I witnessed a pretty bad crash (could have been much worse) while riding today and began wondering how many people here have taken a really bad spill on a road bike (high speed stuff, not falling over at a traffic light).
I went riding this morning with a girl from a shop I used to work at. She threw some road slicks on her CX bike and so she was riding actual road tires for the first time ever. We were pretty much done with the ride, just cruising back home, when we hit this tricky S-turn section on the road.
I went through, cruising pretty fast and realized that with the water on the road and the turn being sharper than I thought I needed to hit the brakes. Hit the brakes and had a short rear wheel skid right next to the yellow line, if I had kept going an oncoming truck would have clipped me. I control the skid and then I hear a crash and squealing brakes. I turned my head and see my riding partner sliding across the apex of the turn, missing going under the rear end of the truck by MAYBE 6 inches. I stop immediately and wave my hand in the air to stop the oncoming traffic. The girl's slide ended up in the middle of the wrong lane.
Damage wasn't bad, she had some decent road rash on the leg and her recently healed wrist got hit, but otherwise she was ok.
I still can't believe how close she came to sliding under the truck! She responded well and wasn't too shaken up, but it was still rather scary to slide out on a road bike at 25mph.
I've had some close calls, but never actually gone down at high speeds *knock on wood*, how many of you monkeys have?
The Ito
I went riding this morning with a girl from a shop I used to work at. She threw some road slicks on her CX bike and so she was riding actual road tires for the first time ever. We were pretty much done with the ride, just cruising back home, when we hit this tricky S-turn section on the road.
I went through, cruising pretty fast and realized that with the water on the road and the turn being sharper than I thought I needed to hit the brakes. Hit the brakes and had a short rear wheel skid right next to the yellow line, if I had kept going an oncoming truck would have clipped me. I control the skid and then I hear a crash and squealing brakes. I turned my head and see my riding partner sliding across the apex of the turn, missing going under the rear end of the truck by MAYBE 6 inches. I stop immediately and wave my hand in the air to stop the oncoming traffic. The girl's slide ended up in the middle of the wrong lane.
Damage wasn't bad, she had some decent road rash on the leg and her recently healed wrist got hit, but otherwise she was ok.
I still can't believe how close she came to sliding under the truck! She responded well and wasn't too shaken up, but it was still rather scary to slide out on a road bike at 25mph.
I've had some close calls, but never actually gone down at high speeds *knock on wood*, how many of you monkeys have?
The Ito