Went on a pedal powered pub crawl last night and ate it pretty good on the way to the last bar. No permanent damage other than my kicks are scuffed up pretty bad. But man, it hurts! Amazing how bad you can get busted up at 10MPH. Glad I never dumped my motorcycle when I was in my invincible phase. Was talking about it afterward with a friend who rides motocross and how glad we are that we made it out of our indestructible 20s phase with minimal damage.
93gsxturbo wrote: Amazing how bad you can get busted up at 10MPH.
Ain't it the truth. I think bicycle helmets look goofy so I never wore one. So I was riding my mt. bike around in the back yard and down a gravel easement road between us and the neighbor, decided to turn around in the neighbor's yard, clipped a weed patch and found out the hard way what the weeds were hiding. The front wheel fell into a 3ft. deep hole flipping the bike. I landed in the gravel road face and chest first which knocked the breath out of me. So I finally managed to sit up and assess my wounds. Let's see: ego, and scrapes here and there. Not too bad. When I sat up I decided I needed a goofy looking helmet . . . but I didn't get one.
So a week or two later I decided to ride up the road to my uncles house. It was about 95 degrees and I'm old with a little heart condition. I got wended and decided to pull over and catch my breath under a tree. So I pulled off the road and the front tire fell into a hidden ditch covered by grass. I landed flat on my face and rolled over a couple of times. I stood up too quickly and almost passed out. So I sat down and began making plans to by a goofy helmet. I did . . . but I haven't worn it yet.
In reply to Graefin10:
You need to only ride where you can see solid ground. 
I almost didn't make it past 29 thanks to a bicycle.
One fractured hip and a ruptured spleen later, I've got a cool story
(and a baller scar on my tummy)
I especially like that a near death experience wasn't enough to make me stop riding, but breaking up with my riding buddy/Girldfriend did.
I usually have one good bike wreck a year. This summer I found a nice single track trail with a few dirt jumps in the green belt behind my work that the neighborhood hoodlums put together. I decided it would be totally awesome if I hit the slightly downhill rhythm section on my commuter (which is probably a good 35lbs of bike) because its got knobbies and I'm an idiot. I make it through the jumps with some vague tagging but minimal drama. I'm giving myself a mental high five, giving finger pistols to the trees, being a cool motherberkeleyer in general when I realize I'm hurtling down a hill on what has now become 200 pounds of bicycle with terrifying cantilever brakes from 1973. I eat it pretty hard as soon as I break traction on the thick underlayment of half-decomposed oak leaves. I tumble and slide for a few feet, finally coming to rest in a abandoned hobo camp. Nothing broken, nothing bleeding, just dirty and a little in awe of how fast things go pear shaped. Luckily by the time I dust myself off and make it into the locker room at work everyone has departed and I'm allowed to change into clean clothes and wash the muck off my face in peace .
Drat. And my best bicycle crash gore story only involves a ripped scrotum and some stitches to put my junk back inside it. Only time I ever saw my father pretty well incapacitated, mom had to take me to the hospital.
Still, it's a pretty cool scar. Wonder if that's why I never inherited dad's bass voice.... 
I have titanium all over, fake bones made out of other bones, scars, misaligned joints, and things that creak and pop at the strangest moments.
I love BMX
93gsxturbo wrote: Amazing how bad you can get busted up at 10MPH.
Saturday, someone told me something that sounded pretty smart. Above 40, you tend to skip a lot. Below 40, its gonna start hurting much worse.
foxtrapper wrote: Drat. And my best bicycle crash gore story only involves a ripped scrotum
Yikes! I wonder where you can get a cyclist's cup?
In reply to Graefin10:
I raced downhill for a number of years and wrecked hard more time than I can remember. I had/have no small amount of money invested in safety gear (body armor) and I've gone through a few full-face helmets. Cheaper than an ER visit... although I've had a couple of those as well. After one particularly unpleasant bit of carcass chucking at high speed, I tried wearing a cup for awhile. Makes pedaling difficult.
I stopped racing when the costs (my race bike cost about 3x a Challenge car and needed replacement almost every season) and injuries (when I hit my 30's, I wasn't bouncing as well) stopped making it fun.
In reply to Ian F:
Good downhill stuff can make for some fun urban freeride gear. Just sayin. I cut my teeth jumping dirt doubles on a 20 inch bike. Now, I keep mostly to the concrete skateparks. I take my 10 year old nephew, and we have a blast. I can do stupid little curb tricks and just goof off, and he still thinks Im awesome. I am patiently waiting on the moment to arrive where the student becomes more skilled than the teacher...its quickly approaching.
My point is,Im having a blast, and I havent tried to be competitive in a decade lol.
In reply to 4cylndrfury:
I was hoping to try enduro racing this year, but a shoulder injury in the Spring pretty much killed my entire season. Planning to try again in 2014.
The urban freeride thing never appealed to me much... Even 10 years ago I decided I was too old to be getting chased around by cops and security guards... Not mention 6'+ drops to flat is a great way to break things.
In reply to foxtrapper:
i hope i never hear that story again.
Whole bottom half of me is a permanent reminder of why I'm an idiot. And why I have a goofy looking helmet. And yet I sit here and go "I haven't looked at high end bikes recently..."
When I bought my Rincon, I had to special order a XXL helmet for my melon head, and the guy at the LBS told me he was always surprised that most folks getting back into riding ignored all safety equipment....until they had their first new wreck.
I spent my 20's destroying my body in motocross. That got me used to ALWAYS riding two wheels with a helmet, pedal or motor. Plus I have to be a good example for my kiddies, so helmet always goes on when I ride.
Luckily all the "cool" kids wear helmets now
foxtrapper wrote: Drat. And my best bicycle crash gore story only involves a ripped scrotum and some stitches to put my junk back inside it. Only time I ever saw my father pretty well incapacitated, mom had to take me to the hospital. Still, it's a pretty cool scar. Wonder if that's why I never inherited dad's bass voice....
Thanks to a bike at age 13 there were no stitches, but to this day it ain't Little Jimmy and the Twins. Unless you think of twins this way:
No they don't match. But they work just fine. 
I broke my leg on a dirt bike and thanks to them I have innumerable scars plus I can't turn my head as far left as I can right... and I wouldn't give up a single second of it.
The good news is after 2 weeks, the scabs are healing and my left wrist is 90% or better. At least I can open twist-offs again.
I am really looking forward to starting riding more seriously next spring now that I have a decent trail network out my front door.
Mountain biking has given me a long running appreciation for crashes, but dropping a roadbike at 18mph a couple years back REALLY hurt. One of the guys said it was the hardest hit he'd ever seen someone take and stay conscious.
Good times.
I am racing cars now because at 43 I decided I wanted to get back into racing but I did not want to go over the bars at 60 mph anymore. My biking days are over. But now I play hockey and smashing face first into a 240 pound 25 year old and then kissing the ice with the back of your head is not so fun either.....
In reply to ultraclyde:
Yeah... road-racing: pack riding with 50 other guys at 30 mph in your underwear... oh, berk that... I love riding on the road, but the chances of me bar-to-bar racing are between slim and none. As far as I'm concerned, DH racing is infinitely safer. Just you, the course and how fast you're willing to go.
I have been considering triathlons though, providing I can find a good place to get back into swimming.
I crashed 2.5 times on road bikes, and was lucky each time.
1st time in high school, slid on some slightly sandy pavement and slid on my elbow across an intersection. Fortunately all I had was a brush burn thanks to the sweatshirt I was wearing (held up surprisingly well).
1.5th time, also in high school, just finished a ride where I would routinely drive on a public road and hit 35 or 40mph down this one hill....pulled the bike into the garage to park it, hit brakes and front caliper fell off locking the front wheel....fortunately I was only going 2 mph and didn't have enough speed to land face-first on the table saw.
2nd time was last year. got bumped/hit sideways by a motorcycle that didn't see me while he pulled out of a parking lot. I was fine, and thought my bike was fine, but the wheels were slightly bent. I went to ride home, and halfway there I heard a loud pop and squeal, my front wheel folded in half and I fell forward half on sidewalk and half on grass. At this point I realized there is no good way to carry, push or drag a bike 3 miles back to the house with only one functioning wheel.
The possibility of a real injury on a bicycle is enough to discourage me from ever thinking of getting on a motorcycle.
At 14 I flipped over the handlebars going way too fast on way too high of a jump.
Luckily, my head broke my fall. I remember thinking "oh crap, this time it's going to hurt" right before I hit and saw a bunch of light. On the second bounce, I hit my shoulder and broke and dislocated my clavicle. Lots of blood, lots of nasty scar tissue, and the gross lump near my neck from the end of the bone for a while, but I am fine. My head was fine, too. Not even a concussion. I don't do push ups or bench pressing now, though.
Glad to hear you're okay. I got a lot smarter after that and always wear a helmet if I leave the driveway now. I haven't needed it yet. Not even after 15 miles through Bald Mountain trails in Michigan.
Use the helmet.
I ate it once on my mountain bike dropping off a big opening in a wooded trail (think dropping into a half pipe). My right foot got caught up in the front sprocket and took some equally spaced meaty chunks out of the back of my ankle. It was that bad kinda cut that didn't bleed for the first couple minutes. Once the adrenaline wore off it started to hurt and bleed profusely. The problem was that were were still 3 miles from the car on some pretty rough trails. My buddy ripped up his Tshirt and we wrapped up my ankle the best we could and I had to ride back to the car. That sucked. went straight to the ER and got a handful of stitches.
I bike at night because that's how my schedule is--just laps though the neighborhood. The other night I almost hit an armadillo. I'm guessing neither of us would have done too well. I wear a helmet, too--something like this but in carbon fauxbire.
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