typ240

I crashed once, it wasn’t fun at all. Was crossing railroad tracks and next thing I know, I was on the ground.

Bruised ribs and swollen knee, but the bike was unscathed!

loggie24

Haven't had a crash yet after 15000km but i'm also not racing or riding much in a pack.

GhostRider62

Excluding criterium crashfests from my younger days (just road rash), I think I have had 6 respectable crashes in some hundreds of thousands of miles on an upright with 12 broken bones total. I've also excluded my recumbent crashes. So, once every 30,000+ miles or every 2-3 years. Mostly mechanical failures or rider ahead of me going down. Only once I'd say I was stupid

Chuck M 

Excluding the falls when I was a little boy, I can recall three incidents. Two as a teen and one as a 50something year old man. The weird thing is the last one probably wasn't as bad as the other two, but it seems like it took longer to heal.

bampilot06

I used to crash a lot. Now I don’t.

jaxgtr

I've only had one on the road and that was not by choice. I did have a few when I rode motocross, but that is not unexpected.

Carbonfiberboy 

Three crashes:
1. I was descending on an asphalt shoulder beside a concrete roadway, a descent I'd done many, many times, but this time I looked way ahead and saw a pedestrian on the shoulder - unheard of. I forgot that I was riding a section where the asphalt was lower than the concrete by about and inch, so when I tried to gain the roadway, I went down at maybe 25 - the road had flattened out by then. I went down flat, didn't put an arm out and the bike and I parted company quickly, I pushed my helmet into the pavement to reduce skin loss. Trashed the jersey and shorts of course, but no injuries. I put povidone and Tegaderm on the road rash, no problems.

2. I was descending. At the bottom was a left hand sweeper with an intersection in the middle on the right hand side. A car initiated a left turn onto my road, right in front of me, then stopped in the middle of the lane when the driver saw me. I locked up the rear, laid the bike down, and slid into his front wheel, wheels first. I didn't slide very far and again went down flat. No injuries, almost no road rash. I terrified the driver though, good for me. I had on a blue event jersey, big mistake. I never wore a blue or green jersey again. I went on with my ride.

3. I was on the tandem with my wife, riding in the city on a rainy day. We went around one those circular slow-down things they put in the middle of some intersections around here. Our side was a fall-away corner paved with 1" diameter polished pebbles. We went down, no big deal, no injuries except that I ruined a buckle on my left Sidi.

I'm a fast descender, usually the first one of a group down. I slow down for blind right handers - that's a big deal if there's a decreasing radius corner which you can't see. Otherwise I brake a little for the turns if I need to, let it run between them. Our descents around here are only 6-7%, so in a full tuck I top out at a little over 40 on my single. I'm not racing, so if anyone wants to do it faster than I want to, I let them go. I like being uninjured, in fact I might be the only fast-ish cyclist I know with two intact collar bones. The main thing there is simply to be lucky and never encounter gravel on a blind corner.

We've hit 60, descending on our tandem. That's pretty fun because we're going at about the same speed as cars, so don't have to hug the right edge. We've passed cyclists who thought for sure we were a motorcycle until we were past them. Our Co-Motion is really stable at speed.

rsbob 

Did RAMROD with a good friend back in the 80s on his Rodriguez tandem and coming down on of the passes, we hit 62 and passed a car and an RV. I was the stoker, and even though the bike was perfectly stable, I found that kind of speed unnerving. The next time we did it, we had a front flat but only going 35 and were able to safely stop. After that nothing over 50. Not that it would matter much.

Max speed on my single these days is 45.

Chuck M 

And now I've had a flat and a wreck this week. This happened to me after a thread about broken chains too.

Why can't someone start a thread about setting a PR or finding a large sum of money while on a ride?

mercator

All my worst injuries have been sustained in bike crashes.

rsbob 

When the drugs run out, then I crash hard.

GhostRider62

I forgot the little dog that jumped into my front wheel on TABR and got caught in it taking me down. I only messed up a rotator cuff but that little **** was hard to untangle.

Keefusb

Knock on wood, it has been about 20 years since my last UGLY wreck, but I average about one incident every two years or so.

Last UGLY wreck I hit a big pothole going about 25 down a hill, tried to get around it but there was a truck on my left, tried to hop it but I ended up hitting the lip of the pothole hard. Tacoed my front wheel, went over the bars, skidded off the road into a telephone pedestal head first and split my brand new Giro helmet (thank goodness). I also left the last 1/16 of an inch of the end of my left thumb sticking out of my brifter, when I put the death squeeze on the brakes right before going over the bars, the plastic edge of the Shimano Ultegra brifter body neatly sliced off the end of my thumb. Every brifter I have ever had since that time has had that edge sanded down so it wasn't so sharp.

My most recent wreck I was going much slower and went off the road to avoid hitting a dog.

BkSaGo

3 times that I can think of as an adult - 40 years of off and on riding.
1). A solo crash where I'm still not sure what happened. Coming off a slow off turn after a bike/pedestrian bridge, suddenly I was on the pavement. Might have slid out on a painted line, might have been a pedal strike, or ???. Minor road rash and a scrape to the bar tape.
2). Tangled with a slow rider trying to get around slow traffic on a MUP. My fault since I was passing. I was trying to pass a group of slow riders when the rider ahead of me also swung to the left to pass too. Broke the bone at the tip of my little finger.
3). Brain fart crash in the driveway. Rolled into the driveway a little tired from the ride. Came in a little faster than usual and had to brake harder than usual, and forgot to unclip. Fell at 0 miles per hour. No damage and fortunately nobody saw it happen!

Canker

Crashed my last two mtn bike rides so we need 1 in every 15 mile option. Both stupid low speed crashes on easy sections with no injuries.

downtube42

About 20k since my last: Broke my neck in October 2019. Uber fast downhill, curve, exceeded my capabilities.

About 20k to the previous: Summer of 2011, concussion. Fast downhill, curve wet pavement. Exceeded tire adhesion due to poor judgement.

About 20k to the previous: About 2007, concussion with memory loss. Fast downhill, curve, exceeded my capabilities.

About 15k to the previous: Around 2004, concussion. Downhill, wet pavement, locked up brakes and went over a cliff.

Earlier than that, I had smaller crashes every couple of years.

Yesterday, I did one of my favorite local loops - 35 miles with 2900 feet of climbing, with some fast twisty descents. Topped out at 44 mph. I do touch the brakes a couple places where I used to let it fly, but still. In the moment it's great, but afterwards looking at the Strava results I can't help but think it's a matter of time. To some degree, I'm okay with that.

RJC1811

Unlike motorcycles which I seemed to crash regularly, probably due to the easy power, I have had 2.5 crashes in my cycling life.

Around 1980 I was commuting to work on my bike. I went out for drinks after work with friends and when riding home I wasn’t paying attention. I looked up to see a parked car directly in front of me. I swung hard to the left but that pedal was down and caught the pavement and tossed me in the air. Somehow I landed on my wheels and missed the car. That was my .5 crash.

Maybe 2015 I was riding in a fundraising event on a closed circuit. I was cruising along next to my daughter at a modest pace. The only thing I remember is reaching down for my water bottle, next thing I knew I was crashing into the pavement. I separated my shoulder and it hurt like hell. I have no idea what made me crash, my best guess is my left hand slipped off the bars when I reached for my water bottle with my right?

2018 I was in NJ for work. I had to be there over the weekend so I took my bike and went for a ride. I did a 35 mile loop and had a great ride. I was almost back to the parking lot and had to go under a bridge. It was dark and I had sunglasses on, there were also cars going by as I went under the bridge. I saw the sewer grate in front of me but couldn’t swerve because of the traffic. I tried to bunny hop over it but it caught my tire as I landed and threw me. Just some bumps and bruises but no damage.

Let’s hope that this is it for quite a while.

merlinextraligh

So this thread reminds me of the old saying:

there are two types of cyclists; those who have broken their collarbone, and those who have not broken their collarbones yet.

georges1

I tend to be very careful,I had one bad crash in 1999 with a knee injury and slightly less grave one in 2007-2008, since then no more crashes as I am always extra careful when riding in town or open roads.When riding with the MTB in trails ,I don't have these issues.

genejockey 

This made me think of...

TMonk

slamdancing describes my style of riding the best

rsbob 

My wife crashed yesterday on gravel ride yesterday. The helmet did its job, but has major road rash on one elbow (two 4X4s) and knee. Her elbow wept through the bandages and onto the sheets which were promptly washed. Also has a bruised rib. What a trooper.

Had to straighten the handlebars. She rode home with them rather crooked since she didn’t have the strength to fix alignment.

mschwett 

oh man. I hope the crashing discussion hasn’t jinxed anyone! Hopefully her injuries will mend quickly.

SpedFast

Just this afternoon I wiped out hanging a left at @18MPH or @29KMH if my math is correct. I put a new rear tire on this morning and I'm blaming it. There was a pickup and trailer behind me, a car pulled up on the left coming out of the road that I was turning onto and a car coming toward me. I've made this left hand turn at faster speeds with Zaffiro tires and never a problem. Today I had a new Corsaflex on the rear with less than 10 miles on it. I went down on my left hip and pivoted a complete 180° before coming to a complete stop on my back. It was like hitting a patch of black ice. All the traffic came to a standstill and people jumped out their vehicles and came running to see if I was okay. I was more embarrassed than injured. For a 73 year old man I bounce pretty good. It was really nice the way everyone seemed to care though. One even offered me a ride home in his pickup truck. I opted to finish my ride (15 more miles) and now my hip is stiffening up. DW told me when I got home and saw my bloody elbow that I can't go out on the road anymore. She's sweet, but she should know me better after almost 50 years together. The only real damage was to the left pedal, a Rockbros alloy that is now half gone. It looks like I took a grinder to the end of it. As well as a few scratches to the rear of my helmet. Last 2 crashes my helmet has saved my thick head.

Update: I took a day off and worked on the bike, lubing the hub bearings and inspecting the rear tire thoroughly. Today I went for a ride and put it through it's paces. I took the same turn with no traffic around at the same speed with no problems. I figured if I crashed at least I knew what I was doing because I have experience now. Still not sure what happened the other day.

Kapusta

I have not crashed on my road bike (that I can remember) since I was a teenager (I am now in my late 50s). Knock on wood. I never push things on the road. Consequences are just too high.

I crash on my MTB - as in I hit the ground with something other than my feet - regularly. But the speeds are low and injuries are pretty minor.