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The Sun was setting and in the trees it got a touch hard to see the little tree stump in the middle of the trail. I managed to hop over it but didn't really check out the landing first and went *crunch* into a tree 😳 No damage done and no one to see me make an arse of myself.
What daft crashes have you had recently?
clipped sapling somewhere near my armpit, endo'd for about 20ft then went out the front door. Counted teeth and checked out the rest. Amazed I didn't need an ambulance.
I rode into a sign in a car park at a race at about 0.5mph and fell off. Hurt quite a lot, went down like a sack of spuds!
Undergrowth grabbing bar and brake lever throwing me off. Luckily said undergrowth broke my fall.
Setting off on a ride as a kid. Got to the bottom of the drive and hit a stone and OTH I went and knocked myself out.
Various poor judgements on handlebar width/gap size resulting in painful tree punching.
Last night not paying attention and thought a pile of leaves was a berm. Ankle not feeling to good this morning as the pedal tried to remove my foot, bad pedal!
I was just riding along the other day and went OTB, knackered my leg and shoulder and broke the rail on my saddle. Don't have a clue how it happened.
Released my grip on the bars in order to operate the dropper lever, bars spun round and nearly skewered myself, this was at Cannock on the fireroad leading back to the carpark. 😳
Also managed to smash myself up [s]practising[/s] attempting manuals.
I only do daft!
Most of mine come from still getting used to riding clipped in.
pulled up to the bike rack at work and couldn't get foot out - fell over still clutching bike.
turning around on a narrow path and couldn't get foot out - fell over still clutching bike.
going along a track in some vehicle ruts and clipped the sides - over the bars (not clipped in that time 🙂
all low speed so only pride hurt
Head down, snorkel jacket hood fully zipped up to protect me from the rain on the way back to school. Bang! Straight into the back of a parked car. My front wheel was touching the downtube 🙁
My most recent injury was a badly twisted ankle...a class it as a bike injury as it was at the start of a ride but I didn't even make it on to the bike, just fell back as I lifted my bike off the top of my highish car resulting in scratched car, bruised backside and aforementioned twisted ankle 🙄
Wow what a bonfire.....bang.....wow a parked car. (I was 13)
Daydreaming during a race - hitting a tree woke me up.(I was 43)
As a kid, I rode home from my summer job one day holding something in my hand. I thought it a good idea to therefore use my right hand to change my left shifter. That ended quite abruptly face down in the road. Oops.
Daydreaming during a race
LOL, same thing, D2D, was day dreaming about how good it wood be to have a tail and didn't notice the corner. That woke me up.
Didn't see the drop, long rolling endo, thought I'd caught it, hadn't.
Bar end caught in wire link fence at reasonable speed = smashed helmet and buggered elbow 🙁
Pretty much all my crashes are silly:
Slipped on a tree root, which pointed my bike off a small (2m) cliff. I broke my wrist.
Didn't put front wheel in properly, pulled wheel up over a rut, wheel fell off and rolled down the hill. I went down hard on my shoulder and broke my collarbone.
both within the last 3 years. When younger:
Over bars at as the lights went green - I stamped on my SPD, foot slipped off, toes hit the floor and heal was still on the peddle. The bike stopped dead.
Trying to ride with left hand on right grip and right hand on left grip - don't try it.
Group of us on bikes and my brother pulls out to overtake a mate but doesn't look to see me behind him so we both go down.
Riding next to a friend and my OnZa bars end goes under his OnZa Ules grip at 20mph. He rode out of it I lost a lot of skin on my arm.
Riding too close to friend on overgrown single track, don't see a hole, go over bars and smash in teeth, fortunately I had glue on braces at the time which the dentist says held my teeth in but they made a right mess of my lips. I wondered why people in cars were staring at me on the 10mile ride home.
I didnt crash into the tree, I was falling off well before then, I just hit the tree before I hit the ground.
Dislocated shoulder and fractured it in two places. 😥
I didnt even have anything to show for it until the MRI
Last year - tight singletrack, overgrown thick grass / heather to the side. Trees near but not too near.
LHS pedal hits a sump in the grassy singletrack verge, capatpulkts me towards tree on RHS, one of those daft stump branches at head height goes into my right ear, oooyaa and lots of blood, thankfully no major or long standing damage done, very nice junior doc at A&E sliced off skin flap and stitched the rest up..
still smart when go past that bit...
On Saturday, went out for a quick spin between (or so I thought) torrential rain.
Caught right end of bar on a tree in a quick bit of singletrack so bike immediately went down, somehow ejected both feet from pedals but momentum meant I kept going. Doing a weird hunched over run for a few steps, barged a tree on the other side of the trail with my left shoulder. Worst bit was that it shook all the water out of the tree right onto me.
Would have made a great gif.
Rode into a tree too (monday). On way home stopped into supermarket, got chatting with the lass on the till who commented that her boyfriend had taken her out on a bike and she had crashed into a tree. Dangerous things are trees.
Had many, but think the most stupid was many years ago, final weeks of uni life and decided to take the downhill bike out for a play.
Drove to track, unloaded the bike, got kitted up, pulled my full face helmet on and slung my goggles over the bars, mounted up and started to pedel off, unfortuantly I was looking down at my pedals as a clipped in, looked up and promptly got a branch from a tree in the eye/face.
I was within 2 meters of my car.
After having various stiches, eye washes and my eyelid sewn back on I was good to go.
Unfortuantly it does mean all the photos from my last week at uni (and the final black tie ball) are with me with two black eyes, yellow antiseptic smeared over stiches on my face and an eye patch. For some reason I didn't pull at the ball?
It's like a mtb version of 'the happening' in here.
But more interesting.
On the final descent on the Verderers. From the drop off, weave through the trees and then the short down to the fire road. 100m climb up to the next section, down first straight, left hairpin, 50m there's a tree on the left. Bang, I'm in the ferns and brambles on the right.
Every time since that first off, must miss the tree, must miss the tree......,
Three times now I've done the same thing. What hurts more is the piss taking from my mates.
As a kid, cycling way too fast for the corner I was about to take, I caught the front wheel and went over the handlebars into a huge patch of nettles. Wearing shorts. And a T-shirt. I was pain.
As an adult, on the dual course at Chicksands. Got just a little too much air off one jump and put the front wheel the wrong side of the lane. Another trip over then handlebars and a bent set of forks.
I was warming up for race a few months back, it was very muddy so I had stuck the mud tyres on the night before and had pressures right up to make sure seated and sealed. After a short decent there was a small (very) jump with an off camber muddy corner after it. I flew over the jump way to fast and dabbed the brakes realising how little grip I had, doing this caused me to front flip, taking a chunk out of my knee down to the bone, and damaging my top tube (I assessed the damage and thought it hold up as it was only a small hole) so it snapped half way round lap 1 of the race.
Looking on the bright side of the situation almost everyone who continued racing and drank from their bottles went down with a stomach bug for the next week!
Over the bars , two separate occasions, both whilst riding up very steep hills .
Stupidest was at BBB last year. While in the lead of the Pint to pint race I rode straight into the Start/Finish inflatable.
On the road from Grasmere over Red Bank I saw an owl in the woods illuminated by my helmet torch and marvelled at the glory of nature too long and rode into the drystone wall at the side of the road..
Not me, but a friend riding back to the car park was standing on the pedals when he elected to take both hands off the bars...took a lot of skin off his backside 😆
On Saturday I decided [u]not[/u] to do something as I was riding alone. In not doing something, I instead dropped my front wheel into a sizable hole, went OTB and dropped straight onto my head from around 4ft (plus OTB amplitude 😉 ). 4 days later I'm still getting headaches (helmet ruined), and I've knackered my back and neck such that I can't get a proper nights sleep.
Go big or go home indeed!
Same as chambord, riding along, then just went flying...
My mate has somehow managed to break his big toe when riding. Just managed to kick a tree stump, smashed his big toe. Kudos though, he carried on the ride (another 8 mile ish), AND drove the 40 miles home, and didn't complain too much till the morning after when it was swollen and hurt a considerable amount more.
Hit a tree recently with my left shoulder, didn't fall off just stuttered to a halt with a very sore shoulder. I moved my front wheel not realising it had trapped a sapling under it and TWANG! it bats me right in the face.
Cheeky trail up on the Hamble, wiggle wiggle, twist and turn single track through the shoreline of the river, holly bushes, wet decking, holly bushes, wet decking, face plant into the reeds into knee deep mud 😆
On Saturday I decided not to do something as I was riding alone. In not doing something, I instead dropped my front wheel into a sizable hole, went OTB and dropped straight onto my head from around 4ft (plus OTB amplitude ). 4 days later I'm still getting headaches (helmet ruined), and I've knackered my back and neck such that I can't get a proper nights sleep.Go big or go home indeed!
Also decide to play it easy yesterday on the dh track as I was lone, woke up face in dirt with bike on top of me, smashed helmet and a very wobbly walk out, thumping head now
Work are very understanding ( "what have you done now")
After a long afternoon riding it like I stole it all over everything Woodbury Common had to throw at me, I came hooning sideways down the farm track at Dalditch, thoroughly pleased with my day's work..
Bunnyhopping the little wooden curb at the bottom, I hit flat level ground for the first time in hours and sat up and took a hand off the bars to take a well earned breather.. I then hit a tiny golfball sized pebble, my hand slipped off the bars, both feet slipped off the pedals and I ended up sat on the cross bar coasting wildly out of control at about 20 miles an hour til the front wheel tucked under and I departed gracelessly over the bars..
A pedestrian that I'd passed moments before on the farm track said that I was out cold for a couple of minutes, and having witnessed the whole event, his first instinct was that I had been shot from the way the crash happened..
Only a bruised ego and a couple of scrapes and bumps though thankfully
Not recently but the silliest. Doing a Polaris Challenge in Kielder, late as usual & heshing down a fire road. I was trying to look at the map on my bars & suddenly realised my mate had just about locked his brakes up, I looked ahead & thought, 'I wonder why Steve's braking.....ah yes, GATE!' One of those single bar ones they use, that get weathered & are the colour of fire roads
Couldn't decide whether to hop it, drop it or hit it, so I tried to go under it. Arse over the back wheel, brakes locked & BAM! Smashed me lid & ripped the map board off. Arms went under the gate & I couldn't ride over bumpy stuff for a month.
A while ago I hit a stump hidden in some long grass and want otb and landed bent double of a barbed wire fence. That wasnt great.
Recently I had borrowed a mates DH bike to compare to my own, and did a fairly small table top on it. Saddle was a fair bit higher then my own, which then hit me and I landed on the front wheel and hit a tree. No injuries thankfully.
Drunken bmx racing in the garden ended up in a collision and a sprained wrist (though its been a month and still hurts, so perhaps time to get it checked out)
Few weeks back I was on the crosser heading up a very very steep lane, on the steepest part on the bend it's 30% +. Bang, chain goes while I'm gurning over the hoods, I'm on the deck in in a split second. Broken scaphoid. Worse still, my daughters friends were walking down the lane at that exact moment. They did check I was ok after having a good laugh at me.
One for the Marple lot...
Hit zig at about 30mph and was pumping everything as hard as I could, landed pretty well but used all the travel on the mega.
One of those loose, large stones had got knocked in to a perfect little booster after the tree, on the only corner, I ended up on top of the bush on the right, about 5 feet in the air.
Perfectly wedged, upright and still clipped in
Daydreaming on a narrow & fast bit of bridleway, handlebar catches something solid in the hedge to my right, ended up on the floor narrowly missing a steaming pile of horse cr@p.
it's ok to say crap.
Riding Fowlmeade near Deal: it's pretty windy and slow most of the way round, I took a left a little too fast and wide, the front wheel went through some loose soil and I slumped pathetically to the ground. Embarrassing.
Three spring to mind..
Years ago lost my racer at speed on a sharp downhill left in the rain. Bike slew across the oncoming traffic and the handlebar clipped the far headlight of the VW camper heading up the hill. I was thrown off the bike and onto the bonnet of a parked car. Combination of my handlebar/saddle and other bits of my bike did for the headlight and half the grille. I don't know who was more shocked, me or the German tourist driving. Being 17 at the time I made my excuses and left on my miraculously relatively unscathed bike.
Last year was riding a relatively gentle transitional stage on the Edale loop. Whilst scoping my line choices ahead I forgot all things to do with correct position and stood on the pedals with my weight forward. When the front wheel skittered over an innocuous stone I had no chance and supermanned OTB. Bruising and roadrash down pretty much the whole left side of my body. Pointless crash. Lesson learned.
Coasting bike down at speed from Lee Quarry to carpark with no chain. Reached final little bit of singletrack leading to carpark. Immediate gentle right-hander with maybe 6 foot drop on left to stream. Forgot about lack of chain and went to pedal. Lost balance and veered straight over edge. Fortunately there was a tree right there and I was able to grab a branch and hang on whilst the bike hurtled from under me into the drop. My mate thought it was hilarious 😉
And finally. Chain snapped whilst I was crossing the road in front of a line of waiting cars. Was in a high gear and OTB'ed in front of them all whilst in full MTB kit 🙄
Chose to go on a really long ride on one of those freezing cold days in-between Christmas and new year a couple of years ago.
Coming back towards home, couldn't feel my hands or feet and wondering why I had punished myself so much in such weather.
Went to shift to middle chainring on front, fingers were so numb I couldn't move the shifter. Thought to myself I know I'll use both hands, that should do it. Took right hand off right grip and attempted to use both thumbs to move shifter on left grip. Bars instantly swung round 90 degrees and I went over them into a bush.
I had a the biggest muddiest puddle jump out in front of me once.. As i wasnt expecting it my line through it wasn't pre planned.
Sudden stand still and over sideways clipped in...all to the amusement of my mate.
When first learning to ride I tried to smash up a short steep bit, but didn't do anything about my weight distribution. I was also only just getting used to clips. Full loop out with the bike disappearing over the top of me back down as I watched star fished on my back.
Always brings a smile to my face when I think about it.