commuting crashes

[leapfrog]

i read a statistic somewhere that said for every 1000 or 2000 (something like that) miles a serious riders logs, they will have one big crash. well i know i'm going waaaaaay over 2000 miles, so i think i'm doing pretty good...but..

so today i'm riding home from work..actually i had just left work and was about half a block down the road when i stand up and start mashing on the pedals to move through a headwind..next thing i know my face is skidding on the ground and i'm literally thinking "what in the hell just happened, how am i on the ground?". so i stop and look up and i'm in the middle of the road, so i get my head together and move to the side of the road and sit down wondering how i got there. i realized i was allright but sure my face was screwed so i decide to walk back to the office when i notice my front wheel was buckled all to hell. i walk it back to the office and do the first sensible thing i could think of....take a picture of my bloody dripping wound!!! then i go to the bathroom to clean it up. everything is fine, i just have a huuuge mountain next to my eye, road rash scraping down my face and an eye that continues to get blacker and blacker underneath as i type this. tomorrow i should look beautiful.

from what i can derive from my bike, and this is weird, it looks like i had a faulty tube and the presta valve just blew right out of my tube. the valve is completely missing, so im assuming it blew and all the air rushed out of my tire causing me to be putting all my weight on my rim which caused it to twist and buckle, sending me to the pavement. three spokes are broken clean off and the rim is jacked, but everything else is jsut fine. of all the things to jack me up...a damn faulty valve. thanks bontrager tubes!!! ;)

so yea, i wanna hear some commuter crashes stories. if you want my other good crash story, you'll have to pick up the issue of my zine that i have it in!! ;)

take care, ride fast, don't blow a valve.

[DirtRagArt]

Man, I hope you're all right...

I went down pretty hard riding across an open grate bridge when it was wet/freezing. Thankfully I had so much clothing on (especially my huge, multi-layered Lake gloves) that I was merely shaken up. I bent a pedal, but thankfully it was only an SPD 323.

Lesson: Be careful riding on metal sufaces.

[leapfrog]

hey jeff,

everything is a-ok. the left side of my face is one big scab and my eye is blacker than oil, but it's all just cosmetic. the reactions i've been getting from people have been worth the trouble. i'm more dissapointed that i won't be able to ride my fixed for a long time. such is life.

[SteveO]

The more I commute the less I crash.... However I've also found better routes to and from work over the years....

In 2001 I got sideswiped (http://forums13.consumerreview.com/crforum?14@44.mztkaY83P86.6040747@.ee85e 6d) by a car on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. Result.... Broken ribs and assorted black and blue marks.

Later on that winter I crashed on some black ice while riding home in the dark. luckily the car behind me came to a full stop before he hit me or my bike. Result.... Broken ribs

Besides those two incidents I've managed over 10k miles of commuting without any other major injuries. Result.... best shape of my life

[i8urbrain]

I was fighting a head wind all the way along the potomac river into D.C. when I passed two ladies on road bikes(geared go figure) and they asked for a pull. Being that I am not small and they could hide in my draft all the way in I said ok. Then comes the wet wooden bridge I knew I would wipe out on some day. I went down in Ulric Fashion. When I jumped back up and thanked them for not running over my head, her first comment was Didn't that hurt? Are you a mountain biker? I just explained that I will ride anything with two wheels, and kept on going. Once I got to my last intersection I rolled up my shorts to find a healthy road rash down the side of my leg. I just laughed as the suit next to me almost puked. hehehehe