If you have had a bicycle crash what caused it? How would you prevent it next time?

Answer 1

Experience, ability and common sense will avoid most crashes.

Some of the contributors here seem to crash a lot!! - and I know riders that crash far too frequently for it to be just 'bad luck'!

Stuart O'Grady (CSC) seems to crash a little more than other top level Pros too ?

Having said that, I have avoided many crashes, It's about foresight and 'reading the road'!

EDIT:
Actually Silverbullet, I wish I was young again and I do put in the miles, maybe It's because I rode motorcycles in my youth and developed roadsense out of necessity!

YES! . .I have done the cleat thing - once! Riding at less than walking speed, in a busy High Street, - The embarrassment that followed, means, I don't make the same mistake again.

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Answer 2

First off, Mr. G, you must be awfully young, or don't put a lot of miles on your bike, or you'd have some crash stories to tell.

1. Most potentially serious: driver of a parallel parked car flung his door open without looking. There was another car already starting to pass me, so I couldn't veer out of the way. Got an ambulance ride out of the deal, driver got a ticket for opening a door into traffic. Thanks to the helmet no injuries other than bruises and a little road rash. $2000 damage to the car.

Corrective action: I'm always on the lookout for a head in the drivers position, to the point of paranoia. If I think there's a chance, I'll pull further into the roadway, even at the risk of annoying drivers behind me. For this reason I really detest SUV's and dark tinted glass, 'cause you can't see if anyone's in there.

2. Stupidest: Just dumped it in the middle of the street on the way to work, breaking a collarbone. No real clue how or why. Maybe fell asleep (5am)? Wasn't going very fast, braking, or manuevering. Put it down to lack of caffeine.

Corrective action: Make time for that cup o' Joe before leaving.

3. Most spectacularly amazing and how the heck did nobody get hurt: I'm zipping along a rails to trails path at maybe 25 mph, when a 10 year old kid leaps out of the trees right in front of me (no cross paths, no nearby houses, he must've just been rummaging around in the underbrush). There's no time to do anything but lock the brakes. Front wheel of course stops dead, launching me. I managed to superman over the kid's head, then somehow tuck mid-air, and kick the bike (still attached to my cleats) over his head also. I roll into the brush about 10 feet away, and the bike lands another 20 ft or so further. I look back up the embankment, and the kid is just standing, staring, wide-eyed and untouched. Then he bolts.

Corrective action: Always be aware, never assume there's noone around, expect the unexpected.

Of course, there have been others over the 50 years I've been riding, but those are the one's that stand out. I don't count the stuck cleat tipovers, those happen to everyone. All it takes is a little mud in the cleats.

Answer 3

Stuart O'Grady may seem to crash a lot, but at least he's got a Paris-Roubaix trophy to ease the pain a bit.

I've had a few bad crashes throughout the years and most of them involve going too fast for the conditions. One in particular I was going around a hairpin corner at about 35 and hitting a patch of gravel. That hurt and I still have the scare on my leg to remind me of it even after 20 years.

Probably the most embarrasing crash was when I was test riding a mountain bike and took a corner to fast on knobbies. Scratched the bars and really messed up the seat -- my boss wasn't very happy with me either for messing up a new bike. Oh well, live and learn.

Answer 4

I've been in a few crashes. The worst one was caused by an inattentive driver who was distracted by a child who wasn't in a car seat. Another one was caused by a pedestrian who walked in front of me from between two parked cars. A third was caused by another rider who was riding the wrong way at night with no lights or reflectors.

A couple were my fault as well. Once I tried taking a left turn but I didn't realize my back tire was going soft and I dumped it.

While I was still getting used to my clipless pedals, I forgot to un-clip in time and I tipped over (a.k.a. "an ungraceful dismount")

To prevent these accidents. I always wear bright colored clothing when I ride and I run a flashing taillight, even in daytime. At night, I have a good light system and I wear a reflective vest and leg bands. And I think I've gotten the hang of the clipless pedals.

Answer 5

I've had three memorable crashes on my road bike (and several not-so-memorable ones, both on- and off-road) in the course of my 30+ years of cycling.

The first was something I had no way of controlling; while traveling west-east on a county road at approximately 30 mph, a car (which had been stopped, waiting to turn across my lane, since they could see me approaching for about 0.5 miles), suddenly decided they'd waited long enough and made the turn. I was less than 50 feet from the front bumper when they made the move - which means I ended up crashing into the passenger-side doorpost at 30 mph. The bike (and car) were totalled, but I managed to walk away with nothing more than a few scrapes and some significant bruises on my left side. It took about 4 weeks to be healthy enough to ride again.

The second was a result of over-correcting. While riding along a narrow secondary road with no shoulder, I was passed by a large log truck. I was doing about 25 mph - the truck was close to 65 mph. Due to the truck's draft, I was pulled toward the vehicle as it passed; my instinctive reaction was to steer for the ditch. As the truck completed the pass, the air pressure dropped back to normal and I found myself heading off the pavement at about a 40 degree angle to the road surface. I landed in the ditch (about 8 feet below the roadbed), with nothign more damaging than a few broken spokes and some more bruises. The good side was that I wasn't pulled into the path of either the first truck, nor the two that followed it. I was able to hitch a lift to the next town back of the pickup that had been following behind the log trucks and had seen the whole thing. Once I got the bike repaired, I was again rolling.

The last one was also my fault (since it involved nothing but myself). Neglecting to check that a new bike shop had done their repairs correctly, I assumed I had the correct chain. As it turned out, they'd put on one for a normal chainring combination (53/39), not the compact crank (50/30) light gauge I was expecting. This meant I had an extra two links in the chain, making it slightly longer overall. As I was accelerating on a straightaway, the rough road caused enough vibration to have the chain skip off the front chainring at just under 35 mph ... leading to an immediate loss of torque. My left foot slammed into the road surface (right out of the pedal cleat), causing me to overbalance and slide about 50 feet along the pavement on my back. I got some significant bruising to the left knee, left shoulder, and left ribcage to go along with the road rash ... and a forced convalescence of nearly 5 weeks before I could ride again.

The only one that was really preventable was the last one; I'm being a LOT more careful regarding which wrenches (at which shops) get to play with my bikes ... and I'm doing more of the mechanical work myself.

Answer 6

Depending on what kind of riding you do, crashing is innevitable. Well, if you do mountain biking, specially trail riding, freeride or downhill it's very likely you will fall now and then.

One crash that wasn't hurtfull but I had to have a tetanus shot was riding on a fireroad. I was following a friend when we entered a big puddle (like 10 mts long) and we were on the side. He stopped, so I passed him on the left (the wide side), but after passing I moved to the right to continue on the side, but I lost traction and fell, and grazed a barbwire. It didn't hurt, but just to be on the safe side I had the tetanus shot. One plus is that it covers 5 years, so I'm kinda protected for two more years ;) Now, on the mud, just go as straight as possible...

Answer 7

I had a ungraceful dismount this summer, what would have prevented it was having the bike in a proper gear for starting up the hill. Inattentive moment.

The only crashes I ever had on bikes were 1. rolled tubular tires, that I blamed on my mechanic -- ME, and 2. I was struck by a car that wasn't my fault and nothing I could have done would have stopped the idiot behind the wheel.

Answer 8

Some of my falls have been as a result of not being able to get out of my clips quick enough on my mountain bike but my most serious fall was on the road. I was going too fast around a corner on wet asphalt and wet leaves and slipped and hit hard enough to break my helmet. I guess the fix there would be slow down or avoid wet leaves.

Answer 9

Most of my crashes have been from going too fast for the situation. Things changed suddenly and I was not able to make a turn to either stay on the pavement or avoid something in front of me.

HTH

Answer 10

most of the crashes I have seen in the last couple of years involved a paceline (road bikes) with inexperienced riders causing the crash
they either come into contact with the rear wheel of the bike in front of them, or they fail to use proper signals when pulling in or out of the line