Post your “I Survived” and other bike stories here.
My most recent “I Survived” story was yesterday.
I was riding down the Belcher St. hill in Kentville yesterday on my road bike, scanning ahead for broken pavement and storm drains. Somehow I missed a pothole and it got under my vision. Totally didn’t see it, so it caught me by surprise as I went into it at speed. Slammed the front wheel hard into it. I thought the front was going to stop and I was going to do a high-speed endo. I thought, “THIS IS GOING TO HURT!”
But the bike didn’t stop. I was on the hoods of my drop bars, and the bars twisted downward in the stem. I thought I wasn’t going to keep the bike straight, and crash, , but I managed to keep the bike straight and it did the bike did get through. It was hard to brake, since the bars were angled downward so much, but I managed to get to a stop. Pretty thankful. That could have been really bad.
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Lucky you, glad you’re okay!
Jeez man, that’s scary!
I’ve told this story a few times, but never on here so here’s my ‘I Survived’ tale.
This was at Sugarloaf, NB five or six years ago, end of September. I was riding an 07 Giant X0, the matte gold one. My buddy Mark and I had been hitting Supa Sweet all weekend, just going faster and faster every run. Neither of us had crashed hard all weekend, so confidence was pretty high. It was cool and sunny, with no wind, just a perfect fall day.
So on the Sunday, mid afternoon, we were literally flying down Supa Sweet. I’ve never gone faster down this trail before or since and honestly, it was starting to get a little scary. Anyway, I sailed over the big bridge step up near the end, landed in the transition on the other side and I don’t think I touched the brakes all the way to the final step up just before the last drop out into the ski hill. I came flying up out of that step up and landed with my front wheel on the wooden part of the drop. The trouble was, my rear wheel was still in the air, and going a little sideways and I knew that if I kept going I was about to fly head over heels over a very long distance. Because the front wheel was on dry wood, I made the snap decision to nail my front brake, which brought the rear wheel crashing down onto the ladder literally just before the take off.
My weight was all wrong as I flew off the bridge but at least I was upright, if a little sideways. I landed way past the end of the wooden ride-down section, almost at the very bottom of the hill. On impact, my rear wheel exploded, I think I lost at least ten spokes, as the rim came crashing up into my brand new derailleur, which was ripped from the frame. At least the hanger snapped, which spared the rear triangle. The chain twisted several times from the impact, but oddly I actually skidded it out and didn’t come off the bike. I felt like I was going to throw up.
All told, I think that little trip cost me $800-1,000 in parts. Could have been so much worse.
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Wow. Amazing you were able to save the landing and stay upright!
Once upon a time I hit up a dirt jump we made that morning, I woke up in the hospital. The end.
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A short story that leaves a lot to the imagination, Tossed! Glad you’re still with us!
Nothing super fast . . . but it could have been worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkItoRzxp5w
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