Have I had my first proper crash?

Kelster3000

Hello,
With a nice 200 miles of xc under my belt now, I wanted to see whether I have had my first proper crash yet, now I have fallen over many times with the old SPD trick, until I realised that I can losen the tension of the grips! however I wanted to see whether I have had a proper crash yet.

It happened last Sunday, it was nice and warm, and really dry, I was on my Hard rock sport with panaracers 1.8 tyres (first mistake!), with friends who are far more fitter and experienced than me despite being much older! were going down a farm track at some speed where I got caught in the big tyre groove, they then turn off down a single track I tried to but kinda bounced out off the tyre track lost the front and with bike hit the deck and skidded until coming to a grazed and bruised stop, my injuries
grazed all right side of elbows, knees with some big bruises, bruised ankles,

Bike, injuries
bent and twisted hanger

Is the above a proper crash have I now properly lost my cherry?

Many thanks

Specialized Hard Rock Sport
SLX crankset, SPDs, 1.8 Panaracers,

myopic

Sounds like it , but if you want to have a bigger one, its possible (up to a point.........)

edhornby

id say yes as well, you have visible injuries and repairs needed

if neither of the categories above are achieved you would probably downgrade it to an 'off' as opposed to 'crash'

if you are still clipped in/holding the bike this is then reduced to 'spill'

8)

(incidentally the categories above have been invented by me, just now, please feel free to pitch in if you want to amend or improve definitions )

Kelster3000

This was a "crash" moment, has I became unclipped, the bruises are fading and grazing gone; however on a slightly more serious side it did make me think, that you can actually hurt yourself pretty badly, if I was going faster and it involed a tree ect ect, up until last week I did not really consider that,

Ditch Witch

Oooo! How about me?!


We (mr DW and I) were finishing a ride and he took the direct route back which involved a drop and climb that I didn't feel up to so I took a more circuitous route.

I came blasting round a corner only to find path blocked by about 6 feet of tree roots, probably 6" high*. I hit them before I could stop and, being clipped in, couldn't get my feet down when the wheels went out from under me onto said ouchy, pointy roots.

Injuries: various scrapes and bruises to leg, elbow and pride.



* exaggeration alert, it was more like 3", but so many blokes have told me that measure WAS 6" that who am I to argue?




Does that count?

fred1star

Did your mates see it??? If so and they all laughed out load while ambling over to see if your ok then I would say it was a minor crash...

A proper crash is when your mates instantly drop their bikes and come running over not making a sound to see if your still alive..... then start laughing as they see you are rolling around still alive all be it with your elbow split in half and broken coller bone... :shock:

Bikerbaboon

First crash.

Slipped of the first rock section of the stainburn DH run.
Managed to stop my fall using my face.

damage to me.

Split lip and 2 black eyes.

damage to bike.

crack though the frame.... through the top and down tube about 4 ich from the headset....
Still finished the run thinking i have just mashed the headset as there was slight play in the forks. :shock:

Remember pain is just weekness leaveing the body.

Kelster3000

Ok mine was a pretty lame crash in comparision to those!

Ditch Witch

And mine

SleepyLea

Hmm, massive n00b here, and although I have been bitten by the biking bug, I think this thread is making me cautious!!!!

cee

I did a flyer over the bars yesterday afternoon.

didn't quite manage to flick my back wheel round/over a rock, got snagged on it...the bike stopped...i didn't...

landed on the trail on my right side so I am sporting a shoulder injury (skin punctured and grazed off....bruised upper arm ), plus a few minor bruises to my right hip.

ripped a hole in my fleece....got a hole in my glove....bent my rear mech.

:P

Kelster3000

SleepyLea wrote:

Hmm, massive n00b here, and although I have been bitten by the biking bug, I think this thread is making me cautious!!!!

Hi I have the bug, and really enjoying riding and I had a good few bruises cuts and grazes on the way. This thread was really for fun more than anything else, as I am just so please that over the last couple of weeks I have no longer done the new SPD fall offs with my bike, and crashes are actually quite refreshing in comparision, but they hurt more! And my friend who has been biking for many years and is super experienced with downhill, freeride, xc, ect ect had a really bad crash a couple of weeks ago when he had pretty bad concusion, just makes me feel a little more fragile, which is a good thing as I am begining to get the sense that you can hurt yourself pretty badly and it just makes you respect the skill thats involved

Ditch Witch

SleepyLea wrote:

Hmm, massive n00b here, and although I have been bitten by the biking bug, I think this thread is making me cautious!!!!

Well, cautious is OK as long as it doesn't stunt your growth as a rider.

Most of the huge smashes you hear about will be because people are really tanking it (accidents are kind of hard to avoid that way) or riding well outside of their ability (much more rare, but does stil happen).

You can enjoy a perfectly safe mtb lifestyle, don't worry.

I'm just not that smart :roll:

cee

Ditch Witch wrote:

SleepyLea wrote:

Hmm, massive n00b here, and although I have been bitten by the biking bug, I think this thread is making me cautious!!!!

Well, cautious is OK as long as it doesn't stunt your growth as a rider.

Most of the huge smashes you hear about will be because people are really tanking it (accidents are kind of hard to avoid that way) or riding well outside of their ability (much more rare, but does stil happen).

You can enjoy a perfectly safe mtb lifestyle, don't worry.

I'm just not that smart :roll:

agreed.... i don't count my little crash yesterday as a serious one.....

i am afraid to say that the odd scrape is what you can expect....you will learn to enjoy them

as someone else said....you know its a bad crash if your mates are right by your side not laughing.....if they are laughing..you are fine.

SleepyLea

I know that falling off is part of the ride so to speak, and it was kinda ment in jest. I suppose crashes are to riding, as the size of fish is to fishing. Will report back once I have produced some blood, or an xray or two! lol

SDK2007

fred1star wrote:

A proper crash is when your mates instantly drop their bikes and come running over not making a sound to see if your still alive..... then start laughing as they see you are rolling around still alive all be it with your elbow split in half and broken coller bone... :shock:

So true.
I've had two of those moments; one was a high speed off at Coed y Brenin in the Uncle Fester section and other was two weeks ago when I came off and snapped my Collar Bone.

xand_xand

Im a complete muppett too! went over the handlebars after the first section at cannock chase last week....got 2 massive thigh bruises to prove it! The worse thing was my bike following me over and landing on my head......thank god for the lid.

The good news though - no audience! Phew.

Stephen-Hawking

Becoming detached from the bike at any speed, but without significant damage to me or the bike is classed as a 'minor off'.

Damage to me or the bike that either hurts or costs, but not to such a degree that the OH notices is an 'off, big off' or 'minor crash'

Damage to me or the bike to such a degree that a nagging along the lines of 'How Much!!' or 'look at the state of you!!' is a crash.

Anything that requires either hospital treatment or the bike arriving home sperately from me is a 'big crash'.

I'm 47, should I really have a set of categories like this ??

fred1star

Took my girlfriend out for a ride on dartmoor last year we were out longer than anticipated ... My Light & Motion Lion Ultras were sat at home in their box, not ideal as its getting dark... I took the lead explaining I better go infront, at that instant went down a great hole over my bars... I was left with an imprint of my crank in my knee and shin.
You gotta laugh at these things

cullen_bay

you also have to be unable to clip out in time while falling/ flipping, but find that you are completely unattached to the bike when you have awoken/ tried to move.

have to say that my first big off was 1 month ago, after 3 years of riding spds (i have had many falls like the OP.

i was going down a techy xc course on my new carbon fibre hardtail. i hit a root, over i went and the forks collapsed. =( i was damaged, the forks were damaged, and worse than that, i had to fix the bike to race!

Zeroman_IR

Last biggish one was about a month ago. We've some great trails around here, they tend towards the sketchy though. Was coming down a rough descent with 2 ruts on either side of where I was (think jeep tracks but no way was any jeep gonna travel that terrain. Heh!) Got bounced into one of the ruts, front wheel stopped dead, back whipped around so I got ejected off the side at speed to land on my front about 15 feet down the slope and slide most of the way to the bottom. Fortunately the speed and distance I was thrown robbed most of the impact force. The horrified looks from the lads were priceless though (don't know why I was looking at them while I was airborne). Bruised ribs and a few scrapes but that was the worst of it.

KonaKurt

As wise chinese man once say, "wong bad crash is a bad crash too many"!

My one bad crash was 3 years ago, when I stopped at the very top of the beacon of the Malvern Hills, and then lost my balance. I only fell a few metres in height, but BADLY and HARD onto some rocks, twisting my knee 180 degs! I fully recovered after about 6 months amazingly, but to this day hate the sound of people breaking open roast chicken legs!!

When you have had your first bad accident, you will either regret it and never take big risks again, or not care and keep repeating needless injuries!

KK

http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp29 ... eShot6.jpg

PS: Always wear knee pads, well worth it.

Luke-Dob

Any crash that involves bones breaking is a proper crash to me.

Worst one had to be jumping and slipping off the pedals mid flight. 6ft in the air to hard clay left me with 2 breaks in my right shoulder (coller bone and shoulder blade) and my right wrist had a compound fracture. Not fun having exams the week after

waddlie

Back in the day a mate and I were having a wheelie competition. Just as I was laying on the power, the chain snapped and I pitched forward face-first onto the gravelly road we were riding on. Chipped three teeth and removed all the skin from the right hand side of my face. For a week afterwards people were asking me why I didn't clean the dried blood off my face; they didn't realise the dried blood was my face and there was nothing underneath it.

The worst bit was, as I was falling off I knew it was going to hurt and thought to myself "why couldn't I have hurt myself in a proper gnarly off-road downhill at 35mph instead of scraping my face off outstde someone's 3-bed semi."