What's your biggest brown pants moment?

compo

Few that stand out for me:
- Brakes failing at the start of a long, straight track that juts went down and down and down. I must have been going about 35mph, hoping for it to go uphill when I came round the corner to find a gate and some walkers holding it open , as my mates were in front. I saw a main road after the gate so had to use some blokeas my brake...

- Was riding down a dry gravelly fire road in Austria when I overcooked it and ended up under my bike at the side of the fire road. When I looked up I saw my mate doing exactly the same thing toward me, so I tried to shelter and he ended up riding over my head. Only got a few grazes, continued to race down the fire roads.

sloppycowpat

Was riding very fast down a fire road in lords wood coming up to a blind 'jump' to the side which picked up a trail going into a relatively steep 13 foot deep bomb hole which i knew well so took my normal line only to find that some b@stard had steepened the entrance and removed my line so at 20 odd mph flying down into the bomb-hole briking it ass puckered only to touch down well think haha I've made it phew, only to zoom up the new jump at the top of the bomb hole kicking me what felt 10 miles in the air with enough time to think oh shit this is high, next thing i know im on the ground with mates around me checking I was alright

I had hit a tree branch mid jump knocking me out, then hit the deck and ragdolled about 20 feet along the trail braking my left wrist, 2 ribs, 4 fingers and fracturing my right leg and pretty much splitting my pisspot helmet in half and many bruises and cuts, it was brambles that stopped me rolling

so lucky I didn't do any thing else

morel of the story check the trail ahead for changes

James0911

Biggest "brown pants moment" was a few years ago. I was running late to teach a trauma life support lesson, run outside get my bike Out the shed and realise I've got a flat... Without any time to do anything about it I grabbed my dads pride and joy road bike (forget which make/ model sorry)
Zooming along towards the TA centre and some prat on a BMX decides to try and squeeze between me and a lamppost, fails miserably and his stunt peg tears my dads wheel to shreds... Next thing I know the guys I'm supposed to be teaching have collared and boarded me and are treating multiple "bleeders".
Turns out I'd smashed my face into the lamppost and 360d into the road. But worse was still to come.
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I then had to tell my dad I'd ruined his bike.

NJG01

Mine are not anywhere near as bad as anyone elses on here...

Was cycling along the C2C route through the park in Newcastle, passing people who were on the whole polite and observant enough to shift out of the way of a 3, 6 foot tall guys, 2 on hybrids and I on a Cannondale SL3 HT (non of us were hanging around but going slow enough that an emergency stop isnt out of the question)... Went to pass a couple of teenage girls out with a couple of dogs, one to either side of the path and the one on the left was holding the dogs. I was the last of the 3 to go past them and before i did, the girl with the dogs let them go and dashed across the path and called the dogs after her. (imbecile!) How I didnt hit the Labrador I dont know. Going to thank my disc brakes I think. That was ~15mph to 0 in less than a metre, stopped less than half a foot from a very worried looking dog.

The other, riding a curved & sloped board walk with wet tires on wet wood, went round the corner and mis-judged it and basically went OTB off a 1m drop off the boardwalk. Just had time to think, oh crap, hope I dont hit that tree stump - I didnt. I landed in the half a foot of bog and stream water so was a good laugh after, especially for my mates who said all they saw was the wheel flip up and rounded the tree that the BW had to curve round to see me creased up laughing, sat in a bog. Came pretty close to a head first dive into the stump however.

And, between that dog one above and one involving the family dog a long time ago, I am now extremely cautious riding around dogs. (The family dog dropped a pretty large stick (or large when you aged about 8) into the fireroad where i was riding down just seconds before i got there. Ended up sliding on arms / knees about 2 - 3 metres thanks to an OTB just as I hit the stick.)

Bikehawk

Comin down a road descent a few years ago with some lovely sweeping bends. Made it beautifully around the first one only to realise that I had carried too much speed. Decided to dump it into the nice high grass bank (6-8ft high). Unfortunetly didn't see the mud before the bank. Bike stopped but I sailed over the bank. Only noticed the 2 strands of barbed wire on the top of the bank when I was in the field. Thought man I was lucky I got over them only for my friend to scramble over the bank sceaming at me was I ok. Turns out I didn't go over them but between them.

Kaise

For the first I remember the ride and the moment before but nothing of the actual incident but coming off and disappearing off the side of a steep hill on the quantocks, as i came to rest at the bottom i was alone, cold and didn't remember coming off, i still don't. Not sure how long i was out for but i was baltic when i came round i know that.

it took me 30 mins to get myself together and get back to my bike, limping, the rain started i couldn't ride the bike due to a mangled knee.

2 hrs later and with the help of a lone rider i made it to the carpark, scared the sh!!e out of me as no one knew where i was etc etc.....i got to hospital and it turned out i had ripped my ACL & PCL in my left knee, requiring surgery. The guy never gave me anyway to say thanks for helping me he just rode off when the ambulance got there.....


The second one was trying DH for the first time and following a very experienced rider at Cwmcarn, followed his line but didn't shift my wight properly and the bike off loaded me. i came to rest facing back the way i came with a big rig barreling down on me at full tilt. I froze, and he missed my head by inches with his pedal, he stayed on (no idea how) and i dragged myself out of the way. now when i fall i try to move asap!

chris.d.w

Not one of mine, but one I witnessed first hand.

Riding at the freeride park in Moors Valley CP

There is a booter/step-up to a north shore platform about 6 foot high. I went down first, landed fine on top, dropped off the other side. Turned around to see my mate fly way to fast at the booter. He didn't have it quite straight and veered off left. Landed on the side of the platform with his right pedal. This pivoted him round 180 degrees. Somehow he managed to tuck up and land on his side.

tuktuk

All of my cycling incidents have happened in one park (all when i was younger)

Firstly at about 6 or 7 years old i pedaled straight for a random half brick. Bike stopped, i didnt. My 2 front teeth left my face.

A few years later i had a double wammy, gunning it along a dirt trail with a 5-6 meter drop at one side i misgudge a tightening corner, then freeze as i realise im going over. There were trees growing from the ditch and the lower branches were at head height as i fell. Grabbing onto those branches offered no help at all exept adding cut hands to the list of other cut and bruised body parts! After being dragged from the ditch we waited for some other friends to join us. One came racing down the hill towards us and pulled a skid, i knew he was going too fast and instead of jumping out of the way i leant in to push him away. My finger was then stuck in his chain.

Lastly on a short but very steep downhill slope on my new mtb i hit a ridge half way down and collided with a tree front on.

Im staying out of that park these days

angry_bird

Bike related 2 spring to mind, most of the time when I crash I tend to hit something before I get chance to think about it

Overcooked a table top, saw the landing was going to be flat from a big height, decided I didn't want to break the bike, so ditched it, in doing so I ended up a good 10-12 feet above the ground. Just remember thinking this is going to hurt, trying to work my body round into a tucked up position, cover my head with the arms and the like but din't have enough time. Landed with my head. Smashed a helmet, how I didn't break my neck I don't know, bounced, rolled and came to a stop. Not a scratch on me, the bike ended up a good 7 or 8 metres away from me, it was fine. My cousin was just laughing.

Last year, was going down a steep scree chute, the sort of thing where you can't properly stop and the ground is made of cut you to bits sharp rocks. People ahead had enough and half crashed/half stopped, they were fine, I slowed a bit to check then carried on, was tricky to stop entirely. Getting back up to speed I hear someone yelling at me to move out the way, now at this point I could only see one real line to ride so I was kind of forced to stick to it, next thing I know he's trying to go past me, I assume he realised he couldn't because he tried to come back in, nudges me, I end up going OTB superman style down a scree slope, absolutely bricking it, stopped when my face hit tree at the side of the chute. That hurt a lot. Remember thinking along the lines of oh shit, oh shit, I'm superman, oh shit, fuck...

But my biggest moment is non bike related. Was in a car with some hockey guys, coming back from Kent to Potters Bar, leaving the A2 to the M25, driver missed the turning, cut across 3 lanes and the chevrons to make it, narrowly missed hitting the dividing barrier, car started to fishtail, we hit one barrier to the right hand side, it span us, next thing we're going towards the other barrier, except the other side of said barrier is a good 20-25m drop because we were on a fecking bridge. I now have massive respect for whoever made the barrier,it looked massively feeble but stopped us dead. Walked away without a scratch. Now going over the bridge would have been been curtains

Rushmore

mine was when my misses' husband came back from work early....

Dannyboy95

First time a Cannock chase going way to fast on my brand new TREK 4500 around a corner next thing you know i'm cart wheeling across the grass me and my bike synchronised gymnastics I would say.

Luke-Dob

First ride on my new Session 8 and over clearing a 10ft hip jump... No idea how I didn't go over the bars, but everyone watching almost had a brown pants moment as well xD

Oh, and my brakes not working half way down Le Pleney (stupidly forgot to put the bleed screw back in on BOTH callipers...)

angry_bird

Had one earlier, about to do a ladder drop at the local DH track, was pedalling out of a corner to get some speed up for it, as I went up the woodwork my chain must have dropped becuase I went to put in a few strokes to get a bit more speed and put my leading foot where I wanted it only to find I was pedalling against nothing... lost massive balance, nearly went over the bars straight off the end of the thing, not much I could do, I was in no way ever going to land it, though about trying to stop but not enough space, in the end I managed to recover enough that I rolled off it upright but with nowhere near enough speed... nose dived, landed, somersaulted, rolled.

Broken gopro mount.
Hurt my coccsyx.
Whiplash.
Other than that fine.

jayson

I was in austria last year and it was my first time on a real mountain, on a rental mtb with mickey mouse brakes. I tried things out obviously before i set off and made a point of the euro spec brakes (back to front :? ), as we all know though when in the midst of things instinct just takes over and you do things without thinking.

There was a couple of very brown moments coming down the mountain when braking late and grabbing a big handfull only to find out its the wrong brake!!!!!!

I survived it but it scared me a couple of times seeing the huge drop off just a foot or so away that if you went over you're not stopping until mother nature decides!!