Every great love affair has its ups and downs. Little things that go wrong that you get past to keep things moving smoothly. You need to talk things through, compromise, kiss and make up, and move on. I am talking of course about me and my bicycle. It seems the old girl was mad at me for some reason because she decided to buck me right off. I was riding at speed, and all of a sudden I was interviewing the pavement (in depth). Have you ever heard the phrase “wind knocked out of you” well so had I, but I never really knew what it meant until this happened. Seems if you smack your diaphragm muscles hard enough they seize up and you just can’t breath, no matter what you do its just not going to happen. Lets have a recap.
I am have a fine morning, moving quickly, a wonderful winter morning ride. Then on my way up a hill, I stand up for extra speed, this is the point at which my left toe clip snaps off, sending my foot straight down into the road. Due to the fixed gear’ness of my ride (the pedals keep going if the back wheel keeps turning), this caused my bike to propel me up and over the handle bars, with my bike following closely over the back of my head. The next thing I know a new and horrible sensation was growing in my stomach, wait yes, thats horrible pain.
Lucky for me the road was empty, I had the whole thing to myself to display my 1337 crashing skillzors. After rolling around on the ground a bit (you know to get my bearings) I took stock of the injuries. Bruised ribs on the right side, tiny cut on my right hip, small scrape on my right elbow, and a tiny bruise on my right shoulder. All in all a pretty light amount of damage for the amount of ground eating I did. Let this be a lesson to you kids, wear your helmet, and like 10 layers of clothing, because when you crash it will absorb the vast brunt of the force when you try and test the laws of physics (a test I failed by the way).
So now three days later I have a pretty sweet bruise on my side, and it hurts a little to laugh. But other than that I am fine. Thanks to the efforts of a very very nice lady, my bicycle is fine (only a little tear on the grip tape). I am back up on the horse that threw me and have been riding to and from with no trouble. This has in no way put me off of ridding, and if anything was a freak accident that was caused by the breaking of a part of my bicycle (which if we are going to be honest was probably my fault for not checking). I am going to continue to ride for the rest of the winter, and hopefully many years to come. Viva la Bicycle!
Have you ever beefed it hard? If so please share your bicycle horror stories in the comments. Did it put you off riding? Why, why not?
I am very happy with more people cycling, but I can’t really understand the actual hype about fixies (this is local to US afaik).
And in particular fixies with no brakes. When overspeeding, you can loose your pedals and they will keep spinning fast to hurt you back.
According ancient wisdom, for many reasons a fixed gear is dangerous. I don’t know all of theses reasons.
Perhaps “fixie gear” was in part a reason for your hard fall.
Perhaps just breaking a pedal while in “danseuse” (french term for what you did) is sufficient to make a good cascade.
But don’t stress, falling is part of the learning, hope you’ll still have great times ;-)
Keep on the good job
quote : “I stand up for extra speed”, that position is called in french ” en danseuse”
see the guy in blue on the right :
http://cyclesud.free.fr/chroniques/images_articles/technique_pedale.jpg
I don’t know the translation in US english (nor in GB)
I am not sure if there is a proper word for that position (standing for speed) in English. But I always call it “burning your legs” (because of the feeling you get if you do it long enough).
The fixed bike did help cause the wreck for sure (as the pedals kept turning and ran into the back of my leg), but I am pretty sure I would have “cascaded” no matter what. I love that term, cascade, makes it sound like crashing is some graceful thing only professionals do :)
In the US we just call it crashing, or beefing, or eating pavement, or going endo, or trying a superman, going to add one more :)
Yea every once in a while you crash, usually its not too bad, this time was just a little painful. I have been cycling for gosh almost 20 years now, with like 10 of that being serious, and this is probably like one of maybe 5 painful crashes I have had. With most of the others being someone else’s fault. This one was funny because it was really all me.
Thanks for the kind words, and the helpful cycling terms.
yep in fact, “cascade” stands for the american “stunt” like a “stunt driver” which is a professionnal, you were right.
It is also a “water fall” like the Niagara Falls, but in a smaller size, so there is your idea of grace and beauty, then you were right too.
Now that you understand French well, you can train for the “Tour de France”, we are in great need of a “naturally” good american rider.
The last ones we had (Armstrong and Landis) where sponsorised by the medical lobby, and that kill the show ;-)
I remember being winded at school – we were having stomach punching contests (as you do) and someone hit me in the diaphragm after which I thought I was going to die (until I stopped dying).
On the cycle side, I have little need to cycle as I work from home, and walk everywhere else, but years ago I had a car door open on me as I was cycling along a main shopping street. I fell onto the road and had a slightly bent fork and pedal, but the car door was a complete write-off! Understandably we agreed to leave it with no blame attached – the repair must have cost a bomb :-)