Was looking at the post "It broke "clean off" and it got me thinking about the other day when I was out riding with the Mrs
I shot down a hill that had a series of drop offs made from old huge wooden sleepers, got to the bottom and stopped safley. Set off riding and the back wheel fell off! Well , came out the frame and jammed up. Had that of happened half way down Id have face planted in serious fashion.
Anyone want to share their near misses and lucky escapes? Pics too if you have them!
loads 😯
worst was at Penmachno I was wearing waterproof shorts that were bugging me, looked down as I thought they were caught on the saddle and rode straight into a rock and supermanned over the bars and landed on my back in a bush!!
Not a scrape apart from bruised pride
when i first bought my anthem x2 (now sold) ,was riding down a short hill (that took a left then rose back up again).rounding the corner,there was a tractor blocking the road (with it's bucket pointing in my direction)i had just enough time to say oh bolerics! whilst slamming on the anchors.the bike just skidded to a halt (ended up exactly 90 degrees from where i was heading) the brakes were definitely bedded in (in that moment 🙂
Got a puncture in the neutralized zone of a stage of the Masters Tour of Majorca. Got the rear wheel replaced by an enthusiastic mechanic, then rode 100 or so kms flat out. It was only when climbing the only hill on the course that the rear wheel kept pulling forward and hitting the seat tube; the quick release was flapping in the breeze.
Vertical drop outs saved my bacon.
I've a few [i]stories[/i] from all types of situations.
Like the time I was given a ride home.
In the back of a police a car.
While I lived in Istanbul 😯
But perhaps more forum relevant, one time while speeding along some buff, twisty hi speed ST one summer evening.
Going through a corner, I recall my bar end just glancing a tree trunk.
Literally a few millimeters more to the right and I'd have totaly wiped-out, badly !.
BUT, the trail gods were obviously smiling upon me on this occassion and gave me that great memory which makes me smile even now.
The speed, the fun, the ST, that evening and that little nudge on a tree trunk as I blasted by. Is for me, one of the little moments that sets mountain biking / off road cycling apart from anything else I do, day to day.
😀
my feet came off the pedals after boosting a jump at speed,which threw me into a superman still holding the bars,nearly hitting a tree and then landing horizontally, taking the full impact with my nuts on the saddle. came away with sore nuts but could have been a lot worse, as it did a few months later when i did a simular thing and broken both arms.
Self explanatory.
[url= http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6061/6060119224_c849e596b8.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/63916749@N02/6060119224/ ]stwcampeonato de españa pista 290610 las carreras 229[/url] por [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/63916749@N02/ ]kala y simon[/url], en Flickr
Taken just after the race, which he won.
Came round a corner on a narrow country lane whilst thinking "hope there's nothing coming towards me", only to be met by an ambulance. He stopped, I nearly didn't, but I was thinking as I skidded towards it "I could hit worse things.....". I stopped and ran back up the road to give him space to pass. As he went past he asked "any more up there? I'm taking one of your lot to hospital". Turned out there was a sportive that day that 2 riders had crashed on, and he was taking the injured one to hospital - could have been a bit of a cyclists day out to casualty....
Mr Bump.
Dude, thats a bad ride.
I hope your better now.
OUCH !.
Don Simon.
That picture is class. Kinda worthy of the Outro page in the Mag.
You should hold a comedy caption thread for that picture.
[i]WTF[/i] just doesn't seem to cover it.
😆
Nice one !
🙂
My mate ("Parkedtiger" on the forum) had a neer miss one night during the late winter. Coming down off one of our local hills and just after the tricky bit his steerer tube sheered just below the stem. 😯 Holding the bars up and waving them around in mid air, brakes and steering rendered useless and off....... 😥
Fortunatley he was on the grassy slope and was`nt hurt too bad. I think he got a thump in the chest as he went down... But we bodged it and he made it home! 🙄
nearly married a girl i had been seeing for over 12 mnths until i met her mother,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
One of the lads was running slightly late one night when we had planned a blast around Chopwell woods. Whilst waiting, I was pootling around the car park killing time when I pulled (or at least was about to) a wheelie. As I lifted the bars, the front wheel and forks fell away from the bike. I bailed off to the side and no harm was done. The steerer had sheared just below the stem clamp.
If my mate had been on time, this would have happened somewhere down the powerline, and i would have been travelling somewhat faster.
not a mechanical, but I managed to clip one of the logs at the side of the trail down at glentress a few years ago, think i was doing about 15mph, flew off the bike spinning, luckily manage to land on my backpack and then roll off into some nice lovely flat grassy stuff, got up after a second and back on the bike! I'd have been hospitalised if there were any rocks or trees in my way....(Think it was the second down after spooky wood) greatest crash I've ever had mind, slow motion type thing, felt like i was flying for about 5 seconds! 
Fell off on one of the switchbacks on the lemmings descent out in the Sierra Nevada with Switchbacks.
it was a real Inidana Jones moment - I grabbed the only thing available (a small 9-inch high shrub) as I went over and flipped myself so I landed against my camelbac on the cliff-face. The shrub snapped and I slip down the rock face and landed in a rose bush that was growing out of a fault line. This stopped me falling/tumbling a further 90/100 foot to the bottom.
When I got back to the path, my bike was placed perfectly making it look like I'd set the whole thing up for laughs.
Ben
I rode out of the garden down the street and clean across a busy road through moving traffic. Miracle i wasn't hit. My parents dog which had bit through my brake hoses had a lucky escape aswell.
BoaS.
Excellent Story.
🙂
Glad you're still with us, after a trip like that.
Sweet !.
8)
Slipstreaming behind a flatbed transit that had scaffold poles sticking out of the back, downhill, in the wet, with total slicks on my MTB. He started to brake. I tried to slow down but just started sliding. I slithered out to overtake instead only to be met by a bus coming the other way.
Luckily the bike was slithering around so much that it was the back of my bike that hit the front of the bus. Punched a hole in the bumper, and snapped the back of my bike off. Bizarrely I didn't actually fall off but just ground to a halt by the side of the road.
This was in the days before helmets, and the bus driver, bless him, stopped and gave me and my bike bits a free lift back into Sheffield.
Could have gone really badly....
Ta very much Solo.
I've told as many people I've met since but despite the exclamations of incredulity I have to say it wasn't worth it.
Was riding a cheeky one from Padley Gorge down towards Grindleford and took a left down a simple piece of singletrack - however I inexplicably missed the trail and went front wheel first over a 6ft vertical drop. Underneath the drop was a gritstone bench - fortunately I managed to twist myself whilst in freefall and threw the bike away. I missed landing on my bike and more fortunately missed landing on the bench, the 6ft somersaulting fall was cushioned by landing flat on my back on my Camelback. Could have been much worse.
First night out on a new bike with spds I was riding over a bridge in a remote bit of the Cheviots. We'd said a few times in the past that it would be quite easy to fall off the path at this point, into the river. Unable to unclip in time that's exactly what I did. I remember thinking "this could be interesting" as I went over the edge but managed to turn somehow in mid air so that I landed in the 18" of water, 15ft below, on my bag and shoulders. I had a stiff neck and a cold ride out but it could have been much worse . . .
I'm still alive.
[url= http://farm1.static.flickr.com/122/264038810_618a6d53ae_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/53067724@N00/264038810/ ]bars1[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/53067724@N00/ ]Jon Wyatt[/url], on Flickr
left a girlfriend years ago she was pretty but something wern't right now she's huge and a single mum looking a lot older than she is (not my kid either) close escape id say 😆
I came down the fastest part of our trail ride, 30mph +; tis a straight downhill with a few roots and very small step downs with a compression and slightly banked right turn at the bottom before heading up a slight incline. At the time it had been quite windy so visibility round the corner was not as good due to low branches etc. Imagine my surprise when hitting the compression at the bottom to see 20feet in front of an entire fallen tree blocking the trail. There were no bail out routes so I hit the anchors and at the last second bailed from the bike. I went one way and it went another both ending up stuck in different parts of the tree, neither of us on terra-firma. No damage done. Myself and my mate removed the tree the next day. Lessons learned that day were that perhaps looking more ahead would be a good idea.
Came off my Suzuki RGV 250 at 85mph when I was 18. Bike was a complete write off, I only had a skin graft and a few bruises to put up with. Considering one of my friends came off only doing 25 and is now in a wheelchair I consider myself lucky.
Riding home from work, flying down a really nice bit of trail thinking I was ace. All of a sudden aware of something on my right hand side crossing, was another bloke on a bike riding off the trail, he flashed across with neither of us having time to do anything about it. Bit like the syncro pair in the Red Arrows. A second or 2 earlier from me, or a couple later from him, and they would still be trying to untangle bikes/limbs in hospital. Too close for comfort...
At Thrunton after the dry weather, riding across the moor and down the other side with my mate. Ground was hard and fast.
He vanished ahead of me, I thought he was making good time, only to see him upside down in one of the little gulleys made by the rain.
Got to him and asked if he was ok, no reply. Started to sort out in my head where we were, what to tell the mountain rescue etc.
He then told me to get his bike off him and help him up. Got him sat up and checked over. He was panicking saying that there had been a massive crack when his head had hit the ground and he thought his neck was broken.
Decided to call it a day and head off, he put his helmet back on to find the straps at the back ripped off and missing the back part of the helmet completely - that was the loud snapping sound.
Really lucky he hadn't broken his neck.
Me - At Chopwell woods on the Powerline - first day on my newly built bike, a bit over enthusiastic and lost it on a muddy section, fell sideways and cracked my (helmeted) head hard against a tree route. Sat there dazed for a few minutes and thanked myself for wearing a helmet and not hitting my cheek off the root.
Motorbike related (turning point for me getting a slower bike)
Out in Thailand for a ride with my local group, I had a Blackbird, mate an R1, other friend a Suzuki 900 something and another YZF 1000 - everybody else was on slow bikes about 20 of us out.
We decided that a bit of a race was in order on the fast bikes - off we went. Roads here are dangerous at the best of times, lots of u-turns on the dual carriage ways from one side to another.
We had to stop at some lights. All lined up, I got in the lead. 150, 160, 170, 180+ then a truck pulled out in front of me.
I started braking hard. Still gaining on the truck. At one point I accepted that this was it. As I continued braking, praying that nothing bounced my back end up, I looked left and right for any exit and what I saw was my two mates looking at me wide-eyed they had moved in to keep the other cars away from me and I knew then that I was safe.
I had got within a foot of the back of the truck. Shook me up properly, shook my mates up properly, enough that they never told my missus until years later.
Made me also sell the bike and buy something more sensible.
Cased a triple on Glentress red on my 24" jump bike, carried on and put it down to experience, jumped a few more trail features on the way down and manually a few bits, to stop at the bottom to find my front wheel loose to the point of falling out!
As i'd cased all the force had gone through my Z1 and twisted the bolt on brace causing the QR to undo.........
following my mate down a trail one day, suddenly he contorted his whole body to one side, whilst pushing his bike the other way, just as about half a pound of dog turd sailed over his right shoulder.
amazing that it didnt get him, or me, thank goodness i wasnt close behind him.
front tyre was plastered in it tho . . . .
Plenty of bits have bent/broke/snapped at an inappropriate time. From seatposts and 'bars to sheering both pedals off after a stupidly hard, flat landing. Thinking back, the only bike bit that hasn't let me down over the years would be a stem thank ****
Jammiest escape was probably the occasion when I found myself flying through the air staring up to my outstretched right hand high above my head, during a particularly ambitious leap. Luckily I had a bit of free air-time to ditch the grip and grab a fist full of cold steel. Lock-on grips are a god send.
I stepped off one of the trains involved in the Clapham Junction disaster due to it been so packed, 35 people lost their lives shortly after.
I've had a few.
First one was during the hurricane of January 1990. My walk home from school took me past an old barn, the room of which had come away months before and had been left hanging there by a piece of corrugated steel.
Just as I was on my way home from school, a six by eight feet section of roof detached and came tumbling towards me. My so called "mate" saw it coming but didn't bother to say anything, he just dropped to the floor and filled his pants. I saw it at the last moment coming toward me like something out of the wizard of oz. I only had time to duck my head slightly.
The frame brushed the back of my neck and landed next to my mate with a terrible crash. Neither of us had a scratch.
The other incident involved a jump at Holmbury Hill, which catapulted me off the bike. I measured the marks in the ground later and we determined that I'd flown 21 feet in total. The first part of my body that hit the ground was my head and shoulder, my Spesh Decibel shattered in three places and other than some scratches, two fractured ribs, a black eye and mild concussion I was absolutely fine.
I showed the mrs this post, not so sure that she's happy about my hobby any more haha