[riderman14]

i've crashed more times than i can count over these45 plus years!! but the "best" one was on memorial day of 1993.i was approaching a lighted intersection around 5:30 or 6pm.i slowed down cause i had the red.about 50-100 yards out,the light changed to green,so i started cranking again to go thru it.when i was in the middle of the intersection,a car came from my right and just plowed into me T-bone style!! She was doing about 45-50 mile an hour and later told the cops that she was changing the radio station and wasnt paying attention to the lite!!!She was driving a monte-carlo ss supersport and if not for that fact,i probably would not be alive today!!she scooped me up,i rolled up over the hood,,the top, and came down on the asphalt behind the car! my bike landed 111 feet from point of impact!all that happened to me was some skinned up knuckles,a grapefruit size bruise on the left knee and on my left foot,i lost the big toe nail,thru my shoe!!somebody up there was watching out for me that day.after that,i realized that my life must have a purpose!!..lol.. i've been hit by cars 5 times,and none of them have been farther than5 miles from wherever i lived!!!and none of them my fault! over the coarse of 45 years or better,and over 50,000 miles on the open road touring,i have never been hit,bumped, or even had as much as a minor misshap!! ride on

 

[Bigwheel Bart]

Hit by car 3 times in Houston. Worst cycling city by far. Foreigners, no insurance or license. ******** and yuppies. No bike lanes. just nutz. Got taken out from behind on a brand new custom I.F. cross bike. Survived and moved to Austin......diggin it!

 

[WileE1]

Raod biking it, my front tire blew out into a corner. Was riding too fast making a left turn through a busy intersection, front end washed out, I hit the pavement hard and slid on my backside and left leg about 10 feet. My shorts took a serious beating, but kept me sliding across the pavement without shredding skin. Not much blood, just a hell of a lot of bruises... I now believe in lycra shorts. They saved my a_s.....

 

[TxCyclist]

Hit by car 3 times in Houston. Worst cycling city by far. Foreigners, no insurance or license. ******** and yuppies. No bike lanes. just nutz. Got taken out from behind on a brand new custom I.F. cross bike. Survived and moved to Austin......diggin it!

It's amazing that the two cities are in the same State sometimes

 

[cbman]

I was riding the trusty (or not) old Gary Fisher Tarpon. The back brakes gave out while making a downhill turn, on a gravel road! My Choices where: (a) hit the front brakes and stop with my body, or (b) fly over the edge of the turn at 25 mph and be stopped by thorn bushes and trees. I obviously picked "a". Luckily I tucked (there was no rolling involved, just scraping the ground ) so the only damage was to my brand new jeans. It was pretty funny because it all happened in slow motion. I hit the brakes and the front wheel just turned completely around 1 1/2 times. Next thing you knew, I was looking back at the G.F.... only upside down!

 

[Cycle Snack]

First year mtb on my brand new Giant AC AM rig but didn't have a clue about body positioning while on the DH. Hit a rock, went down sideways and got a nice cut above my eye, sprained my shoulder, cracked my helmet, tore my shirt, but no damage to the bike. Here is what I looked like: Crashed and Happy.

 

[Tarukai]

Worst crash I ever had was on an old dual-suspension from Toys-r-us back in middle school.

I hadn't aired up the tires, being naive as I was, and had to stand up to pedal really quickly, and there happened to be dust/dirt right below the tire.

Needless to say, lost a LOT of skin on my left elbow, and I never forget to air my tires up anymore. Kind of important.

 

[Grape Ape]

I have been rather lucky a lot of wrecks but none worse than a few pieces of gravel in a knee or hand.

The best one I ever saw was my best friend. We were going down a very steep yet short hill in town (paved city street) on BMX bikes. All of a sudden he jerked to the right and hammered the curb, parallel to the curb not straight on. It tacoed both rims. He flew over the handlebars. Now it would have been fine if it ended with him hitting dirt and rolling then walking home with a wrecked bike.

Nope not so lucky. He crashed right before a garden of a mean old man. It had 3 strands of barbed wire around it not secure but loose. My buddy hit the barbwire and rips the fence down as he goes through it wrapping himself up very well in barb wire. He bounced/rolled/slid/flopped to a halt in the middle of the garden, after destroying a row or 2 of vegetables. I skid to a stop to help him. He is laying there moaning, not wanting to move due to the pain. Then the old man who owned the garden who saw it all happen, decided to help my buddy get up. Instead of helping him up as most people would the old man grabbed up his shovel and took to smacking my buddy with the shovel. All the while cussing him and yelling for him to get out of his garden. I must say nothing motivates healing and get up and go like being smacked with a shovel. I ran over and got a hold of the shovel while my friend scrambled to get loose. Once we cleared the edge of the old man's yard, the old guy just completely forgot about us and went about his business.

I ended up putting my friend on my bike. He leaned on me as I pushed it and carried his bike the block or so to his house.

We laugh about it now, but it wasn't to funny for a few days after it happened, I had his bike rebuilt long before he was able to ride again.

 

[gatorguy]

To the Pool

When I was about 10 or 11, I hopped on my sisters bike, a big old classic coaster bike that weighed a ton (this was in the mid-60's), threw my towel over the handle bars, and headed to the city pool. I was riding along a main road and within sight of the pool when the towel slipped off the bars and into the front spokes. Of course I went over the bars to the pavement and the bike came down on top of me.

My physical injury consisted of bumps, bruises and major road rash on my leg. I can still remember the acid-like pain of the open wound that was full of road dirt. But the worst injury of all was the bruising of my ego when the people stopped thier cars to make sure I was alright. I was embarrased beyond words!

Knock wood, but I've never had another road crash.

 

[clemfan2001]

I have already had tons of crashes and i'm only 18.

One of my hardest crashes would prob. be while I was riding in a pack of about 10 or 15 and I was right behind this guy going on a down hill and right when we were starting to go uphill (going 45 mph) the guy infront of my stands up and jerks the bike back, clipping my front wheel and I go down pretty hard sliding about 15 feet on a not so smooth road.

And then I was racing one time and it was raining (of corse) and there was a right hand elbow turn, my bike go out from underneath me going aroung 40+. But, still finished the race 7th out of 28.

I have had many others on MTB and BMX but nothing THAT serious.

 

[nachos]

My worst crash was probably from having a stick shoved in my front spokes

 

[bantam700]

Worst crash I had was when I was a kid, maybe about 7 years old. Going down a big hill and the coaster brake decided to kick on, I started to fishtail and fell over. No major damage but I my first road rash, which is also the worst road rash I have ever had I remember I gashed my elbow open a few weeks before that I had only had the stitches out for a couple days when that happened. The crash tore of the scab and my elbow was bleeding pretty bad, I ran home freaking out because I thought I was going to need more stitches and I did not want to go the hospital again.

Worst crash as an adult was a mountain bike ride about a year ago, hit a muddy patch while flying around a corner. Laid my bike down and one end of the handlebars stuck into mud with the other end sticking straight up in the air and I landed hard on it. I had quite a few people telling me I need to go to the hospital to get my guts checked out and make sure there was no internal bleeding.

 

[TXbiker]

Friend was sitting on my handlebars with his feet on the front pegs of my BMX as we rode down a hill towards his house. We were maybe 12 and I clearly remember him raising his right leg up to scratch his calf when his flip-flop caught the front tire and instantly spun up and locked in behind the fork. We flipped hard and both got tore up pretty good; road rash, fractured wrist (me) bruises, cuts, and ego trauma when man mowing lawn was doubled over laughing too hard to offer immediate assistance.

 

[Gomez]

Hangin a right and a channel of water run off next to the curb had a nice bit of slippery sludge which in turn washed out my front wheel and in an instant I was laying in the street with souvenir strawberries.

 

[vassago]

my worst was when i was 17. warm up jump at the trails on my old dual slalom bike. front shock left the lip compressed, i lawn darted.... over shot the 15ft double to flat on my face. i knew i was coming in steep but i didnt realize how steep so i never bailed.

9 hours of reconstructive surgery on my face. had to had my eyelid stitched up, my lip reattatched to gum, lost 2 teeth, cracked my jaw, eye socket, nose, and have a titanium plate holding my cheek together. was back on my bike riding around the neighborhood the day they let me out of the hospital.


there's been quite a few bad ones, but that was def the worst. kind of tough looking like twoface your senior year of high school haha

 

[47rusty]

Riding along on a busy two lane road, a car up ahead, going the other direction, is waiting to make a left turn. A car going my direction passes me as I'm nearing the intersection. The car turning left makes the turn just after I get passed, just as I'm entering the intersection. My bike (a Jim Redcay road bike) hits the middle of his front bumper, I go across the hood and do a somersault, smacking my helmet on the ground as I go. I wound up with a badly sprained ankle. The bike needed a new top tube, head tube, and down tube, a new paint job, and some new components. The helmet was toast, but that's what they're made for. I still ride in the same area, but make sure to pay attention to turning vehicles.

 

[Grape Ape]

Gatorguy made me remember one from years ago. My buddy who crashed into the garden, and I were heading to the city pool. Wearing tennis shoes and swim trunks towels over our shoulders. No t-shirts just swim trunks and shoes. We are riding side by side down a wide city sidewalk. My buddy looks across the street and sees about 8 girls that we go to school with, walking down the sidewalk the other direction. They are heading home from the pool and in bikinis and one piece suits towels around their waists or shoulders. All of them were looking very good. We are eyeballing them and not paying attention to where we are going.

The city in their infinite wisdom had decided years ago to make the city beautiful. They had numerous trees growing out of the sidewalk. Each of those trees had a black iron cage around it to protect it.

Now we are living it up and whistling and acting the fools towards these lovely young ladies. They are laughing and waving and making life very tough on a 14 year old boy. it is about this time that the cage around one of the trees decides we are not paying enough attention to what we are doing. I am on the right and he on the left side by side. We run into the cage. I hit it with my left hand and handlebars. He hits with his right hand and handlebars. Sadly it was not a sudden stop. Nope we continue around the cage and smash heads together on the other side of the cage then crash to the ground.

Needless to say the lovely swimsuit clad ladies on the other side of the street find great humor in that at our expense. Some old ladies run out to check on us. We are a bit bloodied and banged up but our pride was shattered.

To add insult to injury at lunch on the 3rd day back to school one of the girls decides to tell the story of our crash. Before the end of the story everyone at lunch was quiet and listening to the story. She waited until the very end of the story to tell our names at which point there was no place to hide. We got razzed for that for a long time.

 

[funetical]

When I was a child my teeth were growing apart so I had to get braces on the front two teeth when I was seven. I was riding with friends went over the front of my handle bars which busted my braces and jammed them on my bottom row. My jaw was locked until we got to the dentist. It was probably the quietest I've been since.

 

[snowbird]

I'm a big fan of those rubber wound dressings. They heal road rash in 5 days! Without the discomfort that is normal for these kinds of accidents. You can get small ones at Walmart. My daughter gets me big ones from the hospital. The ones I have are "Exuderm Satin" hydrocolloid wound dressing. They use them on bedsores.

I took a broadside from a Ford Bronco and got slid across the pavement. I just cleaned the scrapes with providone iodine and stuck these patches all over me. No next day soreness at all.

I'm not saying I'm accident prone. But I keep them in my first aid kit. They're not for deep wounds but for scrapes etc. they're grief relief!