Worst chrashes you've had or seen first hand

[franciep10]

Keeping with Bro deal's non doping thread's.

1. Tore my patella tendon when by bike slipped on an oil slick.
2. My friend broke his hip and clavicle when he fell into a ravine in Jamaica
3. Friend got hit by a car and died, R.I.P Devon

 

[quadsRme]

franciep10 sorry for your friend



1. hit by a car , luckily i lived

2. tubular tire rolled off rim on a very hot day on a downhill right turn. calf was scraped up horribly

3. belly flopped on a training ride,into a ditch, when a car cut me off. bike went one way i went the other

 

[quadsRme]

Don't know what year it was , David Cook came around the last turn(left) of the Downers Grove National Criterium Championship and basically wiped out a half dozen riders into the curb and barriers. It was bloody and tangled mess of bodies. After 100K of racing too

 

[ak-zaaf]

i was 15 and it was the second day of summer vacation. nice weather for a little training, use the time to think of all the great things i would do that summer.
until some *** decides to throw his car door open just as i was passing.

i landed some 8 meters further.

minor concussion, 8 stitches in the face, left collarbone broken in 2 places, left shoulder torn, 3 ribs broken and 1 bruised. and obviously a lot of skin missing.

i still have dreams of killing that guy.

 

[franciep10]

i was 15 and it was the second day of summer vacation. nice weather for a little training, use the time to think of all the great things i would do that summer.
until some *** decides to throw his car door open just as i was passing.

i landed some 8 meters further.

minor concussion, 8 stitches in the face, left collarbone broken in 2 places, left shoulder torn, 3 ribs broken and 1 bruised. and obviously a lot of skin missing.

i still have dreams of killing that guy.

wow Ouch!!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

2. tubular tire rolled off rim on a very hot day on a downhill right turn. calf was scraped up horribly

same thing happened to me, slide down the hill a fair old way...

closest i came to near catastophe was going down a hill at about 45 (mph) in cornwall, when a car decided to pull out of the juntion and stop half way across the road in my path... scared the living hell out of me..

just missed his bumper by inches at about 40 and took out his front headlight with a cleat.. i then decided to get off the bike, go back and hurl fairly decent levels of abuse at him including "have you no idea what speed a bike can travel at and how difficult it is to stop" in the middle of this i am of course completely disinterested in the fact he had lights on his car and "police" emblazoned on the side...

threatened me with a caution and criminal damage for breaking the speed limit and damaging his car.

so i offered to go to court and never heard anything again..

Devon and cornwall police.. gotta love em..

 

[Anonymous]

i was a kid in the sixties.. bike had a coaster brake... we thought it was cool that bill had a stop watch so we were racing against the clock about a hundred yards down and alley. i hit the finish and when i reversed to hit the coaster brake my toe just hit the top of the pedal and flipped my foot behind the pedal. no brake... i hit a chain link fence at the end of the alley square on.. next thing i know i'm hanging head down on the other side of the fence in a huge rose bush.. the bottom of my pant leg caught on the top of the chain linking and there i am.. hanging upside down.. stuck in thorns with my bike standing on the front wheel up against the telephone pole i had missed... back wheel stilll spinning... and my buddies standing there... laughing their asses off..

 

[Greg Johnson]

I don't want to dampen the mood, but I remember producing one of Rochelle Gilmore's diaries which talked about one of her training rides in Italy. It was a while ago now, but if I remember correctly it was a case of a guy had an accident while descending and she was climbing, then on her way back down his body was being removed.

As I said, not the most uplifting of stories, but something I always keen in mind when thinking about pushing a little harder down that descent with dirty great big drop offs.

Cheers
Greg Johnson

 

[ElChingon]

I don't want to dampen the mood, but

Don't worry you did.

 

[quadsRme]

Don't worry you did.

+1 you are the best.....

 

[benpounder]

I'd take getting hit by a car out of consideration. Usually it is the car's fault, and the cyclist is doing everything in their power to avoid such collision. I say this having spent a month in the hospital, the first week in intensive care, because of an idiot driver.

However, I did see a guy overcook a turn off a hill onto a side street - ran smack into a parked car. Fortunately, he released enough from the bike to do a stunt-man tumble over the car. We were silent til he got up, and then laughed uproarously when dusting himself he realized that it was his own car that he hit.

The foolishness of college friday nights...

 

[marinoni]

I had a 55-60 kph head-first crash into a concrete guardrail. Major concussion, cuts, and an ear almost ripped off. Fortunately I don't remember anything. On a brighter note, I had a parked car pull out in front of me while riding my first good bike(a DeRosa in 1984) home from the bike shop after picking it up. Somehow, I swerved right, bunnyhopped the curb, swerved again to miss a pedestrian, and came to a stop on someones front yard. I still dont know how I did it! Of course, later on while still getting used to toeclips, I toppled over at a stoplight. Ah, good times.

 

[marinoni]

Oh yeah, the worst I've seen? Abdu on the Champs in 91.

 

[180mmCrank]

A really good friend of mine was cycling home from a student party - he was very drunk - approaching a red (stop) light he spied a policewoman on the pavement. So he carefully came to a stop at the light which took all of his concentration - evidently it took so much of his diminished mental capacity he forgot to take his foot off the pedal - he did a slow motion fall...banged his head on the curb and knocked himself out. He came around with the policewoman leaning over him ... she was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. My mate dined out on that story for years

 

[hulkgogan]

Mid 90s Fort Langley BC, bit of a forest. My team put on a race that started with a fast descent that had a bump up then an immediate hidden off camber sweeping right hander. If you knew it, it was pretty easy to navigate but if you didn't, could be a bit of a surprise, heh heh.

Knowing this, we told everyone about the hazard and said the race would be neutralized first time down the hill. Well, you know what caffinated dumbass bike racers are like - as soon as we hit the descent guys started passing the lead car. The driver panicked, accelerated down the hill and, well, "race on!"

As soon as we hit the bump I set up for the coming right hander. To my left, many other didn't. Remember that scene in Return of the Jedi, where they're on their speeder bikes in the woods and the Stormtrooper hits that tree: THUD!. It was exactly that! Guy flying into big old school Canadian evergreens. Amazingly no one died! One guy to hospital with a broken collerbone, one guy with a completely chopped in half frame. At the time as scarey as hell, now I p-iss myself everytime I bring up the image of lycra clad guys, eyes and mouths wide open, flying through the trees.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

thatsmyass

...this is what hitting the deck assfirst in a bunch sprint looks like. I feel closer to all of you now that you've seen my bum.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Personal - Descending a nasty hairpin we called "dead cyclists corner" and sure enough, lost it. Road rash like Roger's but across my whole body. Back, hips, knees, ankles elbows, shoulders, chest even. Nothing broken, but it was very bad. Still have the asphalt embedded in my arms!

Saw with own eyes - Watching a fast crit, a guy came around the corner on an attack and a woman who was oblivious to everything stepped over the barrier and ONTO THE COURSE!!! When he rounded the corner and hit her it was 35-0 in zero with stuff flying everywhere. Very frightening as you could see it coming but he couldn't. He had a concussion and was nearly knocked unconscious, plus bad road rash. She lost a tooth. Both were taken away in an ambulance. Mercifully the pile-up behind was minor.

Almost saw with eyes - Came upon an organized event ride where a guy 10 minutes previous had hit a car head on and went into the windshield. The bike was under the car with the frame split in two, and there was blood on the shattered windshield. Amazingly, the guy survived. A friend saw a similar crash in a Cat 4 race in town 25 years ago where the rider didn't survive.

Knew personally - A friend was descending a big hill trying to catch a light. His feet came off the pedal and into the front wheel! He went over the front and landed on his face. Jaw wired shut, and lots of skin graphs. Full recovery though.

On TV - The Bos-Impey crash. Abdu's crash, and the Nillson/Jalabert crash come close.

PS. I like Dim's story best so far!

 

[BroDeal]

One time I watched three idiot mountain bikers complete a dirt ramp at the base of a foothill. The first one to try it chickened out, locked his brakes before he got to the ramp, and turfed it. The second one got amazing air. His bike bounced when he landed. He came off the bike and tumbled fifty or sixty feet like a rag doll. It was just brutal. He got taken away in an ambulance. The thing I remember the most, though, is not the violent crash. It's the total detachment and lack of sympathy I felt while watching. It was like watching a play written by Charles Darwin being performed by the three stooges. I am probably a bad person because I just chuckled to myself the rest of the day when thinking about it.

 

[urace4me2]

road race corner marshal

First few miles of a masters road race. I was attacking hard and two riders came up to me. Had sherrif's car and an officials car leading us. Coming up on blind corner, both cars stop in intersection for a few seconds then both continue rolling. So we roll! The corner has citrus trees all the way to the corner so it's blind. Just as I enter the intersection at 30+ mph I see a SUV coming straight at me from the left and I stomp the pedals and yell "CAR" as loud as I can. The car passes behind me by a few inches and I turn my head to the right to see what happened after I heard that horrible sound. I see third rider in our group flying through the air. Second and third rider both got hit. We were extremely lucky. #2 rider was not hurt too badly. #3 rider was transported and had some ribs broke and took his back awhile to be ok but he raced again after 6 months recovery time. I thought #3 was dead when I saw him flying 10 feet in the air.

 

[urace4me2]

Don't know what year it was , David Cook came around the last turn(left) of the Downers Grove National Criterium Championship and basically wiped out a half dozen riders into the curb and barriers. It was bloody and tangled mess of bodies. After 100K of racing too

Do you mean Dave McCook? Team Slimfast, Plymouth, Jellybelly? He was a mad man!

 

[elapid]

I have been remarkably lucky with only cuts and bruises over the years, but lots of near misses.

I never saw this crash, but the image of it is sickening as a drunk driver ploughs into the leaders in a race in Mexico:

 

[quadsRme]

Do you mean Dave McCook? Team Slimfast, Plymouth, Jellybelly? He was a mad man!

That's it!! Thanks, so I didn't know the year or the correct name

 

[urace4me2]

Did he win it THAT year? Because I think he won it once. Our LBS owners were managers of the Slim fast team back then.

 

[davidw]

Worst crash was going down a hill in the Eugene 'Thursday Nighter' - something happened at the bottom of the hill and the whole pack went down. I reopened some fresh road rash, but one guy got carted away in the ambulance and spent a few days in a coma. He was back racing pretty soon though, because other than hitting his head he didn't do too much damage. Was pretty scary watching him breathing funny before the ambulance got there though.

What a grim thread... yuck.

 

[Opichi]

Worst crashes you've had or seen first hand

210 lb. father slamming into 120lb. me at about 25km/h 1/2km from home...chipped tooth, copious amounts of blood and skin preferred components and tarmac to their maker, multiple contusions and can't remember if concussed (can't remember much, was retold tale after accolades for a great ride). Still made me go on to ride 60km. I was 14. Couldn't move properly for 2 weeks. Think I got off easy. Still love the sport! (My father I had some issues with at the time!)