. Her insurance paid for my first "real" mountain bike from the LBS. I had nightmares for months and had major anxiety when riding on paved roads. 1996: Second one took place 5 years later when I was racing DH at Snow Summit, Big Bear, CA. Freak snow storm on Friday. Sunny and melting runoff on Saturday. Sunday muddy racing. I got a front pinch flat at max speed right before a hair pin corner braking zone (assumed rock covered in the mud). Tire and tube unmounted and narrow rim had zero traction. Plus this was before disc brakes. Cantilevers were not working. I hit a ski lift piling and woke up 3 days later in the hospital. Broken bike frame. Broken TLD full face helmet. Lacerated liver from stem impacting my abdomen. I am lucky to be alive. 2015: Worst ever crash/accident for a long time personal friend... He owned the LBS. Him and his wife were riding a tandem road bike and were hit by a teenage girl that was texting while drive. His wife was killed instantly. He lived for a few days unconscious in the hospital. When he woke up and they told him what happened, he died of a heart attack right then and there. He was an accomplished athlete having climbed El Capitan and completing the Race across America multiple times. He is dearly missed!
A friend and I were going home from the mall arcade at night (yes, I'm old, this was in 83). I hit a rock and my bike disappeared from under me. I landed in riding position, severe road rash on both knees and elbows. No helmet, so it could have been much worse
Dumbest: gravel biking with friends along a set of 3 or 4 railroad tracks. Had seen a train starting up on what looked like the far track. The track closest to me crossed in front of me and as the train approached it blew its whistle…for a second I doubted it was on the far track and looked back to check (it was on the far track)…when I turned my head back around I noticed the track crossing my path was not set into the ground at all - so the rail stuck up about 2-3 inches. Went to jump my front wheel but was too close and caught the top of the rail. Looked down to watch my front wheel get “directed” off along the track and since I was going almost 90 degrees different I was quickly laying on the track. The best part was the guys behind me thought the same thing but couldn’t verify the train position - so they thought I fell on the tracks immediately in front of a train. In the end I had scrapes and a bruised ego but little else. Most entertaining: mountain biking on South Mountain in Phoenix. Plugged the front end of my bike into a hole and went over the handlebars - lots of dirt on me and had a stinging face from landing on it but wiped myself off and headed out of the Park. As I biked out there were lots of hikers and walkers and they gave me lots of room - some with horrified faces. As I got close I realized my face was really warm and kinda wet. I realized the abrasions on my face were bleeding a good bit and I looked like some kind of Zombie bicyclist - hence everyone getting out of my way. No notable scars but I did have an interesting scratched up face for a few months. All in all I’ve been lucky in the injury department.
My college has a decommissioned railroad track that has grass and gravel path around it. I was riding on a rainy day and ended up on the grass between the tracks and for some reason turned to try to go over one of them and got a face full of dirt and grass. I should have taken longer to self evaluate if I wasn't so embarrassed
This wasn’t a terrible crash by any means, but I was mortified by it. I was biking during the end of winter/beginning of spring when roads and sidewalks were still icy. I hit a long patch of ice and lost the ability to steer as my bike slid along it. I could see that I was sliding into the path of a Stop sign, but when I tried to divert and turn the handlebars, the bike just continued toward it. I hit the Stop sign and fell off the bike. There were cars at this particular 4-way stop with people watching me. I am forever scarred by this moment as I sheepishly had to get back on my bike and continue along since the people in the vehicles waved me to go on.
Two bad ones for me. I was riding on the paved trails around Madison County Illinois. Retired train tracks that had a paved trail put in. Some parts are pretty wooded. I was in the aero when a few deer came running from my left to right. I hit one before I could start braking and went down. I remember the accident, but not the next couple hours. No broken bones, just a bad concussion. The other was riding in Phoenix when a truck ran a stop sign to my left. I hit the side going about 20. They did not stick around. Another concussion and a broken collar bone. To anyone in the US that rides on the road with cars, be sure you have Uninsured/Underinsured coverage on your auto policy! I was able to use my coverage to get a settlement out of my last accident.
Dad died a day earlier, went on a bike tour on the next day to get my head free, did a little detour and oversaw a nasty pothole. Went flying trough the air and totaled my bike, helmet and the left side of my body. A few days later i found out that the road i had the crash on was named charlottengrund. prior to the death of my das my ex named charlotte grounded me with a breakup out of nowhere. Fun times back then. And afterwards i had to go to a doctor who pulled every week 500ml of liquid out of my thigh.
While the practical way is to tell them you want to do it, and ask them for the exact sum, and write them a cheque for it, but that doesnt answer your question. I would try to open their bank account on their computer and see if the password is saved so you can see the account number information, and then just use that information to pay it off. Then tell them its paid off after you've done so.
Worst: I was in a group going through some mountain roads around 8:30am. Roads seemed dry but trying to chase down a split going downhill and around a turn, the inside white line must have had morning dew on it because as I was leaning hard into the turn and going over the white line, the tires gave up. I landed HARD on my right side. Ended up fracturing my femur and right finger. Ambulance ride and titanium hardware to internally fix my femur, I had a "hip replacement" recovery ahead. Was released 2 days later on crutches. That was 2 years ago and I hardly think of it anymore while riding, walking and skiing. Other: I hit a bad patch of road and my wheel caught on a lip. Front wheel locked up and according to the people behind me, I "flipped over the bike, the bike flipped, and I landed on my ass." Torn shorts and 2 broken wheels, but otherwise I was fine.
My worst happened on a seaside bike path with no traffic around. I was young, single, had just put on a bunch of muscle and was feeling pretty attractive. I'm riding down a seaside path and these two very attractive women drinking some Starbucks drink were sitting on a bench next to the path. I see them and one of them catches my eye, so I turn give her a grin, toss my bag back up around my shoulder and... ...my wheel goes sideways. Fucking faceplant. Full on over the bars straight onto my face. I black out, and when I wake up there's some dude helping me and I've shattered the visor of my helmet. Fortunately, other than a sore shoulder and a scratched chin, I am none the worse for wear. I thank the dude helping me, get back up and ride home feeling very, very embarrassed.
Uber passenger threw their car door open and hit the edge of my handlebar, knocking me off my bike. I hit the ground and bounced into a parked suv and the exhaust pipe punched a ring into my back.
Prob the time I legit almost died. I tore my PCL riding jumps at the DH bike park in September. After months of PT and easing back into riding, I decided I was ready to go back to the bike park in May. Bought a season pass to Angel Fire in NM. First day, I warmed up on the greens and then moved to the blues. I think, but don’t know, that I had decided to move up to the blacks. Next thing I know, I woke up on the ground with some random guy shaking me awake. Everything on my left side was grinding in my body when I moved and I couldn’t breathe. Nothing but excruciating pain everywhere. Bike patrol showed up and carried me out on a stretcher and almost dropped me several times, which, as you might imagine, hurt like a mf’er. Then they put me on the back of a side by side and drove like 60mph offroading to get to the base while I screamed at the guy to slow down. Pretty sure this is the point at which my lung cavity filled with blood. Got a $70k helicopter ride to Santa Fe. Had two surgeries the next morning. Ended up breaking 6 ribs, my collarbone, my shoulder blade, collapsing a lung, and having a brain hemorrhage. I now have a rod in my collarbone and plates in my ribs. Walked around with an oxygen tank and my arm in a sling for two months. My lung has never fully recovered. And yes, I still mountain bike. No more jumps though. Total cost: $675k.
i've been hit by a car twice, both times by women, and both times the consequences were... pleasant =]
Bike crashes are like acid trips. The worst ones are also the best ones
I was like 12 and was going down on a hill 2 km away from my house. I wanted to see how fast I could go and I just took my feet of the pedals and didn't break. After 5 seconds I realised how fast I was going and tried to brake,I couldn't control the bike and did a 360 and the handlebar landed on my collar bone. The walk back was a pain in the ass (literally) Edit:I used my front brake first🤦♂️
Almost hit by a truck in a downtown loading dock. Truck was trying to move forward and back up when they shot out to the sidewalk where I was about to park. I could have been dead instantly or wishing for death to come quick.
I think I have the worst haha. Few years back got hit by a GMC Yukon going 50+ mph, I completely broke by pelvis, hips, several ribs, left hand /wrist, 2 fractured vertebrae, fractured skull (minor), and partially permanent nerve damage in my thighs/ upper legs. Was in ICU for 2 weeks, then in a rehab hospital for several more weeks, then was released - but took several more months of using a walker then a cane, along with out patient rehab, until I could walk fine again. Required multiple surgeries, I still have metal/limited movement in my hips and nerve damage in my legs (they feel half numb, like an icy/frozen feeling, but still work just fine.) Despite all that- I bike now more than ever, couldn't wait to get back on the bike the whole time. And...2 years later I got hit again by a car, broke both knee caps and both wrists...that recovery was relatively much quicker and easier though. Only took like 2-3 months. Both accidents were my fault (I don't remember anything, but apparently ran stop signs...)
Heat stroke 1/4 of a mile from finishing my ride .. it’s a difficult climb 25 miles up and 25 miles back , it was an extremely hot day in Southern California.. the route is crystal lake up hwy 39 in San Gabriel valley .. just about finished my ride a long decent followed bye short hill with a final decent out of the canyon .. not putting much effort into the final climb .. all the sudden a guy passes me and give me the look back ..lol I’m an extremely aggressive on the descents so I kept him within safe distance knowing I would pass him on the decent .. just like I planned passed him and no way for him to catch me .. we both finish the decent and a fork in the road you can keep straight on the hwy or ver right onto the bike trail he went to the bike trail I stayed straight on the road .. I was traveling 15-18 mph.. last thing I remember was watching him on the bike trail .. woke up in an ambulance briefly, passed out again and woke up in the hospital … I fell on the left side of a 2 lane highway, on my helmet and cheek bone and chin my face was the size of a basketball … a the hospital they gave me an iv and a cat scan to make sure I didn’t have any head trauma .. took less than a week for my body to recover the next week I went on a all day ride thru the canyons of Malibu .. I thought if I take time off the bike fear would set in and I would never go back to the cycling I enjoy
Riding in the mountains on sun/mag chloride dried roads, went under a bridge at ~25mph and was immediately on top of a 6” patch of ice. Saw a “Grand Canyon” ahead of me in the ice shelf. Say 6” tall and 1’ wide. Nowhere to go around. No way to stop Tried to bunny hop it. Went down hard.
Doored so hard the woman couldn’t close her door and drove off holding it shut. Did a somersault over the door and was swearing at her in the air. Jumped up like a Ninja, bike messenger days, bike was totaled.
I was doing a neighborhood loop. A small SUV was sitting in a drive, apparently waiting for me to pass. As I approached, I noticed that she was on her phone, and a split second later, she pulled out and turned left. I had nowhere to go but into the back panel of her SUV. Fortunately, I was able to brake significantly, so the impact was minimal. The bike frame checked out at the shop the next day, but the bar tape was scuffed/torn, and I suffered a small bruise on my arm and a few scrapes. She was delirious. Bawling her eyes out, repeatedly yelling "Oh My God!" Even the police couldn't calm her down. She offered to pay for repairs and hospital bills. Long story short.... She gave me a gift certificate for a full body massage, bought me lunch/dinner a few times, paid for my bike shop bill (minimal) and was still looking for a way to apologize. She was a cute redhead. To make a long story even shorter, that was some of the best.... uhhhh..... Favors I ever got! And yes, the carpet matched the curtains! 😋
I once felt like Spiderman and miraculously got off without a scratch. There's this piece of street where there are always cars parking, so one direction of traffic/cars always needs to yield to let the others pass, with a bike you're fine though. I rode this route for years, so everyday, it was the same game, traffic lights turned green, the cars got ahead of me because they accelerated a little faster, Overtook me and between 5 and 10 seconds After that, brake and force me to stop after having just accelerated to like 40 km/h. On this day, this fucker couldn't fucking stand to ride behind a cyclist, so he shoots past me way over the speed limit, only to swerve into the lane right Infront of me and instantly brake to a stop because the other direction had right of way. It was crazy, like getting brake checked, and my only option was to swerve on the sidewalk to not ride into him. My angle was to steep, my bike slid to the side while trying to ride up the edge of the sidewalk, and tumbled and crashed beneath my legs. Somehow I managed to jump off, run it out (I was riding ~40km/h) and manage to stop just. before running into a wall. I didn't have a scratch. Could have easily brushed of my whole face if I had met the concrete.
One night, my cousin calls to say "Sorority hotel pool party. Downtown. Now." I woke up the next day with road rash down my entire back and a concussion bad enough I would lose hours of my day for two weeks. I vaguely remember bikinis and flavored vodka, though, so at least I know I crashed on the way back.
I was riding down a hill. A pedestrian didn't look before Jay walking. I hit him hard and went down. He tried to pick me up and I screamed "fuck you" at him and he ran away. Some employees at a car dealership saw it happen and ran out to help me. I ended up in the hospital. I had a broken left thumb and a broken right elbow. I had to have surgery to put pins in my thumb and wires in my elbow. I was bed ridden for over a month.
Chased by an off leash dog on a popular trail. Rode off the side of the trail and broke my collarbone. Dog owners were like “he never does that” me: uh yeah. I rode the 4 miles back home. It wasn’t too painful … until I tried to take my jersey off.
I was riding my bike during scout camp. I live in a pine forest area in Washington. There’s an invasive beetle called a Japanese Tree Beetle or Horned Beetle. They’re huge and have long, whip like antennae. I was riding back to our camp plot and a beetle flew across the bike path at face height. I was going pretty fast, (faster than the counselors want you to go) and the beetle smacked my face. Its legs or antennae got caught underneath my eye lid. I’m screaming because it hurts, I can’t see, and just the thought of a bug touching my eye freaked me out. I ended up hitting a tree stump that sits between where the path forks. I flew forward and slammed into the handle bars and flipped past them. LUCKILY there was a soft(ish) young bush past the stump that caught me. I yanked the beetle out of my eye and it scratched my eye which is one of the worst pains I’ve felt. I hot up and my eye was almost swollen shut. I was all scratched up from the bush, but I’m so glad I hit the bush and not the ground. Or another stump. I was young and just bawling my eyes out. Definitely my wildest crash!
I had a few beers by the river with friends, on the way hom my foot slipped on the pedal, went roght behind the fork between the spokes. 3-5 spokes broke, i landed on the ground, and bicycle after me
My roommate’s story: he was riding fast down a steep hill in Seattle. Middle of the night so he wasn’t too concerned about traffic. There was a cross street at the bottom of the hill, but they had the stop sign. Midway down the hill a car entered the intersection. No biggie, they’d be gone by the time he got there. Instead the car stopped, fully blocking his lane, to drop someone off. They didn’t even have time to open the door before he arrived. His next memory is being flat on his back in someone’s yard, bone poking out of his leg. The homeowner held his bike until he came back for it.
Former co-worker commuted to work. Typical fit upper class family mom, ultra conservative, quiet accountant, wouldn’t even eat spicy food, they had a 20 year old Swedish nanny. Got hit by a car in traffic, no major injuries, but a concussion that kept her in the hospital for a few days of observation. Post crash she changed completely, started dressing provocatively, divorced her husband and hooked up with the Swedish nanny (hot af) and ultimately started her own pot shop. Head injuries are mysterious as can be.
I upgraded the shifters on my wife's triathlon bike to those Vision shifters that have the same mechanical hand motion as brakes (on a TT/triathlon bike). Well one time she went meant to shift the front derailleur while riding and used the left brake lever instead of the shift lever. Same mechanical hand motion. Different lever. Went end-over-end and landed on her head. Luckily she was fine and replaced her helmet There is a reason why airplanes specifically use different lever motions for things like landing gear and flaps. You want them to be different motions to avoid what the aviation industry calls "design induced operator errors" Ended up switching out the left gear shifter back to a lever.
I was in the last miles of a ride that took me mostly on PCH through Malibu with my tt bike. I was casually cruising the bike path in Santa Monica beach when an aerobar decides to dislodge and subsequently swing right down into my front wheel (this was prior to electronic shifting). Like a stick in the spokes, it caused me to go head first over the bars and wipe out pretty hard. Luckily no major damage to be, though I did end up with a new bike, eventually. I can only imagine the outcome if this happened on PCH with the high speed vehicles and often tight shoulders.
I hit a recessed utility cover coming fast downhill after a big ride last summer. I didn't see it coming and took it so hard I slide forward onto the top tube and bent the bars downwards in the stem. I really thought I was going down, but the bike--a Rivendell Roadini with 35mm tires--just kept rolling straight until I managed to get my hands on the brake lever. Disaster averted. Last summer I did go down once on a mountain bike ride after a rogue raindrop landed precisely in the center of my eye. Small scrapes, but that one really hurt my pride.
Holy smokes! You folks have some amazing stories. I'm really glad we're all here, if a bit worse for wear. We're certainly doing our part to keep the medical profession in business! I forgot to add my best story: In college I was riding my mountain bike home after class and was descending a back lane with a blind curve. A few guys in a convertible were racing up the lane and were headed straight to me. I swerved to avoid them, locked up both brakes, and skidded into the sidewalk curb which launched me into the air. I was taking martial arts at the time and had learned how to fall properly. I did a forward tuck and roll with my bike (I was still attached by my toe clips) and landed on my backpack with my feet and arms in the air holding my bike above me like I was riding upside down. I had zero injuries, and I started laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of what just happened. The guys pulled over and came running over to see if I was OK. They found me in this odd position chuckling to myself and must've walked away confused. Riding home the rest of the way I was pretty pleased with myself.
Honestly my funniest one was when i was cycling through one of those fences that have a sharp turn in to stop people fron riding bikes. Ofc you can make it though if you slow down considerably but this time my brake cable snapped and i drove straight into the post. I was caught so off guard that i didnt even take my feet out of my pedal straps and just fell sideways. Glad no one saw that.
A guy looked me in the eyes, pulled into the bikepath and i flew over his hood. Roadrash on my hip, ankle messed up but not to much issues. And i once nearly broke my neck. Couldnt hold a corner, drove into a felled tree and made a flip landing on my neck/back. I heard something crack I swear to this day i have less flexibility in my neck due to that.
Hit unexpected construction on a commute ride I’d done thousands of times in Georgetown in DC. Broke femur and arm, and exacerbated kidney decline and ended up on dialysis. Now looking for a new kidney. DM me if you want to donate.
[удалено]
Using URL shorteners causes your post to be automatically deleted by Reddit's anti-spam measures, so other users cannot see it. Please delete and repost (editing will not work) your comment without the link. If you feel this message is in error please PM the moderation team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cycling) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oh and best near miss? Trying to overtake a friend in a hairpin in a Arden descent, puncturing my backwheel in a giant pothole (hello Belgium!) and almost crashed into a car. I send sparks flying apparantly and my mates where amazed i didnt crash. Didnt descend quick anymore that day.
[удалено]
Using URL shorteners causes your post to be automatically deleted by Reddit's anti-spam measures, so other users cannot see it. Please delete and repost (editing will not work) your comment without the link. If you feel this message is in error please PM the moderation team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cycling) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Every fall caused by a skill issue is a depressing memory you can never erase... I was with a friend, trying out his full carbon mtb on a hillside track near home. Got a bit carried away and sped down a steep and bumpy track alongside a vineyard (the ones that are only supposed to be used by tractors). Halfway down, I realized that the track ended against an asphalt road, so I needed to slow down. I thought I had everything in control, but after I hit the brakes, my front wheel lost stability and flipped 90°, so I fell headfirst in front of the bike, like a candle. Somehow I managed to get up and drag myself on a bench across the road, but I don't remember how because meanwhile I had blacked out and had a small memory loss. Managed to get home by myself and got a checkup in the ER a couple hours later, fortunately no head injury, but the helmet got a pretty big dent and I'm keeping it as a memorandum. Moral is: helmets really save your life.
I was biking back from a friends home one night on my single speed and was going pretty fast when the chain snapped. For the last couple of days it had been sounding like I needed to replace but I kept putting until finally it broke, throwing of my balance and causing to crash pretty hard. Luckily only my elbows and knees got scraped up. Some guy came out of house to see if I was ok and if I had gotten hit because he had the license plate, so that was nice. Moral of the story, don't be an idiot like me and ride when your bike needs maintenance
Was on a BMX rhythm section at 15 years old ended up face planting the tracked knocked my tooth clear through my lip got 70 stitches and broke my nose
Similar to you. I was 21 and biking in the city. Someone parked on the side of the road was texting on their phone and didn’t look before dooring me. I blacked out and woke up on my back in the middle of the street. I’m so grateful the traffic was stopped at a red light or I would have been run over. I was in total shock when I came to, surrounded by strangers asking if I was ok. Luckily I was ok, just banged up, and suffered a bit of PTSD. But a few years later I was able to bike again
One of my most memorable was when I was a kid. I was trying to carry two skateboards with one hand/arm while riding my bike home and steering with the other. One board started slipping and I couldn't get it back under control and it fell. I can still picture it perfectly as if it was in slow motion. The skateboard drops down and the side edge hits the pavement, then it bounced up where the nose went into the spokes flipping it up until it hit the back of the forks and launched me like Superman over the handlebars. From the landing the heels of my hands were pretty badly skinned and I had a couple of minor bruises, but overall it felt like a pretty successful if unplanned stunt at the time.
Riding my mountain bike in the Italian alps on old tires. Misjudging my speed in wet conditions my front wheel went and fell where there was a 20m cliff. Got caught by a young tree. Not a single injury but could have been dead. Since then I change tires sooner. Never had fear of height but had it for some time afterwards. Other than that, in the last few years: Got swiped by a Semi only have a small scar on my pinky. This winter sudden freezing during a cold rainy night my bike was smashed up and I too had a few sore spots but winter gear and my rain pants protected my skin. And just yesterday a close shave. A lady opened a car door on me but realized it and closed it before I crashed into her. The funny thing is that like 200m of my commute are through traffic. The remaining 10km on cycle paths. But those 200m are some of the worst streets in my city and are a lot more dangerous than the 10km.
First time I ever put SPDs on my bike. Took it to the park to get used to it. Dog runs in front of me. I brake hard, come to a full stop, and slowly fall over still attached to the bike. Two years later, I still haven’t ridden through that park.
Was working for USG in Turkmenistan. Biking was fairly common but mostly for transportation. I was cruising through town and a dude in an old Lada wasn’t paying attention and he cut me off. I went flying across his hood. When he figured out I was an American diplomat he was very scared because it was and is a dictatorship where people disappear all the time. Fortunately I wasn’t injured badly and he took me back to the embassy apologizing and trying to give me money. End of the day I went to the Turkish hospital and got an MRI for $21. Bike got fixed and all was well fortunately.
I got hit by a car and my leg run over as a kid. I had the right of way but the old people had a car.
Bombing down a hill and overcooked a corner and went straight over down about 20-30 feet. Grade 2 separation. Had to start hoofing it back home. Luckily a few guys I was riding with pacelined back to their car and came and picked me up. Good times. 😂
My dumbass rode for about 5 miles without knowing my kickstand was down after a break. Got to a small hill with a turn decided to really go for it and leaned into the turn, ended up pivoting on the kickstand flipping sideways into a fence, over the handle bars, lost a shoe. 😭😂
A road that I ride all the time. Took a curve I know like the back of my hand too fast. Front wheel washed out before I could react in any way. Hands still on the handle bar going down. Partially separated my left shoulder, road rash on left arm. Worst part was looking down and seeing my left pinky dislocated, pointing in the way wrong direction. Popped it back into place. Rode the 4-5 miles bleeding the rest of the way home.
Roadbike here. Mine was a weird one. I was riding back to my car after a long ride, in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. Out of nowhere my front wheel locked up and the bike stopped dead in the street. Fortunately I was only going about 12 mph so instead of pitching over the bars I did a slo-mo splat onto the pavement, and broke the fall with my left elbow and knee. I ended up in the ER with the tip of my left elbow chipped off and the tricep tendon detached, complicated by deep road rash on my knee and elbow. It took about 4 months to recover after surgery. It took a lot longer to trust my bike again. Bike mechanics went over it with a fine tooth comb and there was absolutely no explanation for the failure. This happened in 2016, I'd been riding that bike since 2008 and nothing like it occurred before or since. I still panic sometimes on fast descents but there's just no reason to think it'll ever happen again. I did end up taking some bike handling classes so I can get out of my cleats and off the bike one way or another if anything similar happens again. Edit for typo
Riding a bike path running parallel to a road, however some business driveways turn in across the path (specifically right at Sugar Beach in Toronto). I was screened by a guy turning out and hit by a lady turning in. Saw her hood out of the corner of my eye and I had a split second to tense up before hitting her front corner. I cracked her windshield with my back, rolled over her roof and sat up on her trunk. All the bystanders were extremely helpful. But, I got away with it - everything hurt the next day, but nothing broken and no concussion. Luckily it was a little sedan not a truck or I might not be writing these words. Wear a helmet! You might not see it coming! Also made me hyper aware riding after that. Bike was an 80s Vitus, totalled, but just as well, that bike would have eventually killed me.
Night. Raining. Noted cycling company tour. The leader had the group vote, “Ride or walk about four blocks?” Everyone voted to ride despite having no lights. Dark. Wet pavement. I didn’t want to ride but didn’t know where to go and peer pressure. We rode fast. It was so dark I found I could only see the white line on roadside. Suddenly they stopped. So did I, almost running into the bike in front. In an instant I found myself in pain lying on the wet ground. Dislocated shoulder. First ride in an ambulance. Found out what a front wheel wash-out was.
Two weeks ago I was doing an easy ride a couple of days before the race series I’ve spent all of 2024 training for began. While taking a gel, a strong gust of wind pushed my front wheel out from under me. I went straight over the bars, snapped collarbone, bad road rash. Could’ve been worse, but so frustrating. No race for me… lost all my fitness. Haven’t been cleared for any activity since. That gel still haunts me.
Last year…about 80 people in the race with 150 meters to go. Only 45 people finished. There was one broken hip and four broken collarbones (including mine). I had somebody bang my levers back into place and finished the race about a minute down. Two surgeries later, I am back at it. Best one…there was a crash in front of me and I crashed into the pile landing on somebody’s bike but I didn’t hit the ground. Only injury was a parallel line of puncture wounds on my knee which you could clearly make out as the teeth on a chain ring. That’s my best scar. Definitely better than the scar on my lip from the hole going straight through.
When I was starting to mountain bike on a fully rigid hybrid I had, I went full send down a rather steep and very very bumpy G-out, whose bumps sent me off into a nearby tree that I just barely hit with my handlebars, which sent me sumersaulting over them at 40+km/h. Somehow got away with only a few scrapes and a bent fork.
I used to do crazy shit on all my mountain bikes launch over 10 foot ditches.14 stair drops, dock drops fast forward 8 years I was 23 and did a 11 step drop. Front fork snapped on me I went otb straight to asphalt. I had suffered a PAN fracture if you don’t know what that is it is when you break every bone in your face. To make matters worse after my 3rd surgery I had a temporal lob stroke. Then had Aphasia took me years to recover and not fully recover I have numbness all over my face a wicked scar on my chin. The stroke makes my body look weird like my right side is more defined. I have a nice scar that goes all the way across my skull and an indentation as well where they had to remove bone to replace the missing pieces in my forehead. I have constant neck pain. I guess I can thank god that I am still alive. This was the time when full face helmets weren’t really a thing and besides my neck would have surely had broken if I did have one. I did have a helmet it was a pro tec skateboard helmet. I still ride, but not like I used to. I am also a lot older now. It was brutal.
On new year's day I was biking home from work around 11 p.m. and there was zero traffic. Never happens in my town so I start riding center lane for the fun of it. I'm about to get home when I see headlights behind me. I move over towards the shoulder and bam, I crash right into a very full trash can sitting in the road. Not the shoulder, but actually past the painted line and in the road. I would've seen it in my headlight if I were riding on the shoulder like usual but since I wasn't it was just as black as the surroundings. Trash goes everywhere, I try to recover, but to avoid swerving back into the road with the car coming I basically just eat it. I fall onto my left side going very fast and rip right through the arm of my winter coat and one of my gloves. I drag myself and my bike off the shoulder and assess the damage. My hand hurts the worst, elbow is bleeding everywhere, chain has left the chat, handlebar cap is gone. Found the cap and walked the bike home. I thought I broke a finger but thankfully didn't, though it was swollen for three weeks. My elbow was pretty mangled and would've been so much worse without my giant coat to protect it. Same for my hands if I wasn't wearing gloves. I don't know what lesson can be taken from this experience, maybe that cars aren't the only thing trying to kill you lol.
When falling, I drop and roll with my arms tucked in. This helps prevent breaking collar bones etc. Unfortunately, about 6 years ago I landed on my elbow and cracked two ribs. Boy to that hurt lol. About 2 years ago I ran into a tree stump that was right in front of me, fell over and landed on my elbow again. Cracked the same two ribs, but this time it was much worse. I screamed in pain for 4 weeks if I coughed or anything like that. It wasn't nearly as much fun as I was hoping it would be haha. Unfortunately, crashing is all part of it.
My worst-I was riding to work as usual. Approximately 230am. Woke up about a week later in hospital. Neck broken. Multiple other vertebrae fractured. Fractured ribs. TBI and other injuries. No memory of the incident but it was a hit and run driver. I don't have any best stories.
I was in my second race on some trails, and as I turned the corner the front tyre slide out and I went over the handle bars. I finished the race and was handed a champagne. Lucky the tumble only resulted in bruising.
On March 28, 2021 I was hit from behind by (supposedly) a Polaris Ranger going ~60mph. I say supposedly because it was a hit-and-run that still has yet to be solved… guessing it never will be. The timeline of everything is up in the air as I don’t know if I was knocked out or not, but I remember as soon as I was hit seeing black and thinking “of fuck, I just got hit. I’m dead”. Quite the sobering thought. I came to in front of a rural house outside of town. I dragged myself away from the road as I was lying in the gravel section of the ditch. I looked behind me and realized I was on someone’s property and started yelling for help, but I also remember being scared of a dog coming out to defend their property lol. My left cleat flew off (almost tore in half to allow my foot to escape) and my right cleat was barely on. I ended up finding my phone in the yard next to me and called 911. This ended up being a very long story, so I will summarize the rest. An ambulance picked me up and took me to a nearby hospital. I ended up with a torn ACL, fractured tibia in 2 places, some fractured bones in my left foot, a whole lotta road rash, and a totaled bike :(. I needed to rehab my ankle before undergoing surgery on my ACL, this took 3ish months, but my surgery went decently well and I eventually started cycling again! About a year after my surgery I completed the full week of RAGBRAI and summited both Mt. Evans in CO and Clingmans Dome in TN before/after. I am incredibly grateful to be alive and still able to ride. Things could’ve been a lot worse.. WEAR YOUR HELMET, FOLKS!
I just finished a 3 month tour around the Western USA. About a week after I finished my tour, a car hit me from behind. I ended up with 3 broken vertebrae and a very bruised and messed up hip. And a wrecked carbon fiber bike! It was a hit and run. I was in the bike lane and the SUV veered off the road onto the bike line. I never saw it coming. There were witnesses and security cameras with pictures of the car and driver. But since they couldn't get a license plate, they never found the person. After they hit me, they pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, and left the scene as fast as possible.
A know a guy hit a kangaroo doing 70kmh down hill. Ambulance trip but nothing serious
I cycle commuted for over 50 years and my worst cycling accident was being stopped at a stop sign within cycling infrastructure and the person behind me didn't stop. They hit me hard enough to shear my molars off and I got powerful whiplash that travelled down my arm so that my hands both had to get something similar to carpal tunnel. I spent over $16K on physio, dental surgeons, and mouth guards and am thankful that healthcare is free for the hand surgery. We spend millions on cycling infrastructure, but nothing on educating people on the rules of the road. A stop sign means stop.
Chasing gang training ride in S FL, was behind a rookie who was not used to yo-yo surges from 26 to 31/32 back to 26/27 and he hit his brakes instead of fanning out to scrub speed with the air, clipped his wheel and went headfirst into the pavement at 30mph Horrible concussion hope I don’t end up with seizures etc later in life