Smashes and crashes.

[sara]

In celebration of the fairly-stupid bike accident I had this morning (I'm fine, though my left brake hood will need adjusting, and my left elbow is a lot more colors than usual): what's the most exciting bike smash you've ever had?

I've gone down in front of moving cars three times...and I've mostly been lucky enough that the driver was able to stop (most recently, she even offered me her cell phone so I could call someone to come haul me home). Once I had a driver roll over my front wheel, which was never quite the same after; I was mostly glad she hadn't rolled over my leg, though, so the wheel seemed a comparatively small sacrifice.

You?

Comments

[uhhuhlex]

I've had a few interesting run ins - hence why I now wear a really dorky helmet.

Worst one for the bike - I lived in a residential area in which the council had installed in cul de sacs some flower beds made of brick up to about 1 foot. I regularly took a shortcut this way, and took my eye off the front because my rear wheel was clicking. Hello flower bed. Hello bent front forks...

Worst one for me - I used to work in a night club and one night in the rain i arrived on my bike. For some reason near where I parked there is a metal kerb - which apparently is slippy/lethal in the wet. Both my wheels lost grip and I went down and got a delightful graze on my face. In front of a long queue of drunken students waiting to get into the club.

[sara]

Oooh, yes, I think it's much worse when you do it in front of a bunch of people. Esp. drunk people.

That was the one consolation about yesterday's fall: I managed to do it around the corner from the new neighbors we've been trying to cultivate, who were out messing in their garden.

[jbanana]

I've been over a couple of times in the wet, both times because I was being too ambitious with my cornering speed. There's no warning. Suddenly the bike isn't holding you up, and you smack your hip into the road. The first time I put my upper hand down the break the fall, but only succeeded in spraining my wrist. The second time I was wiser and just fell on my side. Nowadays I'm more careful in the wet.

[sara]

Yeah, when I went over Sunday, it was because, embarrassingly enough, my front walkway was all wet. I just...slid.

[davidcook]

Most embarassing accident - I had just picked up my new bike from the guy who used to build bikes at the club I was a member of. I was stopped at traffic lights on the way home. The lights turned green, I had both feet clipped in the pedals, and put down the power ... which all went into tightening the rear cluster and not moving me forward. I rolled forward a few metres, then gracefully tipped over ... in front of all the other traffic that had been stopped at the lights, including a couple of guys on motorbikes.

Most spectacular was probably the car that got just in front of me, then turned left cutting across my path - I went right over the back end of the car, bike still attached.

Most painful was probably the one where I was on a training ride, and started to stand on the pedals to accelerate for a sprint - my chain slipped off the outside of the front chainring, and all my force went straight down, shortly followed by the rest of me :-)
Lots of bruises in odd places from that one, and plenty of grazes ...

[sara]

Oh, yeah, the top of the front chainring isn't what you want to be dropping the chain off...owww! And I've done something a lot like your first one, which...yes, thud, right in the middle of the intersection.

Tuesday morning, and I am still finding bruises from Sunday.

[copracat]

I once fell off my bike because a passenger in a car in traffic that had just stopped at a light opened their door in front of me. Fortunately I wasn't going very fast