Having spent a few minutes excavating a mashed slug out of my ear hole following an unplanned dismount last night I was reminded of the time a friend managed to OTB into a large area of mud with the consistency of mashed potato at the bottom of a long downhill.
This but with added bicycle:
Slurry pit anyone? Canal?
One of the funniest things was when @pictonroad off here fell face first into a huge puddle at the Dorset SSUK (2013??)..... bottom of Frank's tank, IIRC..
I've a photo somewhere!🤣
DrP
A huge gorse bush, headfirst, downhill. Never again will I hire a bike in Europe and think I'll be alright with the levers the wrong way around.
Riding a trail which had been painstakingly cleared through gorse. Crashed on a jump, fell into a massive hole which had been dug out to provide soil for jumps/berms, and had been filled in with all the cut gorse. Basically sank into the hole while getting prodded ad scraped to bits
Nettles.
😑
That was ridiculous, my bike came out with someone else’s mudguard stuck in the front wheel. There may well be one or more full bikes in that bloody hole.
I skidded on ice in Sefton Park Liverpool, hit the railings and went into a foul duck pond down a two metre drop. I went completely under the deep anoxic layer of congealed duck shit. It was utterly freezing, and not a little frightening. Had to cycle through the city stinking covered in crap. I was not popular even in our disgusting student digs.
Trying out SPDs for the first time (mid 90’s?) when I stopped due to the depth of mud on a bridleway before toppling over, still clipped in to a pile of horse manure.
This year being shown round Dartmoor and my guide got off to push across a stream/boggy bit and I decided to show off and ride it, till I sank up to my BB and hubs and toppled over into the bog. Had I been doing pantomime I’d have been labelled 1/2racist I was that black down one side.
As the other HK meMyers will attest, the feral water buffalo deposit their waste in planetary amounts ! If that shit dries on you or your bike ...!
A pedal, right to the ribs.
A shallow puddle hiding something that broke some bones in my right hand. I was upset about getting soaked until I tried picking my bike up and felt my hand crunching inside.
The canal
I don't think my old mate Dave enjoyed landing on that big rock about a second after this pic was taken:
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'Chiltern Slurry' was a thing from about October until March. Many times I've full body surfed along, through and occasionally under its mulchy goodness 😉
Last January was ejected from the bike after a less than ideal landing from an over 2m high huck to flat (on a trail bike) and landed on my back on the biggest pile of boulders around. Got a big scar on my right shoulder blade and broke a toe
I think I have a few, mostly many years ago:
- gorse bush, full-on into and on top of it, quite entertaining trying to extricate oneself
- pavement covered in fallen berries, numerous drivers stopped because they thought I was covered in blood
- face first into river at embarrassingly low speed, epic ****fall
- a large stone, which briefly paralysed me as I landed on it back-first about half an inch from my spine
- electric fence, got the bike tangled in it, had to untangle it whilst getting electrocuted
- tree, from above, which was nearly "glaciated valley via 300ft cliff" had it not been for the ledge on which the tree was situated
Years ago I found a particularly swampy off-piste shortcut near the Coldharbour section of Leith Hill. Twas the middle of winter, proper sketchy and it looked like I'd stumbled into Dagobah. Maneuvered myself halfway across, KickStart-stylee, then suddenly my front end dropped and bike and I went 90deg up in the air. Wheel and forks were consumed by swampage and I was suspended with nowhere to go ... except down. I was a right stinky turd monkey for the remainder of that ride.
Last year, winter night ride, mistook a pond for some hard peat, straight in, about 1m deep, smelt like a sheep latrine. Couldn't unclip from the spd and spent a little to long flapping about.
I was not a happy chappy. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it though.
A hidden small tree stump, now that really hurt.
Funniest / most disgusting was while doing and "adventure race" with work. First stage canoeing along a canal in Brecon. Managed to capsize and when I got back in I'd collected a massive dog shit from the canal.
Years ago, the wife fell off on a Spanish MTB holiday and landed on a 4" piece of rebar sticking out the ground. Made a large hole in her abdomen....
Patch of nettles at speed. Enough speed to give me a friction burn which made the nettle stings last well over a week.
I think I have landed on most things with the amount of crashes I've had. Worst was in the Alps when I left the trail after hitting a rock and went over the edge, me and the bike bounced for some distance, wrote a carbon frame and a helmet off and just came out with a few scratches and bruises.
going downhill and fell off onto loose rocks and flinty gravel. years ago 1992 in the middle of summer and only wearing only a pair of shorts, slid on it for quite a way. I yelped quite loudly and my mate who was riding in front came back up the hill, took one look at me said, shit you okay, you look like you've run over a land mine!
OTB at speed on a freezing day and somehow landed on both knees. All is well at this point as I do my "embarrassing Dad at a wedding knee slide across the dance floor"...then I meet the sharp flint protruding through the muddy/chalky surface!
Never seen a cut that deep take so long to bleed...
Definitely the tree that broke my neck.
Followed by the fence that almost busted my head.
Then the rocks that broke my ribs.
Followed by the swamp when I couldn't unclip from my mates SPDs.
Nettles whilst wearing short sleeves (twice, it was no better the second time), and a high speed face-down slither for about 30ft through little saplings that repeatedly smacked my ears, and garlic that stank for days despite repeated washes.
Worst? A hidden tree stump in long grass that I hit at walking pace. I burst all of the ligaments in my right shoulder.
Most controversial? Probably riding back with my brother to his home in The Hague after a night out on an Apollo something. I came within centimetres of putting us both in a canal.
The "Accidental Dirty Sanchez Award"? On my local trails, I managed to ride through a fresh dog turd that launched bits of itself everywhere, including a splat that landed in between my nose and mouth. I remember thinking "F*** me, it stinks round here" when I realised the awful truth.
Cactus - while riding in Tucson this year.
Wasps nest.
@spacemonkey would this be the scene of your Coldharbour dunking?
I waited for my mate for about five minutes before heading back to find him stuck fast. I may have laughed more than I helped
What’s the worst thing you’ve landed in when falling off?
The Seven Sisters Road, in London. It was shortly after I slid down the back of the black cab I'd gone into the back of on my Katana 550.
The back of a parked lorry. Head down, grinding uphill. Helmet split down the middle. The lorry driver jumped out of his cab and said "**** I felt that!"
Arse first into a gorse bush at Kirkhill, nearly off a shear drop into the Findhorn river, thankfully a tree got in the way. Or a full bath after hitting an iced over puddle & not getting my foot unclipped fast enough.
The best fun was ending up nearly waist deep in snow while riding the fat bike in the Cairngorms with Bothy Bikes over Easter. I make a really fat Snow Angel.
Inspired by this thread...
My mate Jason at the bottom of a descent on Skyline many, many years ago
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Afan again, Andy after landing his cotic on a stump on the descent down from Windy point
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Martin landing on some spikey twigs after failing to ride a swtichback in the Malverns
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Yorkshire. 😙
Maaany years ago, probably 1990, spent a weekend with a prospective GF and we drove up to see her brother and his family in Perth, no doubt so they could check me out. Brother and his son were mountain bikers and I'd been presented as this fanatical mountain biker so off we went for a ride up a hill. I spotted an icy puddle and thought I'd do an impressive bunny-hop and smash the ice through with my front wheel. Except that the ice didnt smash and I decked extremely hard, hurting my wrist. How they laughed. The relationship petered out soon after.
Some time after that on a night ride I came down and stopped behind a group of bikers, put a foot out, found nothing and silently toppled sideways into a huge bramble bush. I couldn't get out and it took four blokes pulling to extract me as I couldn't help myself... once they had finished laughing.
And back in 1978 I was a student in Grenoble and I borrowed a road bike from an Iranian friend, hoping to find out why French people went and cycled up all the local hills at weekends. I thought I ought to shave my legs, which is what they all did apparently. Got to the top and discovered I had ground all the way up in the big ring - d'oh. Set off back down and was enjoying the speed when a Renault 5 crowded me on a bend, forcing me onto gravel. Both wheels skidded out, I smacked down on my side and slid over the edge, falling about 15 feet down a wall and fetching up against a sapling on a steep boulder slope. I heard screeching tyres and the whine of straight-cut gears in reverse and the car's occupants appeared, looking down at me from the top of the wall. Passed the bike up, climbed up and refused a lift so I rode back to my Residence bleeding from knee, thigh, shoulder and head. Boy, did that smart in the shower.
I fell into a very deep, muddy puddle on an off road night ride. Front wheel slipped out from under me and literally body slammed me into the puddle. My head went right under water. My mate was pissing himself laughing at me and I still had 7 miles to ride home in -1 degrees C so I wasn't laughing much.
I remember falling into thick sticky mud similar to that in the OP following a fast descent. I slid, unhurt but dirty, to a halt. The bike embedded itself upside down in the mud 🙂
A friend severely damaged a nipple on some barbed wire following an off.
Me, probably a toss up between the barbed wire fence into which I flew gracelessly upside down, or the coffee table in my living room in a second floor flat which broke a rib whilst testing SPD's.
@yogibear went headlong into mud which was pretty close to the bog of eternal stench (from labyrinth) about 5mins into a night ride cutting it very short. I have photos, but since it scarred him mentally, ripped his jacket and left him stinking I'll only post up his bike.
I struggled to keep it together once it was clear he wouldn't drown and had all limbs attached
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nnvz2usCN97cGmz16
When I was a kid, I’d not noticed my shoelace had come undone and started to wrap itself round the pedal axle. Came to a stop and tried to put that foot down. Started to fall, frantically trying to back-pedal to undo the lace, failed miserably and keeled over, right into a bed of nettles...
Cycling home slightly worse for wear in the pitch black with no lights through Grantchester Meadows, I cycled straight into a herd of cows sleeping on the path. Over the bars, bounced off a cow and landed in the middle of the herd which promply got up and proceeded to both stand and shat on me.
on the bike - caught my bars at my local woods and went straight into a barbed wire fence. That really hurt.
off the bike - just off piste on a black run enjoying fresh snowfall, hammering it, then hitting something square with the front of the board hidden under the powder. Massive front flip followed by sky, snow, sky, snow, sky, snow....for a long time. Ripped jacket open and pulled my trousers down! Had to dig compacted snow out of everything luckily no actual injury and board survived. Tbh snow is probably the best thing I could have landed in on that particular crash...
Cycling home slightly worse for wear in the pitch black with no lights through Grantchester Meadows, I cycled straight into a herd of cows sleeping on the path. Over the bars, bounced off a cow and landed in the middle of the herd which promply got up and proceeded to both stand and shat on me.
Brilliant, laughed at that one !!!!!
I'm glad we're back to things like riding into cows instead of near-fatal impalements 🙂
A sobbing mess of utter desperate ness to do up the poppers on my shorts
Probably the rocky landing at Cathkin after an innocuous front wheel washout which smashed my shoulder 7 weeks ago, been in a sling since and had shoulder reconstruction last week...
