Ever crashed a new bike on its first outing?

shuckburgh

Managed this at the weekend. My new pride & joy now looking somewhat sorry for itself after I splatted while riding it home from the lbs. No serious damage to the bike and just the usual grazes and bruises to me. But some impressive scuffs and scratches on the levers & pedals.

Now quite sure how it happened either - the back wheel just went away from me. Maybe the combination of a wet road and a bit of diesel from the local tractors.

Anyone else managed something similar on a first outing with a new bike?

nickcuk

A dog peed on mine when I went back to the shop door to close it. But it is a raleigh hybrid - the dog obviously knows more about bikes than I do

arranandy

Many moons ago (about 25 years ago!!) I had saved up for a brand new Raleigh racer. Got it on the Saturday, cycled to school on the Monday and came of at the first downhill corner I encountered due to a combination of grit on the road and too much back brake. Damage was minor but I was gutted

spasypaddy

not quite but the day after my first proper ride on my new bike i managed to have my one and only collision. Absolutely gutted, 6 weeks out and £400 worth of damage!

sturedd

I remember some years ago, about 16yrs, i worked in a bike shop in Winchester and the Fisher rep came round with a brand spanking new CR7. I of course jumped at the opportunity to take it out for a spin, quite literally!! I was happy whizzing around in and out of the lunchtime traffic shot round a corner at fairly high speed and hit a damp drain cover and wiped out in a big way ripped the saddle, wrecked the handlebar grips, pedals, rear mech etc. Suffice to say the rep was NOT impressed but managed to cover it up by saying that i got cut up by a car and clipped the curb and crashed!!
Happy Days ;-)

Pirahna

I chucked a Ducati 996 down the road on a test ride a few years ago. I had no intention at all of buying the thing, I just fancied a go on it. Cost me the best part of a grand to fix the damage.

JustRidecp

Pirahna wrote:

I chucked a Ducati 996 down the road on a test ride a few years ago. I had no intention at all of buying the thing, I just fancied a go on it. Cost me the best part of a grand to fix the damage.

Ouch dude. Lovely bike though.

sonicred007

Yep. Picked my bike up and had practiced with clipless pedals the week before on my hybrid. My swanky new road bike got me within 2 miles of home from the shop and I got stuck in my pedlas and fell to one side causing minor damage to the steed and flush cheeks to me

Aidocp

Not on its first outing but a couple of years ago when I was taking the Sirrus for its 1st service. I was going downhill about 25-30mph (If I remember right the speedo topped out at 30), the road takes a 90deg turn left at the bottom. When I got there I met a van coming the opposite way, but slightly on the wrong side of the road. I skidded a bit trying to keep control of/ protect the new bike but as I skidded towards a following people carrier, I thought, sod the bike jump. Other than a few scrapes on the grips and pedals both me and the bike were OK.

term1te

When I was about 8 I went to a friend’s birthday party. The birthday boy was showing off his brand new bike and managed to somehow get his foot into the front spokes whilst cycling round the garden. There wasn’t too much damage to the bike, or the foot, but there were many tears and the party finished early. I think it was just the last straw for the mother, as we had already broken several banisters on their stairs and locked his younger brother in a cupboard.

Pirahna

Aidocp wrote:

I was going downhill about 25-30mph (If I remember right the speedo topped out at 30), the road takes a 90deg turn left at the bottom. When I got there I met a van coming the opposite way, but slightly on the wrong side of the road.

Bad line on your part, you should have been as far over to the right as possible for the left hander. This maximises your view around the bend, making it easier to spot problems earlier. It's also a lot faster through the corner.

knedlicky

Not crashed a new bike, but a few years ago at the start of our 2-week holiday in the south of France, when my new shiney Somec was on the car roof, and me not in the car but 100 metres away, my wife tried to drive through a low tunnel in Beziers and got stuck.

The bike was held so tightly between car rack and tunnel roof that I didn't want the car to be put in reverse, for fear more damage might be caused. So I had to carefully dismantle the roof rack in order to extract the bike. Quite a queue built up behind us!

I could see the saddle cover leather was ripped, a chunk taken out of the saddle nose, and the handlebar stem paintwork scratched, but I feared worse may have happened.

I rode the bike during the holiday but when back home, I took it to my LBS (where I'd only picked it up 3-4 weeks earlier) and they checked its geometry and also electronically scanned it for invisible hairline cracks. Thankfully it was all alright.

Aidocp

Pirahna wrote:

Aidocp wrote:

I was going downhill about 25-30mph (If I remember right the speedo topped out at 30), the road takes a 90deg turn left at the bottom. When I got there I met a van coming the opposite way, but slightly on the wrong side of the road.

Bad line on your part, you should have been as far over to the right as possible for the left hander. This maximises your view around the bend, making it easier to spot problems earlier. It's also a lot faster through the corner.

Any further right, I'd been dead, I was just inside the centre line. Its a bad corner there's been lots of crashes there and I should of slowed down more.

pipeman

nickcuk wrote:

A dog peed on mine when I went back to the shop door to close it. But it is a raleigh hybrid - the dog obviously knows more about bikes than I do

:shock: nowt wrong with the "RALEIGH" :shock: