posted
I started biking in the middle of last summer (well I obviously had biked before, but I was going about 3 times a year for probably 6 minute rides, so it wasn't until last summer I really started biking). I've had some close calls, and some pretty dangerous things, but I'd managed to never fall... until yesterday.
I was going somelpace I hadn't been before after work, a residential type area; a couple of people were walking down the street I was biking up, and it looked like they might get in my way when turned off the road so I stared at them for a little while to see what the heck they were doing (they were kind of in the middle of the road) and all of a sudden I go over a very high, very steep, very unnocited speed bump at a little over 15 mph and go tumbling off my bike. I got out all right, badly scrapped elbow and knee and a bruise on my leg. Though I am curious, one knee is scraped up and has a bruise, and the other one looks pretty much all right but it's the one that really hurts to move, why is that?
Anyways, just goes to show you, always pay attention on a bike, you never know what may happen!
quote:Though I am curious, one knee is scraped up and has a bruise, and the other one looks pretty much all right but it's the one that really hurts to move, why is that?
Did you notice in the comics, Hobbes normally bailed before he really stupid stuff?
I'm dissapointed because I've survived drunks trying to run me down, people driving inches away from for extended periods, and really stupid biking going to fast on Purdue's campus in the dark. I wanted to make it a year.
posted
The handlebar got bent a little, but I was able to bend it back, so all is well. I haven't ridden it since though (I'm feeling way too sore this morning to ride nine miles into work) so it's possible I missed something, but I don't think so, my body took most of the damage.
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<grin> Then there's my getting hit by a car story, which isn't nearly as spectacular as my Dad hitting a car story, though both were rather painful to the participants.
The best part of my whole story was the next day when I staggered sore and aching into my first class halfway through it, (we were having a test prep or quize otherwise I wouldn't have gone at all) and the prof stopped class to say "Glad you could join us!" And I shot back 'cause I hurt so bad and wasn't about to take any crap. "I am too, I just got hit by a car." the look on prof's face was priceless.
posted
It is a little funny that my one big crash last year was a product of a speedbump too.
I was going around a corner in a parking lot that's always deserted - there are never even any cars around - and for some inexplicable reason, there was a big crowd of people standing right there. Right after I ate it, one of the ladies said "Oh no! Didn't you see the speedbump?" Yes, thank you. I saw the speedbump. I saw it rather close-up, as a matter of fact.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
You can just bend your handlebars? By hand?
Glad your Ok, but like Anna says, you don't have a bike accident worth telling until you get by a car. But don't worry, it's not a question of if you get hit, but when.
Anyway, live and learn. And what I expect you to have learned is where this bump is so you can seek it out and go careening off it at even more breakneck speeds Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
No broken bones, no head injury, no serious road rash. I'd say you came out OK.
When I teaching at MSU, I rode in to teach one morning in the early spring. The temperature was well above freezing so I assumed, wrongly, that the glare on the road was liquid water. I rode down my drive and as soon as I tried to turn left on the road, I crashed hard. There was a car coming down the road so I scrambled like heck to get out of the way figuring that he would be unaware of the ice as well. I was trying so hard to avoid being run over by the car that I didn't notice that I'd split open by helmet until I was half way in to work and started feeling dizzy. I was teaching an 8 AM class and went straight in to teach. Everytime I turned my head during the lecture, I nearly fell down. It was evidently fairly amusing. Some of the students reported me to my husband, who was teaching across MSU. He had the secretary come in and check on me every hour that day to make sure my eyes were properly dialated and that I was still contious.
So when they teach you in physics that you can't ride a bike on ice, believe them.
[ June 15, 2004, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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So, like, when I helped you get that new tire after you collided with another biker on campus, that didn't count?
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Was their roadrash celia? Generally a "crash" involves some sort of loss of blood on the participants part. Extremely heavy bruising is an acceptable alternative though. The damage generally has to be to the human, not the bike before it counts... AJ
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Hobbes - so did the people you were staring at watch you fall? I hate other people seeing me do something idiotic.... Seems like I always have those "graceful" moment right in front of someone.
*glances around quickly to make sure she isn't being watched*
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THe last time I fell on my bike was in Mackinack, and I'd gone all summer without crashing. I'm coming down this VERY STEEP hill, coasting, and just touching the brakes every once in a while. I'm aware there are carriages behind me, but they're full of people, so they've got thier brakes on and going slow. I go past the hotel in about the middle of the hill, and some tourist kid comes running out into the road, right in front of me. SO I hit the brakes, but i hit the front one a little faster than the back one, and dump myself face-first onto the pavement. I drag myself and the bike over to the curb and sit down. I'm sitting there trying to make sure I haven't broken anything, when the kid's mom comes and collects him and points in back of me. "Get out of hte way of the horses" SHe YELLS at me. I continue to sit there and collect myself and my now bent bike. Horses are manueverable.
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It's like driving a car, Mack, how many people do you know who haven't been in a car accident of some kind? Almost everyone has been rear ended, done the rear ending, etc. It just hurts more when you're outside of the car Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Farmgirl, yah, those two people saw me. They walked by for a few seconds, and then one of them turns around and (while still walking away) asks if I'm OK. I felt like a dunce.
On Saturday I went for a ride with my Dad, lots of uphill and downhill, inlcuding 9 miles of almost continual downhill, and a three to five mile strech of over 5% grade, I went fast down that and didn't come anywhere near falling (plus a 2.5 mile streach of over 6%, and maybe over 7% grade). No, I fall on the speed bump about 100 yards from my destination.
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As an update, the giant scab on my elbow is kind of annoying, but that's it. My scrapped up knee looks like it will develop a nasty looking bruise, but wont hurt much, and my right knee, where I think I did get a bone bruise still hurts but it's better. Overall I do count myself lucky. I was going pretty fast, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground, no warning, no preperation, just me with my elbow skidding along teh pavement. Anyways, I'm also lucky about the bike. Bob, it's OCLV 120 carbon fiber frame, I did just bend it back by hand. It wasn't exactly wasy, but it wasn't bent that much either.
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Yeah, people telling stories about the life threatening situations they have been in, meanwhile putting themselves again into similar life threatening situations!
Hobbes, please get a car! Or start walking to class. I don't want to lose you. Bikes are too freaking dangerous to use as daily transportation!
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See, and these stories inspire me to get my bike back out.
My husband was in a bike/car accident once. It made him tardy to class and when the instructor asked why he was late, and my husband said he had a bike/car accident the guy refused to believe him.
If you're lucky, though, you may avoid the bike/boat accident. Some guy make a quick turn into a parking lot ahead of my husband, and he was towing a boat. My husband tipped over, and they guy laughed at him. I wonder if he remembered later when/if he noticed the 3 foot scratch this encounter left on his boat. Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I just started riding my bike. No crashes this year yet.
Closest I have wrecked lately was some kids trying to run me off the road. They couldn't even do it right, just kinda bumped me, and then they speed off as if I would be able to catch them.
Last bad crash I remember is riding after rain at fall, and I hit a patch of large wet leaves. My front wheel just flopped sideways. I attended class all wet and dirty, but undamaged.
I love bike riding. I have been riding for the last 11 years. When I was really ambitious, I would ride in the winter (when it wasn't snowing--although I did try it once). Once I even had plastic pants and jacket and would ride in the rain. I was having so much fun I stupidly rode into a grass ditch and my bike practically flew out from under me the grass was so slippery. But it was nice and soft, so besides feeling really dumb, it was kinda fun...
The first crash I remember was probably 20 years ago and I was riding a clunker bike and I hit the front brake and it came off and caught in the spokes. Right in front of "the girl who lived next door" (well, 3 doors)... I was pretty humiliated, but she probably just felt bad for me.
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Don't listen to Anne Kate on this one Hobbes. The studies have been done. The health benefits of bicycling daily outway the dangers. Be sure to wear your helmet and learn everything you can about defensive riding in traffic, but keep riding your bike.
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