OhioBuckeye

Being in in a relatively flat part of Ohio I don't get a chance to hit too many hills but when I do I'm definitely white knuckling and on the brakes. It seems to me a downhill crash could get pretty ugly depending on the speed.

Anyone have any downhill bad crashes they would like to share?

chado445510

No, but that got me thinking. Crashing at 50mph could be deadly. I might just be a little bit more tentative now... Thanks for ruining the fun.

rc51crazy

brakes?? don't need no stinking brakes!!

Guillotine007

crashes can get ugly at any speed...HTFU

DScott

Wouldn't you rather hear about descending skills, instead?

Blackdays

I can go like 150 mph and lean into turns so much that the bartape makes contact with the asphalt!

molecularman

About a week ago I was descending a 12% hill with sweeping turns. While I was cruising at about 35-40 mph, a bear cub ran out right in front of me from some bushes. I hit the brakes, swerved, then tried to save myself my flying off the road at one of the turns. I ended up doing an endo/ slide out combo. I knocked myself out and got some serious road rash. The good news is, except for some bloody bar tape and mis-aligned handlebars, the bike is in good shape.

zigmin

Try not to think about crashing when zipping down hills, it makes you hit the brakes.

nahh

not my story, but I have a friend. Racing a Crit, took a downhill turn, hit a painted cross-walk, went down HARD. the jersey was gnarly.

hairnet

Well, there's this road in Brentwood called Mandeville. And there were these riders on the descent. And there was a doctor driving behind them... and

Nbob

Going down a avg. 7% with some switchbacks at 45-50 kph. There had been some isolated sun showers all through my ride - very very light - and it was dry at the top when I started down.

1/4 the way down you get a brief view of the rest of the hill as you set up for one of the turns. I looked down ... the bottom 1/2 had that purple/green/blue sheen that sez slick road. I just feathered the breaks to bleed off some speed and before I knew it I hit the deck.

I would have been alright - just a skinned knee and a very small road rash on my thigh - except I was sliding into the oncoming lane just as a car was rounding the bend. I wasn't sure if he had seen me fall or that I was fast approaching his front left wheel because of the angle of the road ( turns out I was right).

So I slammed my hand on the pavement to try and stop ( thankfully I was wearing gloves). Instead of stopping I vaulted myself up off the ground and landed right on my face ( thankfully I was wearing a helmet). The driver saw a pair of feet suddenly pop up in front of him and managed to swerve.

When I looked back at where I fell I could see I had already hit the slick part. I hyper-extended my arm ( the one I used to try and stop) and it was one black bruise from my hand up to the shoulder for about two weeks.

ls01

You still use bar tape?

ElJamoquio

Maybe I'm just hypersensitive today, but let's not have this discussion.

https://www.mercurynews.com/top-stori...nclick_check=1

mattm

Hit 89 km/h coming down a mtn once, no crash though sorry.

evilcryalotmore

):yeah

Machka 

Here's the story of my worst downhill crash ... I'm still dealing with shoulder issues three years later ...

https://www.machka.net/2007/2007_200_VanIsle.htm

Braden1550

Given deaths and injury involved, is it really appropriate to make a thread for entertainment out of it? Mods?

OhioBuckeye

I wouldn't call it entertainment. It's good to know the potential consequences of losing control. Hell you saw the Tour De France where all the riders were falling on the downhill right? Well that could be anywhere given certain conditions that create slick roads.

Basically I believe it's better to be aware and take notice than to be oblivious of the potential of a fall.

thegunner

i don't think the OP did it for the lulz, and it could be helpful for others to understand what went wrong in certain situations. not sure what's inappropriate here.

Braden1550

Agree with both of you, it's just a fine line to skate between informing and swapping tales of gore e.t.c. for "the lulz".
My closest almost lost it @ 70km/h through no fault of his own (feathered brakes on an oily road doing Hill reps). Scared the crap out of me because he's such a good descender and bike handler, and If it can happen to him, it could happen to anyone. I could have lost my mate, and that scares me.

For myself I've been pretty lucky. Lucky in the respect that I'm not wicked confident going down hills but my thrill is in going up them. I get struck by profound anxiety when I hear a car coming at 60km/h behind me when I'm climbing something at a slow pace :S

rangerdavid

yeah, brakes only slow you down.

rangerdavid

I guess the cub was ok? They probably thought you were road kill.........

seriously, glad you bike is ok and you're recovering.

Menel

2 weeks ago today, 4th weekend. N GA Mountains. Bike slipped out from under my at ~30mph. Sharp right hand turn, either I hit some loose sand/gravel, not likely due to roads up there being in tip top condition, or more likely I didn't taper off the speed enough and hit it too fast. Everything felt good, entered the turn well, but then all of a sudden the saddle vanished from underneath me and I went sliding.

I've broken 50mph up there in the mountains, I was routinely hitting 40+ that day. GPS only shows avg data points spaced out further up the mountain and at site of crash with who knows what averaged in. I'm guessing 30ish.

Shredded jersey, bib shorts, gloves, heavy scrapping on RD and shifters. Bike was 100% fine, ridden probably 200miles since then, no tuning issues. I still can't fathom how my RD hanger didn't get bent all to hell *shrug* Helmet doesn't appear to have touched the ground.

Scrapped skin off arm from forearm all the way up to shoulder. Leg: lower leg up to edge of bib shorts, then a gap where shorts protected me, and then more skin removed where concrete ripped through shorts. Left arm around elbow area. Right hand, ripped my index finger up real good, only had 1 uninjured finger on that hand. Got my knuckles somehow in the low areas between knuckles *boggle*. Right cheek and bottom of chin.

Yea, I came out real lucky in general, all things considered.

pics
https://irudd.com/adam/pub/pics/cycli...0-07-05_crash/

Liberal use of:
https://www.amazon.com/Nexcare-Active...9&sr=1-3-fkmr0
cheaper locally
and
https://www.amazon.com/Nexcare-Absolu...bxgy_hpc_img_a
and again, cheaper locally.

Knuckles still have some scabbing, index finger still a little sore in one spot. Rest of body is completely healed, new flesh has grown back in and it's all smooth contiguous flesh again with no scarring. Just the new skin is pale, untanned, so gotta be diligent with sunscreen.

Body_Fortress

There is a very steep downhill on my main route, with the road getting very narrow at the bottom.

I went relatively slow down it once, because a car was coming the other way and he had no interest in worrying about if I crashed into him or not, a dalmation came out of a driveway and I went right into it.

Man I hate dogs.

Machka 

Sometimes talking about it helps us to get over it. After my crash, it took a year for me to be able to descend any sort of hill with any sort of speed and comfort. It took a couple years before I could descend a somewhat curvy hill faster than about 10 km/h. And I still have a lot of trouble descending a hill with wet pavement.