I consider myself very lucky that I have never had a accident or gone down while road riding. I live in the north end of Toronto …so that makes it even more amazing.
Anybody have any good tales of accidents or close calls …??
How does the old saying go? “There are those who have crashed and those who WILL crash.” 
My biggest scare was an actual accident. 16 year old girl driving a 2002 black mustang went by me on the road, got no more than two car lengths in front of me and turned right into a driveway, directly in my path. I had less than a second or so to realize this as my bike (and by extenstion myself with the bike) plowed into the side of the mustang, flipped up and over the hood, slid and catapulted into the grass just next to the gravel drive.
Aside from a slide road rash on one leg, I’d missed the gravel and the asphalt by mere inches and landed mostly in grass. My bike was more banged up then I was but the girl’s father was very forthright and paid for everything.
I was EXTREMELY lucky.
And the terrified 16 year old who popped out of the car moments after the accident screaming at me with eyes as big as silver dollars was lucky as well. I didn’t press any charges, even though the cops clearly said I had a right too. I just asked that they be sure and impress upon her the laws of moving vehicles pertain equally to bicycles as well as other cars. She’d NEVER have made that turn if I’d been a car.
But I still take a healthy sideways glance everytime I pass by that spot now.
I had a high speed wipeout in December, out on my 3rd ever ride on my new roadbike…3rd ever ride since I was about 14 years old and hung up my old Raleigh Rodeo.
A car buzzed by me pretty close on the left, I swerved a little to the right, front wheel dropped into a 2 inch wide expansion joint in the concrete, bike turned into a bucking bronco, next thing I know I was face down sliding along the road in the middle of traffic.
Broken elbow, broken wrist, torn up thumb…luckily nothing wrong with the bike that a roll of bar tape couldn’t fix. My jacket, helmet and gloves were all write-offs.
Ditto on the helmet thing…when you hit your head reeeeeeealy hard on concrete and walk away, you’ll never again ride without one.
I’ve heard the saying about the 2 kinds of bikers many times…I just got my crash out of the way early and now I can enjoy my riding without having that knowledge in the back of my mind that one day…
No accidents (knock on wood) but… last night was my biggest scare. Ridding through rolling hills (23 mph) and without warning a massive tree branch falls across the road right in front of me. Instinctively, I slammed on the brakes without even thinking about it. It took 3 people and we were barely able to drag the branch to the curb.
Scott
18 wheeler carrying hay bails on a two lane highway. It was windy to begin with. The hay bails were stacked in triangles so the bails wer sticking far out on the right side as the trailer passed me. The hay was moving about 65 MPH and was about 5 inches from picking me off. I was riding with a newbie who looked like she was about to have an aneurism. I’ve been lucky. I fallen many a time, but nothing more serious than wounds that needed bactine.
Going down a hill at 35mph crossing old wood train track and breaking right shoulder 2.5 months before my first IM… was lucky that I have a swim background, so I pretty much didn’t swim until the race… I hate train tracks and learnt to stop and walk them instead of just riding over…
Close call – Coeur d’Alene national championships 2002. Descending the main hill on the course which is quite steep and long. Overtaking a large group of riders and hollering “on your left”. Guy in front of me slowly easing farther over the left himself and crossed the centerline at the moment I had committed to passing him on the left. No cars coming, thank God, but I had to swerve to avoid him and precisely at that moment my whole bike started that high speed wobble I have read about in this forum…kind of a resonant harmonic shaking. Somehow squeezed the frame with my thighs and narrowly avoided going off into the woods at 40 mph. I obviously made some mistakes to get into that situation. This kind of risk is surely not worth taking. Two days later I found a 3 inch bruise on my inner thigh precisely the width of the tube on my frame.
Worst Accident: T-boned a dog I was fixing to out run it. One bounce, some skidding, and a little tumbling. I learned something that I already knew: animals are unpredictable.
Worst Scare: I was riding through a residential area when I saw a car stop at a side street, look at me, and pull right out in front of me. I guess that they couldn’t conceive that a bike would be going the speed limit. Fortunately, I had already slowed down and gotten down in the drops anticipating the possibility of them running the stop sign. I was able to brake enough to avoid a collision.
Worst Scare: Last training ride before my first Ironman. 75 miles in, 5 miles from home, 30mph. An oldie-oldster makes a right turn into a parking lot in front of me. I thought I was going down, injured, missing my race. I got very lucky and did not kiss pavement. I skidded for a while and just barely made the turn with him.
I’ve been racing (triathlons and bikes) for nearly 20 years, and I have never crashed. I was in a road race (bicycling), in the pack going 20-25mph when someone in front of me went down. I had no choice but to ride over his wheels. Bump-bump and away I went. He had separated from the bike, so I didn’t hit him. Another training ride, the guy in front of me got nailed by a car running a stop sign: he got hit by the front bumper and went over the hood. Had I been on his wheel instead of being dropped, I would have hit the side of the car while going over 30mph. Game over.
Scare. My friend and I were descending Modjeska Grade to Santiago Canyon Road. It’s a short, but very steep and very curvy piece. I was down first and waiting for my friend… and waiting… and waiting. I started to climb back up and he came around the corner. Hi front wheel pringled, fork bent and a huge inner thigh nasty bruise. He went into a tree - too fast for the curve. OK, so the nerves are already percolating. We try to tweak his bike enough to get back, about three miles. We decide it isn’t going to work, so I take off to get my car to fetch him and his wreck. Screaming down Santiago, just before Live Oak Canyon, doing about 40, I see a school bus on the right. The bus starts to pull into the road and I’m thinking no problem, he’ll be in the car lane and I’ll just scream by on the right, in the bike lane. The bus turns left, into the dirt on the far side of the road and I’m now thinking u-turn, still no problem. It’s not a u-turn, it’s a three-point turn. The bus starts backing up. I’m now freaking, doing everything to keep the brakes from locking up as I panic stop. I lost hope the driver would see me and I knew I wasn’t going to make it and was figuring how I was going to twist my body at the last moment to slam sideways into the bus. He starts pulling forward and I see an exit behind him. It’s dirt, but hitting that is much better than hitting a bus. I aim for the dirt as the bus is taking off in its new direction. As I roll onto the dirt, I ease off the brakes for control, figuring I have room to come to a smooth stop. Of course, this isn’t the end. I didn’t see it earlier, but there’s a ditch in the dirt for laying some 12 inch pipe into the ground, so this long ditch parallels the road, is about afott and a half wide and two feet deep with straight wall and I’m heading right for it. Hit the brakes, again and slide sideways to stop about a foot away. These construction guys, sitting right there on their lunch break, look at me. I look at them and they comment, “Hey, look at those deer across the street.” For some reason, I look.
My friend comes down the hill, riding his wobbly mount. He decided to chance getting back. He said he saw the whole thing and can’t believed I came out unscathed.
Twice now I have crashed and needed to be flown to the ER…both times it was a few days before I woke up…long stories.
Personally, I’ve had a few myself.
The worst happened to my best friend, and as a result, affected me.
Saturday morning, May 2, 2003. I’m in the shop early to get ready for a long day of fit appointments. I get three phone calls:
8:03 AM- “Did you hear a cyclist was killed on Warren last night on a mountain bike? They can’t identify them.”
8:26 AM- “Have you seen Rabe? he was supposed to pick up Colin on the way to the time trial. He nver showed up.”
8:34 AM- “I saw news helicopter video of the cyclist killed on Warren Ave. last night. What color was Rabe’s bike?”
At 12:34 PM a friend of mine in the police department called me at the shop, in the middle of a fit appointment, and said, “The victim has been identified by his brother as Michael R. Rabe.”
And that was it.
so you were the one that did CDA with the separated shoulder - heard the story from others in the area but never knew who it was
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Fell off the side of a single track doing an mtb night ride and broke my ankle. The hike (hop) out of the canyon on my good foot was not exactly fun.
I hit some black ice at high speed once on a winter ride. I went down hard, but because the road was so slippery right there, I slid pretty good which seemed to diminish the force of the impact. However, I was completely out of control and started to slide out into the traffic - both me and my bike. Fortunately the following cars saw me and were able to stop before running me over. I came to rest near the median of the road. One car pulled over to see if I was all right. I was bruised and shaken up, but due to all the cold weather clothing, no road rash. The bike was OK, other than being scraped up a bit. I was disturbed by the whole “what if”, possibilities - if the following car(s) had been closer, they may have run right over me.
Fleck
Scary Crash one:
What I remember: Saw dog out of corner of eye. Next thing I know, My face is kissing pavement. Knocked out two front teeth, split chin open (21 stiched), Broke nose, broke hand in four places, dislocated two fingers. The dog ran off.
Another scary one, was deceding a mountain pass in Colorado, hit a small rock, flew into a ditch, as I got up a driver pulled over, he said “Are you OK??” I checked myself as surprising I was fine with only minor road rash. He said “That was an awesome crash, you slid like 150 yards” – I had grass everywhere, down my shorts, in my ears, in my jersey pockets, in my socks.
Another time I was riding in town when a truck made a quick right hand turn into me. I went right into the side of an old Ford pickup truck. An elderly Mexican guy was driving, he got out and saw me and was visibly shaken up. “Eh,you OK” – I answered “no” – With a thick spanish accent He said “Sound like a torpedo hit my truck man, like a torpedo hit my truck” I was glad he had car insurance – I am sure he was not happy that he totaled my $2,500 (in 1986) Pinerello.
my girlfriend and i had just arrived in the south of spain on a year sabbaticle. i figured i would train for IM Lanzarote since i was close… i was out for a ride, about a week after we got there, and i remember waking up at the side of the road wondering why everyone was yelling in spanish. I soon realized* *had been in an accident so i figured i’d just wait until the ambulance arrived. i got really worried when i saw helicopters flying overhead… i ended up flat on my back in the hospital for 8 days with both my shoulder blades broken and 2 slightly compressed vert’s in my lower back. i found out later the woman who hit me was doing 90 km/hr on impact and i flew 60m into a ditch. I should be dead… the worst was i was suppose to be home for lunch at 1pm my girlfriend didn’t find me until 10pm that night in the emerg!! I think she had it worse than me…
Most painful: Crashed at Shu’s. Sort of tore up my left side. I think there are a few pieces of gravel floating around in there from that. The guy who was at fault appeared to be in a bit worse shape. Aww. At least I got up faster and still finished.
Closest to death: Logansport last year. Bit of a sheen on the road. Long slow grade decline. 35-40mph. Crazy oscillation develops. Felt like I was holding on to a paint shaker for a couple moments. I knew I was dead. Just knew it. I did see something or other flash in my mind it was that wild. The most unnerving 150 yards or so I’ve ever ridden until I could get it back under control. Then ran into the cow blockade which is a decidedly different story. Quite an eventful day now that I think about it. No wonder I keep doing this.
I was riding on a 2 lane road with very wide shoulders. A Camero was on the shoulder on my side of the road and I assumed it was parked. Actually, the idiot was just waiting for traffic to clear so he could do a U turn. Just as I reached his rear quarter, he gunned it and started his U turn. I did not really hit him so much as skid along the side of the car as we both turned. Eventually, my front wheel hit his front wheel and I was launched over the hood. I did a complete flip and landed on my back in the road. My helmet never even hit the ground. Luckly no one hit me and other than a huge bruise on my back, I was fine. (note: think twice before putting hard stuff like keys in your jersey pocket.)
I was pleased to see that I left a nice 4’ long gouge in his paint from my pedal scraping along the car and when I dragged the bike over his hood it left another nice big scratch.