Most Embarrassing Fall

Kiblams

I have had a few rediculous offs, but not sure they were embarassing (I was young)

The first was either the day, or the day after I learned to ride my bike. My brother was teaching me on some decrepid mess of a bike when I was about 7. Once I got the hang of turning etc he decided I should try a curb jump into the road (you know where the curb ramps up next to a driveway) and just as I was about to pull the front up; the front canti brake came away from the frame (must have been a loose bolt) and jammed the front wheel sending me flying into the middle of the road landing on my head (no helmet back in those days) lots of crying on the run into the house to my parents.

It seemed I started as I planned to go on as within a year of that; we went for a nice ride as a family to dovedale and I wasn't paying attention at all looking down in awe at my feet no doubt. When I looked up there was a horde of '20-somethings' right infront of me, I slammed on my brakes, resulting in another flying lesson over the handlebars to land about a foot in front of all people :shock:

Recently though I only tend to fall when not paying attention on technical climbs, usually involves missing a pedal stroke when ne is needed and stalling the bike, then instead of falling towards the hill on oneside of me where I could put a foot down; I fall sideways down the hill to my otherside and am more or less upside down before my foot touches anything :roll: . Not too painful, but pretty embarassing I guess.

Kiblams

How on earth did I manage to forget the time I was about 12 and into riding none-handed constantly, slid off the front of he saddle while at some speed and ended up doing some kind of jogging over the top-tube until I stopped. Needless to say that there was bleeding down-under :x

delcol

just remembered

was about 14-15 into my bmxing. was heading out to the local mini ramp about 7 mile away, i had my standard shorty bmx with a so called standard heat treated chain (heat treated to make it stronger) we were going up a slight hill and there was a bus stopped at the side of the road,,,
i was in front of the group i stand up and start to sprint past the bus i see the bus indicate i stamp on the pedals to go faster i hear this masive crack ping my so called heat treated strong chain snaps my feet fly off the pedals i whak my nuts on saddle hard plastic bmx saddle.. i go flying off the bike bounce off the side of the bus and roll across the road bike flying through the air then bouncing down the road...

everyone on the bus hears the bang as hit it and looks out the window to see me flying and roll across the road... the driver of the car coming the other way didn't laugh as had to swerve to avoid me and my bike... thank foook i had knee pads on... has to roll home chainless about 4 mile.. :oops: :oops:

colt

Not mine but my mate's 15 year old son. We went to the Malverns last summer and were riding up a really steep set of switchbacks, each corner must take you up at least 20 ft or so, got to one corner where the path was quite narrow and the undergrowth had hidden the edge, I was in front and had gone another 30 metre's or so when I hear HELP !! HELP !! being called from behind, so I dropped my bike and run back to find Jake my mates son had stopped on said corner and put his foot down..... only to find theres nothing there so over the edge he went!

Luckily for him there were plenty of strong brambles to catch him falling all the way down to the next corner, and he was nestled flat on his back in all this undergrowth about 4ft below me unable to climb out, We had to wait for his dad and my mate to catch up so we could form a human chain to pull him out! He came out with more punture wounds and scratches than Ive ever seen I dont think I've ever laughed so hard. In fact I think my mate's still got the piccies we took before pulling him out, if he has I'll post em up. :twisted:

touchy

Had a few good falls in my time.

Once tried to adjust my seatpost on the fly. I had been playing around on some jumps in the morning so i had my seat right down. Then i had to go 3-4 miles into town later so i jumped on my bike. Realised my seat was too low to cycle properly and instead of stopping to lift it, i tried to do it while cycling. I managed to undo the quick release and started to pull the seat up. Got it a bit wrong, the seatpost came right out of the frame and i fell over. Still have scars on my elbow from that.

Also, my one and only clipless moment (so far anyway). I was trying to get off the road and onto a track at the side. So slow down and unclip my left foot. Stop and put my foot down. Then try walk my bike up the kerb with one foot clipped in. Wobbled the wrong way and hit the deck.

JamesBrckmn

It's strange that everyone is saying things like 'after i crashed i just checked to see that nobody saw me', and then you go and tell everybody about it on here, and even post videos.

yoohoo999

I came an absolute cropper last summer that was my own fault and I was lucky no one was injured.

I was tearing down a long downhill footpath in Roundhay Park in Leeds when I spotted a group of around 5 or 6 girls taking up the whole path about 50 metres in front of me (with their backs to me)

Problem was, to the left was a substantial drop onto a grass cycling circuit (I was more concerned about keeping momentum as opposed to the drop itself!), and to my right was a 45 degree grass bank.

Instead of grabbing the brakes (I'd had a few pints at the Roundhay Fox beforehand, so my reasoning wasn't brilliant) I felt invincible enough to bunnyhop up onto the grass bank to the right of the girls, wall ride it for a few metres and then drop back onto the path. All while doing about 30mph.

Sadly, I got it all wrong and didn't pull my front wheel up quickly enough, causing it to catch on the 4" high kerb at the edge of the path.

I went flying over the bars at just under 30mph, straight past the girls, full somersault, and landed quite well (all things considered) about 5 metres in front of them with my bike not far behind.

All of them absolutely shit themselves and came to check if I was OK. My mate had been riding behind me and saw it all. He was stuggling to breathe from laughing.

I actually feel quite guilty about it - if my bike or I had came off 2ft further left I could have injured one of the girls. No more silly stuff on paths after that :oops:

JumperSimon14

My worst was when i was just on my lane on my BMX and i was doing Foot-Jam tail whips and there was a part of my tire that was damp and my foot went on that exact bit so the bike just continued forwards and i fell flat on top of the bike so i got up looked around to see if anyone saw and just carried on as if it had never happened when i saw someone walking there dog coming up from the river :P

Th3 Firestarter

Most of my worst crashes were as a child/teenager.
Age 10, learning to ride no handed, hit a pot hole in the road and crashed, taking a chunk out of the back of my left leg on the pedal.
Age 16, me and my then best mate were hurtling down a small DH course we made in the woods. Halfway down was a small jump. I was riding behind my mate, as he flew over the jump, a low hanging tree branch bounced off his helmet and hit me in the face. This made me lose control as I landed from the jump, my seat snapped off the seatpost as my arse hit it, and I ended up disappearing into the bushes with my arse rubbing on the back wheel. Ouch.

bikeperson45

This is from trials but i did a bunnyhop up a wall and didn't quite land on the back wheel as much as I should have. Normally I would just jump off the back, this time my feet chose not to leave the pedals so I just fell straight on my back still holding my bike.

jonnyc2420

also forgot about the time in my teens when i landed face-first onto my bear trap pedal (they were as vicious as they sound) ripping two large holes in my chin and detatching my bottom lip from my jawbone right the way round..... wonderful things are disolvable stitches - had to go back and get them re-done as my so called mates made me laugh and rip them out......

and the time a few years later when coming down off the top of the quantocks (holford coombe for those who know it) and i manage to hit a large compression on my full susser - hard enough to flip me over the bars ind into a gully that i knew was at least 8 ft deep with a stream at the bottom...... fortunatley my fall was broken by a large branch going through the jaw piece of my giro switchblade slowing me enough to grab some of the holly bush i had landed in.......the branch in the jawpiece also prevented me from turning my head from side to side - all i could see was sky...... now i could hear the stream and thought i had a good few feet to fall before i hit the deck....but thats ok, 'cause my mates will be along in a few ticks.....
fast forward to about ten mins later and my arms are trembling like crazy and just about to give out plunging me to certain doom, when all of a sudden i hear laughter from above, and i'm then told to let go as i'm only inches off the floor...

they had stopped for a chat at the top........ :x

Valy

yoohoo999 wrote:

I came an absolute cropper last summer that was my own fault and I was lucky no one was injured.

I was tearing down a long downhill footpath in Roundhay Park in Leeds when I spotted a group of around 5 or 6 girls taking up the whole path about 50 metres in front of me (with their backs to me)

Problem was, to the left was a substantial drop onto a grass cycling circuit (I was more concerned about keeping momentum as opposed to the drop itself!), and to my right was a 45 degree grass bank.

Instead of grabbing the brakes (I'd had a few pints at the Roundhay Fox beforehand, so my reasoning wasn't brilliant) I felt invincible enough to bunnyhop up onto the grass bank to the right of the girls, wall ride it for a few metres and then drop back onto the path. All while doing about 30mph.

Sadly, I got it all wrong and didn't pull my front wheel up quickly enough, causing it to catch on the 4" high kerb at the edge of the path.

I went flying over the bars at just under 30mph, straight past the girls, full somersault, and landed quite well (all things considered) about 5 metres in front of them with my bike not far behind.

All of them absolutely shoot themselves and came to check if I was OK. My mate had been riding behind me and saw it all. He was stuggling to breathe from laughing.

I actually feel quite guilty about it - if my bike or I had came off 2ft further left I could have injured one of the girls. No more silly stuff on paths after that :oops:

Holy f*ck! At 30MPH??!?!?! I would maybe cnosdier going onto a curb at that speed if there was "one of them low points" like at crossings, but at THIRTY MILES AN HOUR???

Fuu*uuuuck.

What bike did were you on? How was the front wheel/and the whole bike afterwards?

Th3 Firestarter wrote:

Most of my worst crashes were as a child/teenager.
Age 10, learning to ride no handed, hit a pot hole in the road and crashed, taking a chunk out of the back of my left leg on the pedal.
Age 16, me and my then best mate were hurtling down a small DH course we made in the woods. Halfway down was a small jump. I was riding behind my mate, as he flew over the jump, a low hanging tree branch bounced off his helmet and hit me in the face. This made me lose control as I landed from the jump, my seat snapped off the seatpost as my ars* hit it, and I ended up disappearing into the bushes with my ars* rubbing on the back wheel. Ouch.

Ohh.... ouch. So the seat came off - was there any sharp/pointy bits? :shock:

Jenks66

Most embarrassing fall so far was on Whytes level on one of the decents riding on my own in a narrow part going a fair lick for me and hear another bike behind me, quick look shows they are still a way back so looking for somewher to get out of the way,
Cant see anything convenient so pull onto the gentle down slope from the track unfortunatley covered in the recent fall of pine neadles! Front wheel slides out at around 15 mph no time to react so crash down on my side still attached to bike infront of two other riders.
They stop to check if I'm OK so spoil their flow and mine all in one go. They were very polite but bet they were pissing themselves round the corner.

Was down the Forest of Dean a couple of months ago when a lad getting his DH bike ready had a quick spin round the carpark and decided to slide the rear end round using the brake and ended up on his ass. This was infront of probaly 50 -60 people as the car park was heaving and everyone either saw or knew what he had done!

touchy

Just remembered another good one, which technically wasnt a bike fall, but anyway...

Me and my mate were at a dh spot in some nearby woods and we found a cool rockdrop. Its only about 4foot drop and rides really smooth but somehow, looking up at it from below it looks quite big. So we decided to film each other to show off So i put my bike out of the way while my mate pushes to the top. So im standing in the woods with the camera waiting for him to do the drop. I decide that i can get a better picture if i take a few steps back. Didnt look, tripped over a log and landed on my back. Not a bad fall, had a wee chuckle to myself and tried to get up....but i couldnt get up. I still had my full face helmet on and a stick or something had got stuck in one of the vents when i fell, the log i tripped over was also under my arse keeping my legs in the air and making it impossible to get up.

Had to wait for my friend to stop laughing and rescue me.

fletch8928

the year was 1995. I was a young lad then and enjoyed blasting around York city centre on my then dale doing as many tricks as possible. Mainly a hop here and a endo there. I was blasting along and just entering the main shopping bit when I decided to grab a bag of air over a sleeping policeman. In my excitment I failed to notice a dirty great big bus that was stopped. Yup the old classic of smacking into the rear of a bus in mid air. I do have a habit of hitting parked vehicles, started about 27 years ago when I hit a car and snapped my top 4 front teeth. That was embarassing for an 11 yr old.

kenan

Like most stories it starts with "I was in a hurry". Just been to check the surf and was rushing back to get my kit and get in before I lost the light. I lived next door to a pub which was full of students enjoying the good weather and sat outside watching the world go by. I decided if I pulled up as fast as I could and braked hard at the last minute I would look really cool. Of course this is far from the truth, but hell I was young. So I got the bike wound up to top speed and right in front of everyone jammed on my brakes. Lady luck was having a day off and my front suspension failed causing my tyre to jam solid onto the front fork and sending me over the bars and hard into the road. As you can imagine I didn’t pull off the look I was going for so stood up took a bow for the applauding crowd. Later I found out I had broken my collar bone, on the plus side I had a great surf.


For me the best crash was my mates. A large group of us had been to a trail centre and even down the black run. On the way back to the car park he was trying to show off to the ladies as you do. Now he will tell you he was practicing his manual but he was trying to do a wheelie. So on the tarmac return route he pulls his weight back and pops the front wheel for all of 3 foot before falling off and breaking his wrist. Nothing big or special, but always makes me smile.