First real crash

[Alpe d'Huez]

I know most of these stories really well.

Anyone still have asphalt embedded in their skin? Some 25 years after a horrific crash on a twisting descent, I've still got some of the road with in my elbows as a reminder. I should post a photo.

 

[usedtobefast]

looking down a my ankle, which has been ground down to the bone, and thinking "that's gonna take a while to heal." and the subsequent staph infection to go with. among the other injuries. but hey, "put me back on my bike".............goddammit!

 

[zealot66]

Ive been cleaning the wound and using a topical anti biotic. The skin is tightening and it looks nasty and oozy still. **** hurts !!!!

 

[ulrikmm]

My first real crash was on a triple butted Tange steel framed MTB with a Rockshox Mag 21 fork (I built it myself) back in november 1998. A guy on a fully suspended Votec downhill bike led us over a downhill jump. I had ridden the jump a year before, but our guide had "improved" the jump after that, giving it a steep lip and doubling the height. I was first to go after him, but came to fast: flew 10 meters downhill, doing a sommersault and landed head down. The bike continued for another 10 meter. Lost all air afterwards for half a minute (roaring from pain). After getting back on the bike, and riding over roots, I could feel the indirect pain in my spine when I hit bumps: So i knew my back was broken. We rode back to the car, and called an ambulance. Went into shock at the ER due to pain, but morphine helped.

My back has become weaker, I get back pains almost every day but then again **** happens, and biking is fun.

Mountain biking can be dangerous. Racing uphill is not dangerous (if you snap anything, it will be the chain), the real disasters always happen going DH. In my old MTB club during the 1990es, we saw one permanently shattered pelvis (girls doing DH in Norway), one tetraplegia (16 years old boyracer talent crashing sideways DH into huge tree. Is now in a wheel chair (broken neck), one punctured lung (adult, alone in the woods, huge tree, DH, found by XC runner before nightfall. of course, we were more than a hundred members, but the "toll" was quite high. At the time, we all had good helmets, but no other protective gear.

My motto has become: race like a madman uphill not downhill

 

[streever]

Worst part about a crash is the recovery time. I've had some minor hits into guard rails/etc which weren't bad, but hit a car head first last November. 7 months later I'm still WAY behind on my fitness & working my keister off to get back into shape!

Steampunk, just remember, using your brakes on the curves means you'll turn poorly & be less agile. It took me about 6 months to have that realization after I hit the guard rail... my cycling totally changed after that accident. Took hills like I'd never been on a bike, and fought the bike in every curve.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

I hit the deck pretty hard a few years ago, here's my rear end. Not my first crash, the most painful by far. Lost my front end going around a fast sweeping corner, and trying to avoid bringing anyone else down with me I threw myself into a landscaped island filled with those really sharp granite rocks, this was the result.

 

[Boeing]

It aint a real crash if you can remember it

 

[JediTimbob]

I've only gotten into cycling in the last 2-3 years and I've only had one crash (touch wood) I was "lucky" that it was on the boards at the local velodrome. Had a guy come up the inside underneath the sprinters line just coming into the corner then back up into me. Wasn't too bad, but I did ruin my good bibs with a nice burn on my hip and my elbow lost some skin.

 

[usedtobefast]

It aint a real crash if you can remember it

i remember sliding along the pavement with my face an inch from the blacktop.
i remember coming to, with a guy "crying get your bike off me" over and over.
of course, i had cushioned someone else's fall, so that was a moot point.
next stop, intensive care. yeah i remember it, mostly. i wish i didn't.
the witnesses said it was a spectacular crash though, so at least that.

 

[Marva32]

It aint a real crash if you can remember it

I have a vague memory of a hay bale coming at me at 35mph and then waking up in an ambulance with 3 cracked ribs and a partially deflated lung. Don't remember the guy who forced me wide in the turn.