first "real" bike crash

[redkow97]

This one hurt. 

I have previously gone down at low speed in the snow, and I had a slow(ish) rear wheel washout in the rain at the third Royalview TT.  That crash was "real," but hardly serious.

Last night, I was doing 2 CCW laps of the outer loop at Royalview.  That means going down the yellow trail.  There are some fast sections.  I was cruising at around 18mph (if I'm looking at the correct data point in strava) when I set up wide right to take a sweeping left.  My right foot and pedal hit and hooked on a small (1.5" diameter) tree next to the trail.  The impact rotated my body and bike 90 degrees clockwise, and sent me flying into and then over my handlebars.  The bike followed me and launched over my shoulders. 

I landed hard on my left knee and shoulder, scraping up my elbow in the process.

My shoulder has a small cut and is turning a nice shade of purple, but that isn't very sore (yet?).  My elbow is okay.  My knee hurts like hell.  I can walk pretty well, but putting weight on it for stairs hurts a lot.  My thighs also have some serious marks from where they hit the bars, and I'm guessing all of that will bruise up pretty significantly.

The impact of the bike flipping bent my seat.  I bent it back to ride back up the paved hill to my car, but I'll have to replace it.  All things considered, the bike is in great shape.  I am hurting, but it could have been worse.  My helmet didn't even have dirt on it.  The left side of my body definitely did. 

7 months on a mountain bike, and I've already injured myself worse than I ever did in 7 years of racing motorcycles.unreal.

[what]

Glad you're ok. The worst crash I've ever had on any type of moving vehicle, motorized or otherwise, was on my mountain bike. 

 

Knee pads and motocross armor vest for you in the future?  

[bowdog]

them bicycles are dangerous buddy! Time to go back to things with motors...hope you heal up quick!

[CBBaron]

You do tend to crash way more often on an MTB if you are trying to go fast or clear difficult obstacles than you do on the road. I think thats true of off road motorcycles and road bikes too. 

Heal up fast.

[blue03636]

2 hours ago, Isaac's Papa said:

Flipped my Kona in February and may have fractured my collar bone. Not sure. Still hurts on occasion. Had no idea I was crashing until I was on my back looking at the sky. Landed on a small 3" tree limb and wore that bruise for a while.

This was funny once you got up. 

[2talltim]

7 hours ago, Isaac's Papa said:

Flipped my Kona in February and may have fractured my collar bone. Not sure. Still hurts on occasion. Had no idea I was crashing until I was on my back looking at the sky. Landed on a small 3" tree limb and wore that bruise for a while. 

Slid out the rear on the Kona at Mohican and ate shit hard. Layed there for a few minutes to make sure I wasn't broken. 

I'll take crashing in the woods all day long over asphalt. Heal up and hope nothing is seriously fuxored. 

Mohican is where real men go to break shit. 

[max power]

Hadda layer down!

[redkow97]

The bruises and cuts look impressive, but my kneecap is what really hurts.  I would be back on the bike already if not for the kneecap.

I went to a wine tasting fundraiser on Saturday night.  It was an outdoor event, so I wore shorts and a polo.  Got some odd looks with my elbow all bruised and bloody, and my knee swollen and purple.

Biggest/best news of the day though was that I found a guy on the CAMBA facebook group who sold me a replacement seat for $5.  He has a 250 4-stroke dirt bike in the garage, so we chatted about that for a bit, and I saved myself $30+ on a new saddle.  Got the new on installed Sunday morning, and took a test spin on the fat bike.  New seat seems less comfortable, but I wasn't wearing cycling shorts.  Also not sure I have the angle and fore/aft position where I like it yet.

No riding tonight.  More ice.  Hopefully trail ready tomorrow.

 

I am considering kneepads, but honestly, this was such a freak thing (I crashed going fast in an almost straight line...), I feel like the kneepads would be a good way to blow $60 and be less comfortable.  I am riding XC trails and doing XC racing.  If I had aspirations of DH or enduro racing, I'd look harder at the knee pads.

[redkow97]

31 minutes ago, Danimal said:

Motorcycles are safer.

The end

ssshhhhh.  Don't tell my wife.

Motorcycles are also more expensive. I'll race those more eventually, but maybe not until my kids are grown. I'm resisting the urge to upgrade bikes, so right now, the bicycles are cheaper.  At the moment, I am happy with my progress and pace versus other beginner and even "sport" class riders.  If I'm cracking the top 10 in larger "sport" fields, then I'll consider better equipment, but right now, I don't see the need to pay $1500 or more for a bike just to be 25th instead of 28th.

[CBBaron]

40 minutes ago, redkow97 said:

ssshhhhh.  Don't tell my wife.

Motorcycles are also more expensive. I'll race those more eventually, but maybe not until my kids are grown. I'm resisting the urge to upgrade bikes, so right now, the bicycles are cheaper.  At the moment, I am happy with my progress and pace versus other beginner and even "sport" class riders.  If I'm cracking the top 10 in larger "sport" fields, then I'll consider better equipment, but right now, I don't see the need to pay $1500 or more for a bike just to be 25th instead of 28th.

If you are going to be doing much racing I would think you would want a more appropriate bike. Fat bikes are a lot of fun and very capable but a heavy rigid bike is not going to be very fast compared to a light XC bike. 

You should atleast setup tubeless, if you havn't already, and consider a tire upgrade. Its pretty easy to drop a couple pounds from fat bike tires/wheels. 

I'm not racing but going through the same decisions. The old Pugsley gets the job done but is kind of a tank compared to a modern bike. After bashing through the rocks this weekend I'm considering a plus sized hard tail, but its hard to justify $1500-$2000 for a new toy when the current ride works. I'm avoiding renting a bike from Eddys so that I dont know how much better it could ride

 

[redkow97]

17 hours ago, CBBaron said:

If you are going to be doing much racing I would think you would want a more appropriate bike. Fat bikes are a lot of fun and very capable but a heavy rigid bike is not going to be very fast compared to a light XC bike. 

You should atleast setup tubeless, if you havn't already, and consider a tire upgrade. Its pretty easy to drop a couple pounds from fat bike tires/wheels.

 

These are the things the little devil whispers into my ear from my shoulder.

I know I would or will be faster on an XC bike, but the fat tire bike is getting me more fit, and it's cheap to maintain.  I will eventually buy something more XC appropriate, but I don't have any plans to break the bank on anything extravagant.   Training on the fat bike is good for me - which means I'd like to continue doing that even after I get an XC bike ...so then I'm spending more time on the cheap bike than the expensive bike.  That doesn't add up for me.

I'm not riding a ton of miles now.  When I rack up a couple thousand on the fat bike, I'm sure it will be due for upgrades, if not replacement.  I don't plan to upgrade it though.  That would be polishing a turd.

There are basically 2 options I'm considering at this point:

1)  Maintain the fat bike, keep it in good repair, but with no major upgrades, and supplement it with a mid-level hardtail for racing and other longer rides.

2) when the fatty starts to break down, get it back to sellable condition, and replace it with a much nicer (and lighter) fatty with a suspension fork and a second set of 29" wheels for XC duty. 

the third bike in my stable will be a CX bike, but with road tires mounted until CX season - except it might not be a third bike, if I go with option 2.