Anyone else had a comedy off recently

chris_bass

this weekend i was doing some maintenance to my commuter bike and had taken the bottom bracket off to give everything the once over and then when putting back together thought to myself 'i'll tighten the cranks later'. so when i went out for a quick once round the block to check the gear indexing i had done was all nice and smooth off came the crank and so did I! luckily my foot hit the floor before any part of my hit the top tube with any force but my ribs took most of the impact on the handle bars!

needless to say i was left on the floor laughing and looking round to see if anyone had seen what had happened! could have earned myself £250 on you've been framed if only someone was recording it!

beverick

Yup, a couple of weeks ago.

The recipe:

1 mountain bike, 1 heavy near-side mounted pannier, 1 damp shale path steepening gently across a grass bank, 2 new SPD pedals, gravity.

Method:

Cycle along the path maintaining a smooth pedalling action. Reduce gears as path steepens.
Introduce a small element of panic as the rear wheel begins to spin on poor surface.
Attempt to change up a cog whilst maintaining smooth 360dg pedalling action as wheel spin becomes unmanageable.
Introduce dawning realisation that it's impossbile to "unclip" SPDs whilst maintaining any forward pressure on the pedals.
Attempt what may the world's longest ever trackstand whilst considering options.
Commence fall to near side - look for soft landing site.
Roll gently onto left side.
Introduce awareness that bike and rider is pivoting around pannier.
Realise concurrently a) that the rider, with bike now held vertically above him, is sliding down the grass bank and b) it's not possible to arrest the slide as all limbs are either connected to, or are now supporting an airborn bike.
Slide gently down grass bank and into steel fencing.

Result
Bruised side, cut shoulder, dented pride and deep embarrasment.

Bob

Pross

A couple of months back I took my little one to our clubs kids session on a Saturday morning. They ride a small cyclo cross type course and she wouldn't have a go as it was too scary. To show how easy it was I got on her bike (bright pink Raleigh girls bike that my 8 year old has nearly outgrown, single gear but fortunately I had taken off the tinsel bar ends) and rode around the course. No problem, did the downhill, got up the climb and was about to finish. Went to ride over a tree root, the back wheel slipped as I tried to put pressure on to get over the root, handlebars turned sideways and I went right over the top with the bike landing on me in front of about 30 kids (that I am now coaching!!). Had to pretend it didn't hurt but ended up with a huge bruise on my inner thigh and a sore finger that took a couple of weeks to get better!

graeme_s-2

The favourite comedy off that I've ever had was during the run up to last Christmas when I was doing a 20 mile each way bike commute. One morning I lost concentration for a split second as I came round a right hand corner on a wet road and ran across a manhole cover. I cleared it ok with my front wheel and then the back wheel slid quite violently to the left. I straightened the bike up to stop me falling, and this put me up onto a wet grass verge. Road tyres and wet grass is a poor combination, so I rattled across this scrubbing off virtually no speed and went straight into the end of a hedge. At the last second I realised I was in for a face full of hedge and put my head down, taking the impact on my helmet. I then found myself embedded in the hedge, still entirely upright and on my bike. I had to first disentangle myself from the hedge and bike, and then break some branches of the hedge to extract my bike.

Basically no damage to anything, other than my pride and a bruised shoulder. The best part was, as far as I'm aware nobody saw it happen! Cycled the rest of the way into work while suffering a fit of giggles.

Feltup

I lost it on a steep descent and decided the verge looked softest. Braking hard the front wheel eventually became the pivot point and over I went. Classic shoulder roll followed but not before putting my face and right arm through a massive amount of fresh nettles. TINGLY!

The crash bent the large chainring so it hit the frame but a judicious amount of hammering with a rock straightened it enough to get back to the hotel in the small ring.

Two days later my face and arm were still tingling!

beverick

BTW, my best ever 'unplanned sideways dismount' was on the A61 near Ripon more years ago than I care to remember.

Wearing the trusted 'toe-clips' (yes, remember them!) I stopped adjacent to a 'when red light shows, wait here' sign.

I say "adjacent to" but what I actually mean is "nowhere near". I stopped put my left hand down to grasp the top of the sign only to realise it was some six feet away.

Much to the amusement of the driver in the mini directly behind me.

Bob

Gazzaputt

Heard about about someone who decide to take his road bike on the BMX course at the Cyclopark in Gravesend, kent.

One dislocated shoulder later....

msmancunia

I cycled 300 miles through the Atlas mountains in Morocco over Easter. On the last day I came down a hill and ended up with one of those fords at the bottom - maybe a foot deep, over a concrete base. Tried to take it steadily, wobbled, slipped over, and skidded about ten feet on my bum while under water. The first thing I heard when I surfaced was hysterical laughter from somewhere up in the hills. I looked up to find four Berber shepherds who'd had to sit down because they were laughing so hard.

chris_bass

haha, liking these stories! at least its not only me!

Rigged

I've had 4 offs in the last 2 months on my drive at the end of my rides. A combination of a sharp turn in and an abrupt stop before the gravel has left me struggling to get my foot out as I do the comical slow-motion topple to one side. Fortunately, to date, no one has caught me falling off! I've learnt my lesson now and unclip both feet before beginning to turn into my drive so that it doesn't happen again.

davehmercer

My favourite off was about 3 years ago when riding back home on my old commute through central Croydon. I came past East Croydon Station, down the inside of a bus full of people and also lots of people outside the station (in rush hour),stopped at the traffic lights and could not get unclipped, lost my balance and instead of falling to the right and leaning on the bus I fell to the left very slowly and landed on the pavement still clipped into my pedals. It then took me at least 30 seconds (which felt like at least 20 mins) to get unclipped,stand back up and pick my bike with the whole bus full of people and people outside the station laughing at me!

andy_f

Coming down a hill last sunday, approaching a left hand bend and going some, a car which had passed me on the peak had slowed down due to a 30mph sign after the bend, i slammed the anchors on and hit a pot hole at the same time. Managed to stay on the bike but my bottom jaw slapped shut and now i am missing one front tooth and have two cracked molars.

Dougall

I'm sure everyone can identify with this one but here goes.

First time riding in traffic with clipless pedals.
Riding to uni climbed West Nile Street in Glasgow, got stuck at the traffic lights outside the Concert Hall.
Couldn't get my foot unclipped, cue much wobbling around attempting to do a track stand on a hill/attempting frantically to unclip. Eventually keeled over like a sack of spuds.
Great time/place to do it - was about 8:30 in the morning so loads of people walking by gutting themselves laughing.

Other one was outside my office. Traffic was backed up the length of the street so I thought I'd be fly & ride up the inside line of the traffic but was having to do it really slowly.
Unfortunately there was a wee line in the road surface where it hadn't been repaired properly, just wide enough to take a 23c tyre.
Cue a sort of tramline effect & my front wheel becoming stuck in said tramline & my bike going right under me.
Ended up with concussion & some wrecked kit

Diamant49

Many years ago, going at some speed through the (Belfast) city centre and trapped between a bus & the kerb. Large deep puddle, with no option but to go through it - drain or manhole cover missing. Bike stopped dead and catapulted me straight over the handlebars - fortunately onto the footpath where I landed flat on the rucksack I was carrying. Took me a good few seconds to figure out what had happened and that I was ok - sort of helped by a bloke who was passing, but he was laughing so much he had to apologise several times when he was trying to find out if I was ok.....

Kieran_Burns

When I first started cycling with spd-sl pedals I used to unclip the right foot when stopping.

I come to a very busy roundabout and decide to stop, unclip right foot and come to a halt. So far so good. With left foot still clipped in I decide that I'm going to have short break and lean over the kerb to get off the road.

Cue dawning moment of realisation that the left lean has now completely committed me to having my left foot on the ground and it's not.

Cue frantic wobbling of left leg which is now GLUED to the damn pedal and going nowhere while lean is increasing. My right foot is flapping in the breeze in sympathy to my whole body wobbling while the lean is at that point when everything goes REALLY slowly and you can do nothing about it.

I land with a soft whump and the right leg is STILL frantically flapping. I don't think it got the hint.

I did also recently come to a t-junction and thought I could hold the bike while a car went past on the main road. Only it was going much slower than I realised and by the time I worked out I needed to get my foot unclipped it was WAY too late. I resignedly looked at the grass verge and with a gentle "f*ck it" landed in the muck.

A nice lady stopped and the conversation went something like:
"Are you okay??"
"No."
"What's hurt???"
"My pride"
Laugh.

xixang

on friday myself and a mate were riding on local cycle path (preston guild wheel). Nice tarmac 15% short descent onto a wooden bridge. Both of us slid off when front wheels went from under us due to slippy wet bridge straight onto tarmac and gravel after the bridge. It would have been funny if it wasn't for for the £700 repair/replace bill for shifters, saddle, cracked helmet, various items of clothing and £250 watch (and that's just my damage) plus all the road rash down my whole left side. Ironically I was buying a cheap watch for riding in the next day!

HonestAl

Not sure if this counts as there was no movement of the bike involved other than sideways, so can barely be described as an off. Comedy, yes though. I was standing astride the bike chatting to a pal, who was stood slightly behind me. In order to face her I was twisted round slightly, right thigh resting on the top tube, foot resting on the pedals but not clipped in. Left foot firmly planted on the ground. After a few minutes chatting I must have forgotten how to stand, and toppled "gracefully" to my left. "No problem" I thought as I slowly drifted downwards "I'll just land on this grassy bank and, other than looking a complete twonk, I'll be fine" Which was almost true barring the participation of a spiky little ba**ard of a bush, which decided it wanted to come home with me. After what seemed like an age I managed to disentangle myself from its embrace. Sadly my new Assos shorts didn't fare too well - (though I believe they're on their way back to me now "as good as new" according to Winstanleys) Bits of shorts, flesh and my dignity are still caught on that bush.

ukmkh

4 days ago:

The plan was a nice bike ride with my friends from work. The cycle to Cookham was easy and troublefree though the wind made life difficult.

I am still getting used to clipless shoes having only having them for 3 weeks. My default procedure is to unclip left foot and ensure I lean the bike in that direction when I see a potential stop coming up.That has worked brilliantly for me so far...

So We had just started out and I was bringing up the rear. I had never cycled with others before. So at our first roundabout, I didn’t expect them to completely stop and not paying attention, had nowhere to go after being forced to do a complete stop. Realisation that i needed to unclip was too slow. I went down while still clipped in.

I landed on my left elbow. Suffice to say, I had to abandon the ride and waited at our rendezvous point having stopped at a pharmacy to get some Neurofen.

The ride back home was painful since I could not hold the handlebar. My arm swelled up like one could not believe. The visit to the A&E the next day confirmed that I had a hairline fracture on my elbow.

So I am off the bike for three weeks minimum. :x

I hate SPD pedals - why did I change??

What is the trick for those unplanned stops for clip less shoe users??