Don in Austin

I am 70 years old so I have done a few. When I was in grade school I was an avid reader. Riding home on the bike reading a book I had just got out of the library. The only reason the front wheel did not fold in half when I hit the back of a parked car was that the bike was a heavy 24" J.C Higgins with heavy wheels! Back then cars had real bumpers so the car was not damaged. I was able to ride home but I sure was sore! Today is the first time I have ever told anybody about this incident.

I have some more, but let's hear some others first!

Don in Austin

indyfabz

Wore a thread bare pair of shorts on the first day of Cycle Oregon in 2002. A woman rode by me and said something like "Wow. You must have had those shorts for a long time." She was correct, but it took me a minute or so to figure out she might have known. At the end of the day, after I had showered and changed, I stretched out the back of the shorts to inspect them. Into the trash they went.

MNBikeCommuter

This one's off on a tangent, but the "cause" was my bike. The first or second time I got to ride a friend's motorcycle in seventh or eighth grade didn't end well. The streets in the small town were gravel. I knew how to ride a bike on them. In trying to whip around a corner on the motorcycle, I applied the rear brake, except on a motorcycle it's the front. I went down pretty quickly, breaking my glasses and getting pretty scraped up. The story to my folks was "football game with friends" as I wasn't supposed to be riding without a license.

AlexCyclistRoch

Back in the early 1970's, those 'spyder' style bikes (fat rear tire, smaller skinny front tire, banana seat) were all the rage. I was already very tall for my age, and my parents bought me a 26" tire 'english racer' style bike, but all my friends had spyder bikes. One day, I borrowed a friend's bike, and tried to pop a wheelie with it. Being larger and heavier than other kids my age, physics took over, and I ended up doing an endo, followed by an @$$-plant.

RoadieDropper

Most embarrasing/humiliating thing you have ever done on your bike?

Put on Campy components...

Vortac180

Like the original poster, I ran into a parked car as a kid, but I was showing off for the neighbor girl (so I blame her). No, the one I did totally on my own was try to beat a fast moving car to an intersection. The car hit me, lightly, in a skid and knocked me down. Thank goodness that driver was alert. He saved my 7 year old life. He also knew my dad. I got quite a spanking when I got home.

More recently, at a ski resort one summer I rented the "meadow bike", and decided I could do part of a down-hill trail. No protective gear except a helmet. What's worse I was warned by a more experienced rider at the top. The bike over-sped, the brakes failed and I ended up in the medical hut getting alcohol applied to the road rash covering the whole left side of stupid me.

Some lessons are learned the hard way. I've had a few like that.
Best regards!

shafter

I fell off once and scraped up pretty bad. Nice stranger ( Including an pizza delivery guy ) were all slowing down and asking if i needed help.

The crash wore a sizeable hole in the front of my shorts. Luckily I was wearing an old helmet with a cloth cover that day.

canklecat

Let me count the ways...

In 1976, removing those pesky amateurish bits from my Motobecane Mirage -- suicide levers, dork disc, chainring guard -- thinking it would make me look more like a sooper seerius racer. Never mind that I was riding a heavy hi-ten frame in an era when some well heeled teenagers were given high end cromo frame road bikes with Campy parts and sewups by their dads. I doubt anyone was fooled by my lame attempts to racerize an entry level 10-speed. Hey, I was 18, it made sense at the time.

A couple of years later, after I'd gotten the crits and time trials out of my system, I put all that stuff back on the bike. For a commuter and loaf-paced day tourist like me, those things all served a useful purpose. The only change I didn't revert was moving the shift levers from the stem to the downtube -- the downtube position always worked more smoothly for me.

More recently, last spring, I fell twice in one week, exactly the same way in almost exactly the same spot on the local MUP. I'd gotten in the habit of veering off the paved path onto the grass or adjacent gravel/chat trail to go around families walking ten-abreast with kids, strollers, dogs, etc. I don't ride fast on that section of the MUP anyway because there are so many folks on foot. So for weeks or months I'd just ride off the pavement, give them wide berth, then get back on the pavement after I'd cleared them.

No problems. Until that one week. Then twice, doing exactly the same thing I'd always done, my front tire rebounded like a superball off the little 1/2" pavement ledge and planted me on the ground with no injuries other than to my ego. I'm not sure whether it was better or worse that young folks made a fuss over me like I was an old man, until I remembered, hey, I am nearly 60 with gray hair and a grizzled beard. So, what the heck.

Turns out I'd forgotten about a tire pressure experiment. I'd been riding these 700x40 (nominal, actually closer to 700x45) tires at around 50 psi which was cushy on rough terrain yet still smooth rolling on nice pavement. But I'd decided a week earlier to experiment with higher pressure for some rides on mostly smooth pavement and inflated the tires to the max, around 85 psi. And I forgot to reset the pressure to the usual 50 psi for my rides on the MUP and gravel/chat trails.

Who'd a thunk that pressure difference would turn nerf tires into superballs.

SkyDog75

First time in clipless pedals... Came to a stop and forgot to unclip until it was too late. Fell over like a cut tree. "Tim-berrrrr!" I'm sure that confused and/or entertained pretty much anyone who saw me at that busy intersection.

kcblair

My first "club" race, when I was stationed in Germany, I leaned into a corner, peddle down and clipped a sidewalk. Jumped back on the bike and finished. My German companions made sure I was okay. They asked "you Neo Pro"? My shorts were torn and seat stay scratched. I drove myself back to dispensary, at the base and was patched up. The Doc asked what happened, said I was racing, and was glad I was getting my exercise.

Snuts

I was about eleven. We lived on the Hi way as it left town. Long shadows in the field to my right. Smoking along, no hands waving my arms, watching the long shadows. POW! into the back of a parked car on the shoulder of the Hi way, who parks there?
I chinned the rear window, over the roof. Rolled of the drivers side. Either the front window or hood.
Jumped my scared little arse on the bike, rode the last half mile with the bars spun around. Mom tended to the bruises. Dad laughed at the bent forks.
I never ride with no hands on my bars, 45 years later, funny how that works.



-Snuts-

Snuts

+1



-Snuts-

Noahma

as others I have forgotten to unclip and fell in a very busy intersection.

Riding a local MUP I was unfamiliar with, I was going under an underpass around a slight bend and did not realize that there was some fine sand on the path. Well I added a little too much break while trying to navigate it at the higher rate of speed, slid off the path and almost ended up in the river. I got up, looked around and rode off knowing I was the only witness. No damage.

Don in Austin

Several years ago when I was just getting back into cycling this old fart in his 60s and my friend David in his 50s were SO proud of ourselves for riding up the Mt. Bonnell hill earlier on our ride. We were stopped at a red light before a less daunting hill and found ourselves next to a highly attractive, but also highly heavy, young lady on her road bike. Well, the male ego impulse to show off kicked in and we both geared way down spinning like crazy when the light turned green. The young lady wasn't quite as fast as us off the line but half way up the hill she passed us like we were sitting still with her crank at about 40 RPM. She saw right through us and gave us a big smile and wave and vanished! David commented that she had legs like a linebacker.

Don in Austin

Choctaw

Turned my head to look behind me at two girls who passed by me on roller blades and wearing some nice fitting spandex. My bullhorn caught the chain link fence that lined a narrow rail bridge. I went flying, bike made a bunch of noise and I was rolling like sonic the hedge hog. The girls turned around and asked me if I was OK. I was bleeding and they were laughing. But I still don't regret it because I can still see their smooth butts to this very day if i think hard enough.

canklecat

My first and only race crash was in my first rookie criterium back in the 1970s. A wobbly rider in front and to my side clipped my front wheel as I tried to pass. Some painful road rash but not too bad.

I was in the Navy at the time and worked at the Bethesda Naval hospital, then the NNMC (pre-merger with Walter Reed). Our unit leader advised me not to go to sick call to get patched up because I hadn't obtained permission to participate in activities off base. Never heard that warning before, and I'd boxed in several amateur tournaments and trained off base. But he said the base CO was pretty harsh about that stuff. So I bandaged myself up so the stuff didn't leak through on my white scrubs and give anything away.

After that I moved up to the intermediate crits. Much better riders, no accidents. I was never competitive but it was fun. And I boxed in one last amateur bout, our team against the Marines at Quantico. I won and retired from amateur boxing while I still had a few brain cells intact.

I still didn't get permission from the base commander.

thumpism 

Pedaled through a tight right turn during rush hour, struck the right pedal and catapulted myself across two lanes. Tucked and rolled neatly and scrambled up to grab the bike before the light changed and the charge began.

Milton Keynes

Guess I gotta add my crash story here. I was about 9 or 10 and participating in a bike-a-thon to raise money for charity, we had to get people to sponsor us as so much money per mile and then ride. Was only a 12-mile course, out south of town and back again. I had a paper route at the time so it was nothing for me to ride it on my Western Flyer banana seat bike with ape hanger handlebars.

I had reached the halfway point and was heading back to town, heading down a hill with the wind at my back and had a pretty good head of steam going. I had just waved at some of the other cyclists who were still heading out, and all of a sudden my handlebars started shaking and my bike went out from under me. I hit the pavement, landed on my face and skinned up my knees pretty badly. Had to get a few stitches in my upper lip and chin, and still carry the scars today. IIRC I was pretty sore for a while after that, too.

When they loaded my bike up, my back tire was flat so I think that was likely the cause of my accident. Heading downhill fast and just happening to take my right hand off the handlebar just at that second to wave likely caused me to lose control instead of recover & stop.

Doc_Wui

Was issued a ticket on my bike by cop in a squad car when I was 13, just when I was realizing what was cool and what wasn't. This was not cool at the time, to be getting a ticket and have older guys in cars point and laugh.

For sure, I expected to be put in bike school with 8 year olds, but all they wanted was to go to City Hall and pay a 50 cent fine . My first lesson in pay-to-play traffic rules.

kcblair

I never heard of such restriction in the USAF. The USAF was pretty relaxed on PE, back in the 70-80's. When I was in stationed in Offutt AFB, Omaha, NE. there was a large bike club (touring), If you participated in a century or BRAN (Bike Ride Across Nebraska) you were exempt from PE testing that year. KB

coffeesnob

Not really embarrassing but until I found out I needed a pacemaker I passed out on my bike a couple of times. Luckily both times I went into the grass on the side,had a helmet and didn't get hurt and most importantly did not damage my bike.

DaveQ24

Just the classic "clipped-in newby, had to stop for traffic, couldn't unclip, fell over." Of course, it had to be on a dirt road the night after a heavy rain, fresh mud with nice new white road shoes and red and white jersey.

Main take away - don't buy white again!

Wileyrat

When I was teenager in the 70's on my "really nice to me" first LBS road bike, I was riding in a "Bicycle Sunday event in a large park in Seattle. I saw a nice looking female in a red and white striped bikini riding towards me, I was distracted enough that I didn't see the bullard in my way, hit it and flipped over the bars as she rode by.

cyccommute 

Ran into the back of a Dodge Horizon...bronze colored...in front the White House. Yea, that one. He had stopped in the middle of the road and I was gawking.

Nachoman