Dork Moments On A Bicycle

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

This is on behalf of a non-Doper friend. We were in a triathlon this Saturday (my first, her second). I finished before her, and when she crossed the finish line, her knees were all scraped up and the blood had dripped down to her socks. It turns out she crashed twice:

#1: you see, she had just put on toe clips earlier in the week. During the bike portion, the right one came loose and eventually came off. This obviously had her attention–so much so that she rode off the road. At least she landed in grass.

#2: coming into the bike-run transition, she was thinking about what she needed to do. She looked down at her right foot, saw no toe clip,completely forgot that she did have a toe clip on the left pedal, and tried a “regular” dismount.

22

My memorable dork moment didn’t involve blood or other people. In fact, I never even hit the ground, which was a big part of the problem.

I’d been biking around all day and was pretty tired, so when I came to a stop light I leaned a little bit against a nearby fence. The light changed, I started to pedal away, and ACK!

Somehow, one of the straps on my backpack had managed to get caught in the chainlink fence I’d been leaning on. I was now stuck dangling from the fence, trying to balance with one foot on the ground, one foot in a pedal, my butt slipping off the back of the seat, and the bike doing its damnedest to topple over. If I let go of the handlbars, the front wheel would swivle and tip over, causing an even bigger tangle, but my backpack was pulled too tightly to just slip out of one-handed.

Did I mention this was all happening on a busy street corner? I don’t know if anyone else even noticed, but it felt like I was suddenly on display as Sublight, the Wonder Dork.

After a brief struggle, I finally said “screw it” and just let everything crash to the ground so I could work on untangling myself.

23

First of all, I go to Ohio State University, which is bike theft capital of the world, woo-hoo! Last year I lived about a mile from campus, so I wanted to get a bike, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a nice bike only for it to be stolen two weeks later. I managed to find an old purple and gray Huffy at a garage sale for ten dollars and brought that to campus. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but the back tire rim was bent and squeaked for every tire rotation. Added to the sound of the clunky chain grinding, it was so loud and embarrassing! I hated riding it around campus because everybody looked at me as I went by.

So the first day I took it to campus, I wasn’t used to riding a bike around so many pedestrians. I was on my way back home after going swimming, and so there I was, in a white t-shirt that was absolutely soaked, with my flowery blue bathing suit showing underneath, my hair all wet and uncombed clinging to my neck under my helmet. There was a pedestrian coming right at me, so I swerved to my right at the same time he moved to his left. Then we both changed directions again, so we’re still coming right at each other about to collide, then I make a sharp turn, practically toppling over right in front of him while he jumps out of the way, and as I coast past on my very loud, clunky bike, I cry out, “Sorry, it’s my first time riding!” Of course, what I meant was it was my first time riding a bike around campus, but he had every reason to think I had only just learned to ride a bike. Ayy, it was one big dork moment on a bike.

24

Hmm… Just adjusted the brakes or deraileur or something… guess I’ll go for a test ride in the parking lot… hey, a cute girl… haven’t seen her around before… brakes or whatever seem to be working fine, guess I can turn around and head back to my apartment… and check out the cute girl again… okay, lets start the turn… hmm, that lamppost could be a problem… instead of using the brakes I just adjusted, I guess I’ll just lean into the turn a little more… ouch! Asphalt is hard! Oh well, better than hitting the lamppost, I guess. The cute girl’s laughing at me though…
Like amarinth I also started using clipless pedals on my mountain bike recently. If you’ve never used them, let me tell you that it’s like learning to ride all over again. I’ve done the come-to-a-complete-stop-but-can’t-seem-to-figure-out-how-to-get-out-of-the-pedals-so-I-fall-over thing a couple of times. The second time I rode with the pedals I had a crash that goes beyond a “dork moment” to a “lucky not to be crippled for life moment.”

I was riding on a narrow trail (Sin Nombre trail at Sycamore Canyon here in So. Cal. if you’re familiar with the area). The trail had a slight descent into a sharp left turn followed by a short but semi-steep climb. The reason for this sharp left was to go around a crevice that was about 8 feet deep.

So I’m headed into the turn kind of fast, so that I’ll have some momentum to carry me into the climb. I get through the apex, but I’m way too far over on the left side of the trail (the side where the crevice is) and have lost all of my momentum already. I’m pretty much headed off the trail at this point, so rather than keeping pedaling and trying to steer right, I brake and go to put my foot down. Except it won’t come off the pedal! Because I’m clipped in and not used to doing the twisting motion needed to free myself! So I fall over. To the left. Into the 8 foot deep crevice. Landing on my back. On some jagged rocks.

Somehow my feet got unclipped in the process and my bike landed a couple of feet above my head instead of on me. I lay there for a minute and wiggled my toes to make sure everything still worked. It did, so I got up and climbed out of the crevice, dragging my bike behind me. As I sat down on the side of the trail to recover by bearings, I noticed that there was a huge snake down in the crevice that I’d apparently woken up, since he was now climbing up out of the crevice. It wasn’t a poisionous snake. but his presence was a nice little extra to the whole experience.

I think what saved me from a cracked vertebre was that I was wearing my camelbak that was still about 1/2 to 2/3rds full of water.

25

I was riding my bike to high school. It was my new, cobbled-together secondary bike, with rat-trap pedals instead of the quill pedals on my road bike. The quill pedals are like that for a reason, as it turns out; they provide more clearance.

I took a corner pretty fast, and pedaled through the corner…until, with a crunch, my inside pedal caught on the pavement, which pretty much instantly changed me from leaning into the curve to lying on the asphalt with my bike on top of me. And everyone else who was on their way to school at the time got to watch and act concerned that my folks had mistakenly considered me sufficiently competent to ride a bike to school.

26

Nope, even with a spurting artery you will have to wait quite a while if it’s a busy day. What are compresses for?

I kid you not. My supreme dork moment was when I decided to race my little cousin, and turned half around because I was leading comfortably, but the turn meant I steered a little to the right, so that my front wheel hit the raised curb. At that point my bike came to a complete stop, while momentum meant I was airborne, with my head aimed at a brick wall, which was about three feet high.

I hit the edge of the wall with the upper part of my forehead, and neatly sliced it open to the bone. There actually is a little artery above your eye, which was indeed spurting. Luckily , I did not lose consciousness, so I immediately applied pressure with my hand and waited for the ambulance to show up.

The ambulance crew dressed the wound nicely, but I couldn’t see much, since I also had cuts around my eye and nose from the sunglasses I was wearing when I did the faceplant into the wall. Since it was a busy day at the ER, and I didn’t seem to have any symptoms of a concussion (no nausea, dizzyness, etc.) they left me waiting quite a while before sewing my scalp back together. The doctor said I had come very close to scalping myself, and it was a strange feeling when they first anesthesized the wound, then disinfected it with some peroxide. The strangest sensation though, was the sound when the doctor actually pulled the wound closed, and I could hear and feel my scalp scraping along my skull.

In retrospect, I was very lucky I didn’t hit that wall a few inches lower, because I would certainly have been killed if I had. Ever since that day I wear a helmet no matter how hot it is outside.

27

amarinth: I’ll see that, and raise you doing it without straps. This actually only happened a few years ago, but I was at an intersection, and was stopping, letting a car go, and I just fell over, right there. One foot was on the ground, even. I felt like such a moron for my slo-mo fall for no reason.

28

The first tale…

I didn’t witness the first incident, but the resulting injuries to my friend spoke (no pun intended :slight_smile: ) loudly (again, no pun intended; but you’ll only understand that one once the story’s over). Two friends - B and D - were biking home (they lived on the same street). The front wheel on B’s bike was one of those deals where you just had to twist a switch and the wheel would pop off. Well, you know where this is going. The wheel popped off as they were going down a long, fairly steep hill at a nice clip.

The bike made a sudden stop, and B went flying over the handlebars, landing on the side of his face. D was right behind B, and ran right over him as he slid down the hill… on his face. :eek: He didn’t lose his ear, but it sure looked like it, even after he had been to the hospital and had it looked at. He had to put ointment on it for quite a while before it had fully healed. Until then, it looked like a xenomorph had spit at him and melted off his ear. He had a ringing in his ear for quite a while too.

The second tale…

D and I are biking around, and he turns onto a dirt trail that I’ve never been on. It’s just a short trail behind a subdivision which ends right behind where D’s father worked. Right before we reach the end of the trail (for me, at least :slight_smile: ), we come to a tall, very steep rise. D builds up speed and easily goes up the rise. I build up speed - more than was necessary - and easily go up the rise. However, while I was expecting the trail to level off at the top, it actually fell right back down to where it had been at, an equally steep angle. :eek:

It was basically a very tall and steep jump. (It was likely put there as a barrier, so it was more like a wall.) I was airborne just long enough for my bike to spin forward 90 degrees before the front wheel rammed straight down into the ground. I ended up bent forward over the handlebars, and the top of my head landed straight down into the ground as well. And the rest of my body had twisted so that my right side, right above the hip bone, rammed into the handlebars.

Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet (which had a nice dent in it from a rock), but the folks at the hospital were more worried about my neck than my head. I was more worried about my side; that I had suffered internal injuries. But they found nothing wrong with me. (Aside from the usual. :wink: ) The bruise on my side was very dark, but quite small in area. It took a quite a while to fade away. However, there seemed to something like scar tissue right underneath this area, and rather deep in the flesh. That took a few years to disappear.

Anyhoo…

29

I also had a cool story, but its almost exactly the same as FlyingDragonFan’s. Lifted bike, came down without wheel. Mind you, I came down on the wheel-less fork and made it do a split. I was banged up and down.

They were very shocked at the bike store when I brought it in for repairs.

And I got replacement fork for free since the manufacturer had an unlimited warranty or somesuch.

30

Just remembered a really good story for this thread. My Dad is the star of this story, and some call him… Tim.

It’s late 50’s, the California coast. Tim was between jobs job and wanted to drive down to UCLA to visit my Mom to be. His only transport is his bike. Not a nice 21 speed road bike or a rugged mountain bike, but a 1950’s style Schwinn Death Ray, (no helmet of couse). So he got the bright idea to take a week and bike down there along Highway 1 and enjoy the scenery. First few days went well, bike during the day, eat at diners, camp at night.

Then he met up with a man riding a motorcycle. The man had some rope. I can’t remember whose idea it was, but soon Tim found himself 20 feet behind the motorcycle with rope wrapped around his handlebars. The idea was that if he got scared, he could lift his hand off the rope, it would unwind, and he would coast to a stop.

Starting off slowly, the ride went well. It was on a straight stretch of road, and the motorcycle/bike parade worked well. Then the pace picked up, Tim thought that they were going a little fast, but things were holding together well. At one point the tower held up 4 fingers over his shoulder, then 5. While stopped for lunch Tim asked what those hand gestures had meant. The motorcyclist said that was when they were going 40, then 50 mph. Tim gulped hard at hearing that, and had second thoughts about getting back on the bike. But things had been going so well, and he was making great time, so back on the bike he went.

After lunch they came to a scenic stretch of Highway 1, twisty turny right on the coast with large cliff on the ocean side. The motorcylce pulled him through one turn, then another. Tim got nervous, and in one turn, decided it was too fast and let go of the rope. Tim was an insurance agent, not a scientist. He let go as he went into the turn. With no force on the rope from the motorcycle to pull him around the bend, his puny wheels on the bike were not about to grab the road hard enough to make that turn, and over the barricade he went.

He doesn’t remember much about the trip down the cliff, other than the broken thumb cracked ribs, and numerous bruises. Apparently the authorities were amazed at both how stupid Tim had been and how lucky he gotten in hitting the proper things going down the cliff such that he remained alive.

31

Well if it provides any consolation to those of you who suffered clipless-pedal incidents, I found this snippet while trying to figure out what clipless pedals are.*

*The whole clipless pedals/“My feet wouldn’t come unclipped” just wasn’t working in my brain.

32

'Bout 17 years ago. I was 16. I had just taken a slightly overland detour through a grassy field on my 12-speed (why I don’t recall), but was now moving at a moderate pace down a residential street.

I noticed a few burrs/stickers/whatever in the sidewalls of my front tire that I’d picked up from the grass. Out of boredom, as much as anything, I held one of my feet against the front tire to scrape the things off as I moved. It was kind of neat to watch the burrs go flying under my foot…

I never saw the parked car until I ran smack into its rear bumper. :smack:

I wasn’t pedaling at the time, so I couldn’t have been going that fast. Boy, that bike stopped quick, though. I went over the handlebars, bounced off the trunk of the car, and wound up on the street.

My knee hurt a little bit, and my pride was in several pieces, but I was basically OK. So was the car. Nobody seemed to have witnessed this spectacle, so I hopped back on the bike and started to head home.

Only then did I realize that the front wheel was now lightly touching the diagonal frame member that’s normally a few centimeters behind it. :dubious: Closer inspection revealed that the front forks had taken the impact with no apparent damage, and transferred the load to the frame - which was bent right behind the steering axle housing.

I’d killed my friggin’ bike.

33

When I was fifteen I was taking a purloined street-sign to friend’s place.

Flying down a hilly part of Nanaimo street towards his place, with a 1’X2’ piece of painted steel dangling from the handebars in a plastic bag. Right.

Of course, the sign was suddenly in the spokes, and my front wheel (and consequently my bike) stopped abruptly.

Not me. I ended up about 15 feet north of my bike.

Didn’t hurt.

34

Mine involves no blood and no injury, except my pride.

Last November, I was going out for a ride around the neighborhood for exercise, and was riding my mountain bike (home-brewed from pretty good components), and noticed a package on my front porch. I hopped off and checked the package- same number but one street over.

I merrily hopped on my bike and pedaled the package(probably a fruitcake) over holding it on the handlebars with one hand and steering with the other.

Everything was fine until I tried to hop up the little lip(2.5") of the driveway of the package address. I’d slowed down too much, and normally I’d just pop the front wheel up onto the lip and then just power over it.

So I tried the same thing this time- one handed.

Didn’t work so well. I somehow twisted the handlebars, fell off, and landed on the package, squashing the crap out of it.

Then, to top it all off, the pre-teen boys screwing around on their bikes about a house or two over came riding over and asked "Are you ok, ** SIR **?

I’m only 31, but I was instantly reminded of watching my father spastically try to do things he hadn’t done in years when I was young and thinking about how funny/sad it was at times. I was mortified this time because I’m a decent rider, and don’t usually eat it often at all.