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Nearly wrecked my new bike

TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
edited August 2008 in Road beginners
Went out yesterday at about 6pm for only my second outing on my new Trek 1.7 and was having a pretty good time. I'd been out for about half an hour and was riding along a fairly busy road when a bloke, who was standing on the pavement, decided to cross the road without looking left or right.

If he'd crossed well down the road I could've stopped, but he didn't. It was about 20ft in front of me. I shouted at him whilst trying to brake. BANG!

Impact speed was 36.7mph according to my Garmin 305. The force knocked him back off the road, over the pavement and onto the grass verge.

I skidded along the road on my left hand side losing lots of skin in the process and bursting open my thumb. The levers/shifters on my bike are all bent in and look as if someone has been at them with a sander and ground them down, as is the quick release lever on my rear wheel.

I 'expressed' my unhappiness at him in quite a vigorous manner, leaving him in no doubt as to my feelings :)

What did he say? "Sorry, I didn't see you." :evil: :evil: :evil:

So I spent several hours in hospital last night.

Did anyone else have a good Friday night? :)

Richie

Posts

  • NWLondonerNWLondoner Posts: 2,047
    Ouch!!!!

    I hope your not too badly injured.

    Sod that how's the bike???

    Did you inform the police and/or get his details?

    On the bright side you now have an excuse to sit down all day and watch the track cycling.
  • TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
    NWLondoner wrote:
    Sod that how's the bike???
    :) My exact thoughts at the time - and afterwards. The missus was fussing about trying to get me in the car to go to hospital and I was like "Let's just check me bike before we go." Apart from the damage mentioned there doesn't seem to be anything else. I've properly scanned the frame/forks etc.
    NWLondoner wrote:
    Did you inform the police and/or get his details?
    I didn't even think about it. I was trying not to strangle him at the time so the thought didn't even cross my mind.
    NWLondoner wrote:
    On the bright side you now have an excuse to sit down all day and watch the track cycling.
    That's exactly what I've been doing :) Come on Team GB!
  • BronzieBronzie Posts: 4,927
    Bad luck Tricky - looking on the bright side at least you are in one (slightly damaged) piece. I know a guy, top time trialler, who was knocked off his bike by a drunken Pole walking off the pavement in front of him (he looked the wrong way!) - smashed his hip socket and is still recovering 18 months later.
    It's a Lifestyle! -+-+- Coggan Training Levels
  • TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
    What a coincidence, cos this bloke was Polish as well. He wasn't drunk though.

    It was mentioned by my father in law that he could've been looking the other way, but he didn't look either way. He just stepped out.

    Bike is only 4 days old as well :(

    Richie
  • carl_pcarl_p Posts: 989
    Glad you and the bike are ok.

    36.7 mph you've got to be happy with that.
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  • a_n_ta_n_t Posts: 2,011
    Carl_P wrote:

    36.7 mph you've got to be happy with that.


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  • LagavulinLagavulin Posts: 1,688
    Nasty. Hope both you and bike are back up and running soon.

    p.s. respect re clocking that speed.
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  • TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
    I didn't realise I was going that fast until I checked it out later when uploading it to my pc. It brought a slight smile to my face :) Although, in hindsight, it probably wasn't appropriate for the area.

    The smile didn't last long though. In all the commotion of the aftermath, (tidying myself up, checking my bike, putting the chain on etc) I didn't realise until I got home that I'd forgot to press 'stop' so my average was way down :(

    Richie
  • BuglyBugly Posts: 520
    I am sorry about your accident but the 37mph may actually be the speed of the Garmin (assuming it gets its speed reading via GPS signal) itself during the impact not your actual velocity in the road.
  • AmbermileAmbermile Posts: 117
    Trickyupnorth wrote:
    I'd forgot to press 'stop' so my average was way down :(

    Richie

    ... and therein lies the true calamity. *Always* remember the electronics 8)

    Arthur

    PS - good to hear you're OK and looking on the happy side of things, but will that lapse mess up your averages?
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  • TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
    Bugly wrote:
    the 37mph may actually be the speed of the Garmin (assuming it gets its speed reading via GPS signal) itself during the impact not your actual velocity in the road.

    :?

    "the speed of the Garmin" - but if the garmin is attached to my bike, and it says 36.7mph, doesn't it mean that's the speed I'm travelling at? And when the garmin says 20mph doesn't it mean I'm travelling at 20mph?

    Sorry to sound a bit thick, but I'm not following you.

    Richie
  • InfamousInfamous Posts: 1,130
    You gotta be really belting it downhill to get that speed, and you were on a busy street and braking.... and if you did crash at that speed, I can't imagine you'd be out of hospital by now.

    you sure it wasn't kmh?
  • NorwegianBlueNorwegianBlue Posts: 484
    Infamous wrote:
    You gotta be really belting it downhill to get that speed, and you were on a busy street and braking.... and if you did crash at that speed, I can't imagine you'd be out of hospital by now.

    you sure it wasn't kmh?

    I've stepped off motorbikes going faster than that with nothing more than grazing. And before you say it, no I was never one to wear much in the way of protective clothing. I would have been considered a bit soft by my peer group had I been wearing any more than trainers, jeans and a bomber jacket. Oh and a helmet of course, those of us prone to riding heavilly tuned elsie's weren't going to break any laws we we? :wink:
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  • feelfeel Posts: 800
    Have had several similar experiences where pedestrians step out in front of me, (and cars pulling out in front of me as well) fortunately have always managed to avoid the impact. I came to the conclusion that a lot of people "look" just for cars, and bicycles don't register with them. I started using my bright flashing led light whenever i'm in a built up area and it has not happened since. It either helps or i've just been really lucky.
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  • BuglyBugly Posts: 520
    sorry to upset you - I dont know if the Garmin has a wheel sensor or used gps to calculate speed. My point was that if the speed comes from the GPS its possible that the speed being displayed is the actual velocity of the bike while in the shunt not the forward velocity while you were still riding. Either way its no concilation to the damage done to you or the bike.
  • il_principeil_principe Posts: 9,152
    Bugly wrote:
    sorry to upset you - I dont know if the Garmin has a wheel sensor or used gps to calculate speed. My point was that if the speed comes from the GPS its possible that the speed being displayed is the actual velocity of the bike while in the shunt not the forward velocity while you were still riding. Either way its no concilation to the damage done to you or the bike.

    I don't see how a collision is going to make the bike accelerate - the OP wasn't hit from behind... so surely if it is the speed during the collision it'd be slower...

    On the other hand I'm mathematically challenged.
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  • keef66keef66 Posts: 13,123
    I'm with jashburnham on this one. Unless you had the presence of mind to throw your Garmin at the pedestrian prior to the collision, your maximum velocity would have been just before impact with the cretin.

    Nothing about the crash would make the gps suddenly go faster, unless you collided with a suicide bomber. In which case I doubt we'd be having this discussion.
  • TrickyupnorthTrickyupnorth Posts: 65
    Bugly wrote:
    sorry to upset you - I dont know if the Garmin has a wheel sensor or used gps to calculate speed. My point was that if the speed comes from the GPS its possible that the speed being displayed is the actual velocity of the bike while in the shunt not the forward velocity while you were still riding. Either way its no concilation to the damage done to you or the bike.

    No mate, you haven't upset me at all. You can get technical all you like, but the fact remains, I uploaded the data to my PC and the route I took is overlaid onto a satellite map. I clicked on the route at the point of impact and it gave me that speed.

    Clicking slightly further along the route shows my speed at zero, cos my bike was propped up against a telegraph pole whilst I put the chain back on. :(

    At the end of the day, I only put the speed on as I thought someone would ask. Millions of people have went faster than me and millions more will continue to do so. It doesn't bother me at all. I'm not some teenage kid with a fascination for speed, I'm a family man approaching 40.

    As mentioned previously, in hindsight I think I was going too fast for the area so won't make the mistake again. 8)

    Richie
  • Andyb10Andyb10 Posts: 126
    Yeah, and it's not just pedestrians either. Anyone elso almost crashed into "fellow" cyclists who just ride off the pavement onto the road without looking?

    That really p****s me off!
  • NorwegianBlueNorwegianBlue Posts: 484
    A lot of people don't seem to be able to judge the speed of a bike, or indeed anything else. They just seem to have a table in their head of speed against vehicle type. It goes something like:

    Car - 35mph
    Bike - 8mph
    Ped - 3mph

    and so on...

    They expect each vehicle to be doing a certain speed and act accordingly. And if that isn't bad enough they have absolutely no concept of acceleration.
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  • ScrumpleScrumple Posts: 2,665
    Speed = Distance / time.

    The Garmin will track distance via GPS location, it has the time from the sat feed, and work out speed by maths.
    GPS does not measure "speed" itself.

    There is no way you were doing 37 at impact. There is no way the garmin got faster when being flung forward at impact. You can't add energy from a static body, the man you hit didn't do anything to propel you further.

    Look again at how far you went, and divide by the time. Your average will be no where near 37mph.

    Kph ????
  • NorwegianBlueNorwegianBlue Posts: 484
    Scrumple wrote:
    There is no way you were doing 37 at impact.

    Why not? Were you there?
    "Swearing, it turns out, is big and clever" - Jarvis Cocker
  • dave0992dave0992 Posts: 27
    this is my first ever post on the site, been cycling for 2 months now but i feel for you, already i have noticed that my greatest threat comes from people crossign the road, maybe they assume we all peddle along at 5 mph?
  • graeme_s-2graeme_s-2 Posts: 3,382
    Scrumple wrote:
    Look again at how far you went, and divide by the time. Your average will be no where near 37mph.

    He didn't say his average speed for the route was 37mph, he said he was doing 37mph when he hit the pedestrian.

    Sorry to hear about the damage to your bike Trickyupnorth, glad you escaped with relatively minor injuries!
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