What is the most embarrassing crash you have ever had?

Aldo001

Mine was probably the time that I slid into the side window of my local Tesco making a very loud noise!
The pavement was slick, I was going fast and decided it would be fun to get some air whilst turning like i usually do. The bike slide away from me, crashed into the window, and I got many bad looks from the shoppers!
Your turn

Airienteer

On the Walna Scar Road there's this rock formation with a deep cut through the middle of it. I've hit it before but this time I was going a touch too fast. I left my bike, fell right down the mini gorge thing and landed at the bottom, right infront of a group of about 20 12 year old scouts. Needless to say there was much laughing, and not by me :oops:

Chaz.Harding

It's not on a MTB, so does this still count???

Anyway, on my MX bike, going round a tight 180 degree turn to slow, leaning over wayyyy to far, in second gear. I opened the throttle, stalled (this was all at literally 2 mph) and just walked off the bike... It must have looked so lame... :oops:

Tim.s

I may or may not have had my front wheel slide out whilst riding through the fountains in Bristol city center, Japanese people took photos of the tangled giggling mess.

I say MAY of because riding through those fountains is not big or clever

GSDog

When I was younger and trying to impress some 'chicks' I was meeting. I took my sweater off and put it over my handlebars then started cycling towards them, the sweater fell off and went into the front wheel. The bike virtually stopped dead and I went flying forward into the headset, crushing my jewels.
I tried to pretend I was OK but I was in agony!

Aldo001

Oooh
12 year old scouts watching is worse than loads of old ladies
MX "crash" sounds awesome
crushing the jewels is never good ...

geordiefreerider

Has to be on a ride with 2 of my mates when i lived in eastbourne, we were coming riding down from beachy head back into eastbourne down a long steep hill when they started braking and i hurtled past going "what ya slowing down for ya faggots" !

Thats when i saw the steps !!

soy_sauce

i was looking down at the padels to try to see what causing the noise but as soon as i realised it, my front wheel was on the grass and i was falling into a tree/bush.

so i put the break on (as i always use the front break instead of the rear one, guess which one i was using..lol), i end up over the handle bar and land on the muddy grass.lol

Chaz.Harding

Aldo001 - sorry to say, but it was about as super-sick, insane-hardcore as backing a victoria sponge :oops:

plasma_man

2 days ago, coming home from work, came to a path where there are metal rails to stop bikers flying through a pedestrian zone, there was a space next to it, thought I could nip through ahead of 2 women and prame, squeezed through then something caught the edge of it and I fell into a metal railing, arm is black n blue, knee bleeding, I got up, said sorry, they looked a bit shocked, 2mph crash but went down with a thump. I could here them gasp as I hut the deck, feet al twisted in the frame, what an idiot!

I pulled my back muscle too so I cant walk straight up, more like a monkey.....

Aldo001

bigchazrocks wrote:

Aldo001 - sorry to say, but it was about as super-sick, insane-hardcore as backing a victoria sponge :oops:

I should have said awesome to watch for sheer comedy value :P

Steve Legend

A few months ago I was just rolling over a log into a small drop and the teeth of my chainring dug in and was balanced perfectly on the top but going slowly over the front...straight onto the tarmac!

It was the slowest, most painful crash, my leg was black and blue, as were my elbows and pride...funniest thing was I was stuck and couldn't get from under the bike! Seemed to take me ages! Ha ha ha, I looked round a a couple were watching me so walked of calmly but in agony!

No sympathy from the missus either!

wordnumb

Tim.s wrote:

I say MAY of because riding through those fountains is not big or clever

Disagree. As those particular fountains are neither big nor clever I'd say that it is big and clever to ride through them - they serve no other purpose. Were the fountains themselves either big or clever then it would be less big / clever to ride through them.

I've only crashed once. Nobody witnessed it. I sat there on the trail trying to work out what happened. It slowly dawned on me that although I hadn't injured myself falling off, sitting in the middle of a fast section of a mountain bike trail - Afan's The Wall, since you ask - would very likely result in pain.

I need to crash more, get some proper stories.

waddlie

Back in '96, hammering through a council estate with a friend. He swerved to miss a concrete bollard, my shiny new bike had V-brakes which I wasn't used to and Powergrips (remember them? A strip of neoprene attached to your pedals which were far, far cooler than ordinary toe-clips)... grabbed a handful of brakes, over the bars I went still firmly attached to my bike and landed on my head.

Ouchie.

Raymondavalon

Swinley Forest last year. We were watching the DH and JB riders in the gully while having a break.
I climb on the bike, kick off and as I move forward about 6 inches my front wheel hits a little tree stump I didn't see.. man down in front of about 20 people. Mutter obscenities about myself to myself, collect the bike, dust off and ride off with the saddle about 15º to the right but too proud to stop and straighten it out there and then..

amt27

riding up a hill on the road, eyes down, straight into the back of a stationery car, head went through the rear window, chin caught some shattered glass on the way out, collapsed on the pavement, blood everywhere,

phz

amt27 wrote:

riding up a hill on the road, eyes down, straight into the back of a stationery car, head went through the rear window, chin caught some shattered glass on the way out, collapsed on the pavement, blood everywhere,

similar

years ago as a kid was late for school - tearing up the road head down and didnt see the parked car - hit the front bumper rolled up the bonnet and bit the wing mirror off before tumbling into the road - had to walk back home with a crumpled bike and an exposed nerve from where my front tooth had smashed in half dangling in the winter wind ...

did similar a few years back on my way home from a ride - tore round a corner onto my estate and somersaulted over a car parked too close to the junction - one side of face went totally black and blue where i hit the roof - rushed to the doctors fearing id cracked a cheekbone or something only to have it pointed out by the nurse that it wasnt bruising but just dirt and grease from the car body !

also had a mate years ago do the comedy classic of riding into the back of an open transit van !

slainte :oops: rob

leo321

i just got back from a ride about a month ago, cleaned the bike when i got back and when done i rode around the block to check brakes/gears were working as they should etc, i popped a wheelie in front of my house and looped out, i ended up on my back with bike on top of me, i live across the road from a block of student flats there must of been 30 students stood in the windows and my new next door neighbor ran out to ask if i was ok, i got up quick with a bleeding elbow and said im fine but wanted to roll round on the floor in agony.

fourcrossjohn

my fisr dirt jump

egged on by my mates who had been doing it for years

went over the lip back end flipped up i fell nose firts intothe side of the table top where my wheel meet a pretruding branch and i cartwheeled in the air

had to get a new bike new helmet new sunglasses and new underwear

rudedog

I went over my handlebars from a standing start when my chain slipped - it just happened to be In front of about 200 students on a really hot day in Kelvin Grove park in Glasgow.

djvagabon

Its when it snowed earlier in the year. I went out and didnt fall off all day, that was until the end of the ride. I had done a pretty technical course without coming off once. I rode onto the car park where there is a cafe. There was about 50 people, walkers and other mountain bikers. I was riding along and my front wheel went down a big pot hole that was frozen over and covered in snow. I never even saw it. I went straight over the handlebars in front of everyone. Most of the people saw me and started laughing.

welshkev

i was trying to show off a bit when i was younger and me and a mate had just come back for a ride into the pub car park as a group of girls came out of the pub. i started to do a rolling endo down the car park to my car...........i then over balanced flipped over the bars and ended up in a heap at the first girls feet as she then deftly stepped around me and all her mates laughed as i peeled myself off the concrete and sloped off to my car!!!! :oops:

Aldo001

amt27 wrote:

riding up a hill on the road, eyes down, straight into the back of a stationery car, head went through the rear window, chin caught some shattered glass on the way out, collapsed on the pavement, blood everywhere,

I had a similar experience only going downhill and involving speedbumps... i came flying down the road, jumping the humps, i forgot that cars slowed down for humps and i nearly crased,mid air, into th back of a car

I came f

myopic

Crashed and tore the a**e out of my shorts half way round the red run at Glentress. It was a draughty ride back to the Hub.... :oops:

amt27

amt27 wrote:

riding up a hill on the road, eyes down, straight into the back of a stationery car, head went through the rear window, chin caught some shattered glass on the way out, collapsed on the pavement, blood everywhere,

I would add that the car was actually parked, two girls walking on the opposite side started laughing, no surprise as they have just witnessed a someone ride straight into the back of a parked car,

the car was owned by a nurse and parked outside a small hospital, which was both fortunate and unfortunate, she called the police and I was in the hospital with glass being pulled out of my chin, a nurse crying and a policeman interviewing me, a moped rider did the same thing 2 months before to the same car,

I was at college at the time and had no end of piss taking when I went in with a big bandage on my chin, plus my bike was totalled,

gaz047

riding "uphill" at llandegla, manualling through puddles before the 1st black run.
pulled back too much on the bars, tried to recover, no chance. straight off the back, got a bruised pelvis where my back hit the ground, my head hit next, lost most of my hearing for about 2 mins (yes was wearing a lid, thank god!) and cut my right arm to bits. took 5 min breather and then cracked on at a steady pace (in some discomfort!). :oops:
been off the bike for a week now so v.v. frustrated :evil:

shin0r

At Cwmcarn, at the end of the singletrack section just before the small section of fire road that takes you to the very top. On a brand new bike (an Orange, yeah, yeah ), completed the section, went up the off-ramp, stopped, lost my balance, fell off and the bike ended up 50 yards down the mountain with me close behind it. There must have been at least 15 people watching it all, I wonder if they've stopped laughing yet?

Soul Boy

Just stopped to quickly pop into the newsagents.

Swung my leg over the stead, headed to the pavement edge and dropped the front wheel onto the road, realised I'm over balanced and start to go over the bars. I think I've got it under control though, cool. But thats when the bungy cord on my backpack caught under the saddle bringing the back of the bike up for a second time. Queue a tumble over the bars onto the road with bike attached by bungy cord. No damage to anything other than pride. :oops:

cat_with_no_tail

Steep hill
Very Wet Grass
Too much speed
Too much brakes
Bike slides out from under me and I go sliding Superman stylee on my stomach over the very wet grass for quite some way, right through the middle of a group of walkers.
My how they laughed :oops:
To be fair though, it must have looked bloody hilarious, and one of them did trek back up the hill and fetch my bike for me, which was nice.

spongtastic

New bike park + middle aged person on bike set up for xc run + sudden turn and jump = too much air, no control and a bunch of laughing school kids who had skived off to go biking.
But at least one of them let me borrow their max max for a proper run.

junglist_matty

I've had 2 embarassing crashes:

1. Cycling to the station to goto college, going past a school just before 9am, so loads of kids everywhere hanging about the school gates, saw parked car ahead, looked behind to see if it was clear to get past it, looked back forward again, parked car was 2m in front of me, next thing, bang, hit the middle of the bumper, rolled up the bonnet and into the windscreen - right in front of the whole school!!! - Snapped the forks in the process (rock shock jets) so had to walk away with front wheel in one hand and rest of the bike in the other - after having to speak to the owner of the car!

2. At uni, got to my bike, had a puncture, so I fixed it up, went to tighten the QR to put the wheel back on the bike and the QR bar just snapped in the middle, decided I'd ride carefully home knowning the front wheel would be fine so long as I didn't lift the front end and rode slow.... Got all the way home, totally forgot about the snapped QR, pulled up on the front wheel to mount the pavement, wheel got tangled in the V-Brake, forks ended up getting tangled in the spokes, front end stopped dead, I went flying over the bars dumped on the pavement right in front of a bus stop of people and a crowded street