Over the Handlebar.... guess!
 

I was riding last week, ~15mph, a downhill ~8% and slightly wet. suddenly I am thrown off the bike, bike falls limp to the left and i land abt 2ft in front right and break my shoulder. Now, the post mortem
- bike did not slide/skid forward after fall (no marks anywhere, road or bike)!
- there is a wiper blade stuck to the spoke of rear wheel (leads to a guess)

so what happened? movie style - rear wheel jam - eject seat? or am i at fault in technique somewhere?

Without more information no one here could comment on your technique other than to suggest that possibly you missed spotting and avoiding debri on the road.

Hope you heal well and rapidly and can get back to cycling soon!

i understand.... but, what other details might help? not sure.
more importantly, is what i think even possible? the spokes are not broken/bent, etc

First question - did your hands come off the handlebars? I was taught as a new racer that hands coming off the handlebars after hitting something always leads to a bad outcome. In fact, we were taught to ride in the drops anytime we were in in "iffy" situation. (Behind a car or rider we could not see around and that we did not trust to lead us around potholes, etc. Poor pavement.. I ride in the drops when I am tired because I just might not see/notice something.)

I know now everyone rides on the hoods probably 90% of the time, but I don't see how anything has changed since 50 years ago except the hoods got a lot more appealing and the little safety item we had to deal with is now gone. (The brake cable coming from the top of the brake lever. All of us jammed our hands on that cable at least once. Those were crashes like yours that didn't happen.)

What I think happened is that the wiper blade got caught in your spokes and gave you enough of a jolt to knock your hands off and that your hands came off before any real damage was done to your bike. Better would have been to hang on for dear life and let your rear wheel destroy itself slowing you down. You might ultimately have gone down anyway but the wheel would have slowed you some and the crash would be a simple slide. Road rash and no broken bones probably, Now, if saving your bike was the number one objective, congratulations! You took the fall for your bike perfectly.

Ben, a big fan of letting the bike eat it for me.

blush : yes. i was on the hoods. guilty. noted.... needs a post-it for down hills

i know... i has ASSUMED that the wheel would rip before i launch.

i will tell her that next time i ride her... she owes me one ;)

2 points so far :
- watch road debris, dammit
- drops are for use, not for looks

I am so sorry this happened to you, but glad you apparently do not have a head injury. Blessings.

I ride in town about 50% of my miles and up here this time of year, the roads are replete with rocks and branches and crap and Random Foreign Objects all over the place. This morning, I somehow managed to get something of significant size and a metallic nature into the path of my front spokes for a few revolutions. It rattled and bounced and shook me a bit and then shot out the side. Scared me. Spokes seem okay. Still true. Could not find what it was and totally did not see it, despite being a defensive rider of the highest order. Sometimes, despite best efforts, stuff happens. Don't beat yourself up. Hazard of the profession. Glad you will be okay to ride another day.

I don’t think locking the rear wheel would cause your bike to steer left. One time a bump in the road tossed my chain into the spokes at 15-20mph. I was taking a swig from the water bottle when it happened. Even with one hand, it was pretty easy to keep the bike under control as it skidded to a stop.



Having had shoulder surgery in April, I feel for you.

8% grade at 15 mph? You were seriously riding the brakes, no? :o

Could be part of the problem.

amen to both parts. and Thanks

- the downgrade had just begun and its a familiar road.... but, yeah, cant remember if i had changed something that round. may be,

Two thoughts:

1. Ignoring the wiper blade, maybe your front wheel went into a crack in the pavement you didn't see because the road was slightly wet.
2. Working in the wiper blade, were you pedaling at the time? Maybe the full wiper went into the rear derailleur, jammed it and you launched yourself off the stuck pedals.

If the wiper had gone into the spokes, I think you'd see spoke damage.

Had road debris jam in my rear derailleur this spring.

If you aren’t pedaling no drama.

If you are pedaling in the saddle you’ll tear the derailleur off the hanger if you are lucky, otherwise pull the derailleur into the rear spokes and jam it into the seat stays, locking up the rear wheel. (I had just started from a green light and didn’t even fall over, but totaled my frame.)

Out of the saddle climbing 8% maybe fall off the pedals, but it’s kind of a marshmallowy scrunch rather than a hard stop.

All but the first would include a mangled derailleur and/or hanger.

—

The wiper blade in the spokes? Just the rubber part?

If just the rubber part, you might not even have spoke damage.

And flat pedals, or clipped in?

Normally, at speed a rear wheel jam will have the rear wheel slide down the crown of the road or down the camber of a curve, and you would go down low side sliding. You might not even get your feet out of the pedals if you were caught out by surprise, but butt and thigh road rash, possible broken wrist if you tried to break you fall with your arms, possible broken shoulder if you tried to stiff arm the road. Bike often has some sliding damage.

However, if the rear wheel unjammed mid low side crash, turns it into a high side crash. You get ejected (but not over the handlebars), your bike coin flips sidewise with little damage. You land heads, tails or shoulders in such a case.

The over the handlebars crash would be panic snatch the brakes when you felt something at the rear and you locked up your front wheel.

Anyhow, don’t knock yourself, s happens fast and you may never know with certainty what happened. The crash might have nothing to do with the wiper blade.

Get better.

-mr. bill

Check the valve stem maybe the wiper blade caught that?

After I had an over the bars crash into a wall and hit the wall with my head, my doc asked me if I remember exactly how it happened, while examining my eye tracking and other points of coordination. I did recall, and she said that was good, that momentary unconsciousness could have been a sign of concussion.

Giro helmet prevented concussion, in my case. My hands were in the hooks, and I had decided not to apply brakes to prevent losing control on the wet grass.

OP, have you been checked for concussion?

good luck with the shoulder! how's that going?

the road is very good. no potholes :(
both spokes and RD are in good shape. hence my doubts.

no pedaling and it was downhill. clipped with spd (but, very lose tension, came right off)

valve stem seems undamaged

just came back from doc re-visit :
No surgery needed (YEAH)
its healing in-place and has not moved
about 5 weeks to heal up, then physio
may be another 1.5months to first ride

regd concussion : was tested for it at ER. seemed nothing.

thanks all for the support and guidence. will update as things progress.

is it possible your hand came off the bars and thrust your momentum forward, up and over?

I got hit by a car the weekend before Thanksgiving, and was able to see from the damage that my bike was struck directly in the left handlebar which was badly bent. My hand was riding the hood at that time and was completely uninjured. Ironically, I'm pretty sure that if my hand had been in the drops, I would have either lost it or had it badly mangled.

:D You should start a thread about descending in the drops.

I actually don't remember getting hit or the immediate aftermath, but I'm pretty sure I descended a few feet really fast, albeit sideways.

Yeah, an 8% grade is at the level where the TdF is considering (depending upon distance) a sans categorie rating. My big fat old arse had gotten up to 43 mph on a similar grade - and my legs are shot.

You say your were on the levers and not the drops. Could this have been a bang-bang thing like you already had your hand squeezing both brakes a little, you got a wiper blade that locked up the rear wheel, and your hand clamped the front brake hard? Or could that blade have gotten into the front spokes first and caught on something?

Hope you heal quickly. As the husband of a PT (and as I get older, as a consumer of PT services) I suggest physical therapy to ensure you have recover full range of motion and strength. My 2 cents, not a doctor (at least of medicine).

I think I know what happened. You were going downhill and dragging your brake pretty hard (8% at only 15mph means you're braking hard). This puts a lot of braking forces into your front wheel. Then while braking you ran over the wiperblade with your front wheel, and this caused the front wheel to slip and you lowside the bike (ie, bike leaning to one side and then crash). And a wet/damp surface would make this scenario even more likely!

In addition, when you ran over the wiperblade, this caused the wiper to bounch off the ground and then your rear wheel must have partially caught the wiper and drug the wiper along for the ride, and that's why you would see the wiper at the scene of the accident. I'm almost certain that the initial impetus of the crash was not the wiperblade jamming into your wheel (front or rear) because if this were to happen, your some spokes would have been thrashed and most likely bent or broken and wheel would be way outta true.

Thanks all for the support and wanted to update the thread.

All healed up and went for a ride. It felt GOOOOOOD..... not the shoulder, the riding felt good. The shoulder is a bit sore, but. man, was it great to feel the wind on my face again.
now, my core, leg muscles and cardio have gone downhill a bit. hey, it is upto ME to improve it :)

Thanks again.

Good to hear you're back in the saddle!! It takes a bit of courage, after going down hard with an injury like that.

Some folks just don’t have a knack for cycling :p

just kidding

heal up soon