once i was trying to prove to someone that my route to a party was better, so i was hauling ass on my bike. i was cutting trhough a parking lot, and the ramps for the sidewalk didn’t quite line up. it was night i didn’t have my contacts in, so before i had a chance to realize wtf was happening, i was flipping the bars. i ended up with a cut elbow and my foot stuck between my bars and the brake lever.
my most embarassing wasn’t too bad, or embarassing, but i rode up to a party with my fixed gear friends, and there were all these girls outside. it was a no pants party, so they were all looking good, and i tipped over in the driveway with my feet in the straps
my roommate has a much better story than me. not embarassing but probably one of the worst in this thread. I’ll tell his then mine since his is better, haha.
So my roommate buys his 11 year old brother a 47cm kilo tt for his birthday and then goes out to ride with him. My roommate has been working on ‘no hands, no feet’ and tries it too close to a curb. He hits a small crack in the road and flips over the bars onto the previously mentioned curb, with his face. Scuffs the fuck out of his chin, upper lip, right under his eye, his forehead, both arms and legs. AND, breaks his nose on both sides and needs stitches. The scariest part was his concussion and how he called me 3 times telling me he just wrecked, not remembering he’d already told me… ha?
My story is rather tame. I was doing a 180 skid when the rear wheel lifted up. I realized what was happening as soon as my grip fell off of my bar and i pretty much just said “shit” and then flipped over the bars landing knees first. Just scuffed them up but it hurt a lot more than it looked. I’ve only had two wrecks on the track bike so far. That was one, the other was a shaaarp fast turn, bike flew out from under me and got stuck under a car, I got right up, not a scratch just a little sore.
My most embarassing was at around two am I was riding home from the bar and was passing through an area flush with yuppie ass bro bars disgorging their denizens into the night. I was talking to my friend who was riding next to me. I was riding on the curb side and he closer to the center line. I was drunk and was engrossed in conversation and a taxi stopped in front of me. My friend passed it safely on the left and I slammed into the back end of it, wen over the bars and smashed my face into the trunk. My bike was fine, I was more or less fine, but it happened in front of about 200 chicks and dudes.
My worst crash was at work I was hauling ass around noon, knifing through midday traffic. I saw a lincoln towncar going the opposate direction as me turn left across my lane about 200 feet in front of me.
I registered its presence and calculated how long it’s turn would take and set up to pass behind it right as it completed the turn. The problem was that instead of being a regular towncar, it turned out to be a stretch limo. I hit it’s rear wheelwell at about 25 mph and went flying over the trunk. I landed on my shoulder and cracked my helmet on the ground. My gloves were shreaded, my shirt was shreaded, my shoulder was shreaded, my hip was bruised, my helmet was cashed and my wheel was tacoed. The worst part was being on the ground and watching a taxi screech to a stop about a foot and a half from running me over. I was almost to my destination, so I locked my crippled bike, finished my run on foot, called into work and told them I was going home.
My fucking stupidest crash was when I was testriding a mountain bike to build my xtracycle on and I was cruising around all happy-go-lucky, feeling very comfortable on the fatty fat bike. I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the handlebars. I promptly lost control, the wheel turned 90 degrees and I flipped over the bars. I bought the bike. I felt obligated after crashing the damn thing.
I was recently given a set of flatbars by a friend, promptly put them on my winter/beater bike, and cruised to the lbs to get some mtb grips. I was a bit antsy to put them on so I got the insides of em a little wet and went on my way to my friend Nicks work picnic. Once I got there Nick asked if he could take my bike for a spin. I warned him the grips were still pretty slippery and to be careful. Nick wasnt careful. He ramped up a little speed and started his way into a skid. The right grip popped off and sent Nick supermaning off the bike…Oury in hand. I felt pretty awful about the whole thing. He and the bike were both OK, thankfully.
most embarassing/entertaining was a series of spills, i was meeting up with this girl before school to get coffee and i hop off my bike, but forgot my left foot was clipped in, and i tumble into some bushes, real smooth! so i recover then walk my bike to get coffee with her, i was on the street side of the sidewalk. (felt tarck as fuck. i had no helmet, no brakes, and walking the bike to the coffee shop.)
we get to a crosswalk, i see this old guy with 1/4 inch thick glasses, looking left so he could pull out of the shopping center and head right when the traffic was clear, i saw he never looked and noticed us, he was completely oblivious to the world around him. So i look ahead to see when the traffic will be clear, i estimate, i will be in the middle of the crosswalk directly infront of him. With my tarck sense saying “NO”, we just walked, as oblivious as he was, in the corsswalk, and my sense was right on! he crawled his car into her, still looking left, she was on his hood, and he kept driving till his bumper was penetrated by my pedal. then he looks over sees a girl on his hood…
the look on his face was priceless, and my bike fucked his car up… oh the best part was, when i removed my bike from his bumper, and she got off the hood, she was swearing at him, we walk to the driver door. still not really acknowledging, he still had his opening, he just drives away…
i was laughing too hard to get his plates or anything, then we continued to the coffee shop.
This is embarrassing, not so much for the spill, but the reason behind it. sigh I was skidding, fast, leg over the bars at a skatepark, showing off for all of the kids on skateboards when suddenly a large quarter pipe appeared in my way. I decided to steer my radsickawesome skid away from the ramp. The only problem was steering input with a leg carelessly dangling over the bars meant a foot in the spokes. The front wheel came to an abrupt stop, but not before bending a few spokes and my ankle. I catapulted through the air directly at the ramp, smacked into it shoulder first and rolled down in pain and shame.
I fell got really fucking drunk really early on thursday and fell off a trackstand in front of the taqueria. I think I may have hairline fractured my wrist. Still swollen to shit and can’t use my hand at all.
I broke the same wrist like one centimeter further down when I was a kid trying to jump over a spa on a Go-Ped when those things first came out years ago.
Worst? Approaching a busy intersection, hit a bump just as I was entering, u-lock knocked my front light out of it’s mount, I braked hard to pick the damn thing up, went straight over my bars. This was after taking a spill right after leaving work while trying to turn in some slush, fell drive-train side. A little while later I realized my rear derailleur had been bent. Sadly, I only discovered this AFTER it got caught up in my spokes, snapping the rear derailleur hanger in two, catching my fender mount rod as the now loose derailleur made it’s way around my rear wheel, taking it’s cable with it, which had the effect of folding my rear fender up under itself before I skidded to a halt. At that point, I had to shoulder my bike and run for the train station to avoid missing the last train out of the city and back home. At least I made the train.
Most embarassing? 0mph tarckstand failure on a busy boardwalk.
[quote=“gerund”]SO. Last night. Scott and I were riding up Powell to meet his brother and wife for dinner. As we are riding up Powell, we come upon a trolley. Scott says “Let us skitch on this here trolley” and he grabs ahold of the back. The tourists oooh and aaah and laugh, all “check out these crazy San Franciscans!”
Then Scott is all “here, grab on” and moves up the trolley, giving me room to snag the rear pole. One of the tourists offers me his hands, and I am like “nooooooooo get that outta here” and grab onto the pole. I am skitching on a trolley! And it is going well! For about two feet. My bag, which is this tiny Gama Go purse-y mess type bag WITHOUT A STERNUM STRAP, swings around and hits me in the face. Change of weight and I am all “WAHHHHHH” and crash to the ground. Tourists laugh.
I am splayed out on the trolley tracks of Powell street, still clipped in and all tangled in bike, and boy does my knee hut.
[/quote]
And as soon as we saw my brother I was like “she fell while skitching.” because earlier I had let him borrow one of my bikes and we were riding back to his hotel and I did the same thing, and he refused.
well I was on my way home from work. after climbing a pretty big hill I took a breather/water break before I continued down the other side. I also put on my helmet. I started my decent and quickly picked up speed(I’ve spun out on the decent before). I suddenly realize that I have no resistance in the pedals, i look down and realize the chain had derailed. I hit my brake to try and slow down but my chain catches in the rear wheel locking it and throwing me into a skid. I go side to side a couple of times before I meet the pavement face first at at least 25mph.
I put my hands out to break my fall resulting in two sprained wrist. My face caught most of the impact, resulting in a scraped chin, cheek, and lip. I aslo bit my top and bottom lip and had a very soar jaw. I also scraped both knees, got road rash on my shoulder.
I ended up braking a spoke on my rear wheel and bending my Phil Wood cog.
That was a little over a month ago, all my wounds are healed but i still have scars on my face. My left wrist is still sour but has come along way.
I took a pic right after i fell to asses the damage . . . . i called my wife for a ride after seeing the damage i had done.
the next day looked alot worse because everything swelled up
Last Thursday at work, I was drafting behind a van when I looked down to see which cog I’m on. I look up and of course the van is now about five feet from my face and almost at a complete stop with me headed right for it, so I slam the brakes and go flying since I had my weight forward (and was riding my “crit” bike). Mid flight, just as my face was about to get personal with that guy’s back window, I extend my arm out to it and somehow manage to stop my forward-rotating motion. My feet fall to the ground all awkward-like and I somehow manage to stick the landing, my hand still on the van and my bike tumbling in another lane. I kinda looked around all all WTF-like and a bunch of people were looking at me. (This was at lunch hour downtown) Needless to say, I play it cool and ride off on a side street where no one can see me trembling. I wish someone I knew had seen it.
I was riding home one night a few years ago(I had just gotten into riding big boy bikes) on my old Univega. Of course my lights were shitty and super dim.
So I was going pretty fast and noticed some kids playing football in the street. Made a note of it but for some reason didn’t slow down. I, rather, sped up even more. “They won’t even notice me, I’m so goddamn fast”, I thought. So right as get to them the football decides that my front wheel is a good place to land and I flipped over the bars and do a sweet shoulder/hip slide for maybe 5-6 feet. I got up and they had a ‘holy shit, are you ok?’ look on their faces. I shrugged them off, mostly from embarrassment. I checked my bike, the wheels were both way out of true, the bars tweaked, and the fork completely bent.
Last november I was ran off the road (I think, I have no actual memory of the accident) and sidelong into a honda pilot at an estimated 20-25mph. I took off her rearview and took out both windows. I broke my jaw clean through and broke my shoulder. Lost 6or7 teeth and suffered a major concussion. I woke up in the hospital 3 days later and was in for a total of 8 days. My jaw was reconstructed with titanium and my brain is almost normal (I can’t get up really quickly or I get dizzy and things go black. The bike, a beautiful old Coppi fixie conversion with a great deal of vintage campy stuff was destroyed and to top it all off I was given a ticket for failing to yield right of way on a left turn.
