Ways to Eat It on a Bicycle

[Loren]

This is a story, about "coming-to". While a half-dozen minor car wrecks and some close calls on major ones once soured me a little bit on fast driving I can still banzai a bicycle, go over the bars and leave pieces of skin hanging from bushes etc., then laugh-it-off and get back on. Or at least, at 48, I think I can.

Well before you could go into a store and buy any kind of off-road or MX bicycle we used to take "Stingray"-type frames, fit them with braced handlebars and lower the "banana"-type seat as far down as it would go then fabricate appropriate rr seat posts. Genuine Schwinns were preferable, mine was an older model with a skip-tooth chain and a frame that had two top-bars, the rr stays ended at the seat post and didn't continue forward in a curve to the down tube like newer ones. Wherever it broke I screwed on repair brackets. That lowered long seat meant it stayed out of the way on jumps or maneuvers or you could just relax and sit back at the end and cruise.

My parents liked to camp, one occasional spot was Vasquez Rocks north of Los Angeles...perhaps known by the rest of the world as the place where William Shatner fought off a man in a lizard suit (the "Gorn") and notable for rough terrain and steeply-angled rock formations and shelfs. There was an actual campground with sites for cars and smooth curving roadways passing along a ranger station and it was a really nice place. After a day of riding my bicycle down hillsides never meant to be ridden (and surely off-limits there now) I had eaten dinner and was just cruising the grounds alone in quiet nighttime darkness.

Warm summer air, stars by the billions. You could could almost close your eyes and just listen to the hum of the tires on asphalt...

That would be the situation and where I was, but in the next moment I had no awareness of it. I had no memory of anything. I could have been in a sleeping in bed, or in the ocean being rolled by a wave...just hold the breathing and tuck-in tight...No up, no down, just a dream...

Like a morning after, with conscienceness came pain. My stomach, my arms...oh God, ouch. I felt my head, lying on the padded cross-bar at the front of the bike. My arms hung by my side. I was apparently upright. My feet touched the ground...I could feel the pedals. I couldn't move. It was a struggle to take the first breath.

I opened my eyes and found myself looking down, at the front wheel. I was indeed sitting on the bicycle upright. I got my hands to the bars...it was the strangest thing...I hadn't fallen over at all. I was up against nothing, no tree, no rock. I just hung there in the middle of the road, in pain. The gut, oh man... In a few moments I was able to get myself sat up. As I did so I almost fell, and braced my feet. I got my balance, and my brain straightened out...

There in the dark, just cruising along with my eyes looking up at the stars, I had ridden straight into a cable stretched across the road. It caught me solid and I just hung there for I don't know how long, maybe a minute or a few moments. As I figured that out I didn't move...it was so weird, no one saw it...I wasn't actually hurt, the pain was beginning to go away...

If you've ever been out on a group trip where there's hiking or biking or motorcycling and you see a guy who's been out alone come staggaring back, with an odd look on his face...he doesn't say a word but just goes straight into the camper or whatever... Later he 'fesses up to what dumb thing he'd just done and how close he came to breaking his neck...yeah that was me there. I was pretty sore the next day and didn't ride much.


Any other good stories?

[IndyShiftman]

Re: Ways to Eat It on a Bicycle

Just about 2 months ago, I was out getting some exercise on my bike. Had my ipod on jamming to some tunes. That helps me ride harder and gets my heart rate up. Anyway, I'm at my daughters school across the street and I had Metallica cranked up. So I was jammin pretty hard on the peddles. There is a closed gate that I go around by jumping the curb and circle around in the grass. Because I was going faster than usual, I circled around wide and as I'm about to go back over the curb onto the pavement, I hit part of the curb that was taller than expected. Instantly flipped the bike and I landed face first onto the pavement. Broke both shifters, speedometer, and cut the seat on the bike. Broke my nose. busted my upper lip where my front teeth went all the way through. Skinned my nose and the area between my nose and upper lip.
Happened so quick I had no time to brace my fall with my hands. I should have went to the hospital to get stitches, but I didn't. Now I have this scar tissue in my upper lip that bugs the crap out of me.
I cannot get the sound out of my head that I hear ed when I hit the pavement. And when I hear King Nothing on the radio, I almost want to turn it off.
I wish I had a video of the accident. I'm sure it would have to be hilarious to watch. There was a mother and son that probably seen it, but I just got up, wiped the blood away after I looked in my mirror to make sure all my face was still there and rode home.
Went past a couple on a trail and they had to be horrified of my face and blood when I went by.

[malc]

Re: Ways to Eat It on a Bicycle

I was about thirteen years old and going out on my bicycle one Sunday morning with a friend.
Straight after leaving the house the road went down a steep hill, which we loved to take at full speed.
About three quarters of the way down the hill there was a bang and I was "back in bed" thinking about getting up.
Then there was excrutiating pain as someone was lifting me up, it was a passing nurse who had come to my aid and was hauling me up with her hands under my arms, and I had a broken collar bone.
I screamed at her to let me be, so she dropped me on my ass.
On the front forks of the cycle I had a bracket for a flashlight, it had been there "forever" through several paint jobs.
On this day it had decided to work loose and slide down the fork, then it spun into the spokes of the front wheel.
The sudden stop drove the front wheel back to the pedal mount and the top bar of the frame was all humpty backed,
the front downtube was also curved.
Thank god I was "back in bed" when I hit the ground after doing a dying swan, saved me from a load of initial hurt.
I got a ride to the hospital and upon entering the main doors my driver flaked out, he had a great aversion to hospitals
so he became a casualty as well.

[BangShift McT]

Re: Ways to Eat It on a Bicycle

About '94-'95, I had a Redline frame that I had kitbashed together to make an evil little stuntbike. My brother had this POS bike, IIRC he had something like a Huffy frame that was bent up. Coming home from school one day, we decided to switch bikes at the top of the dirt road that lead to our house, a very entertaining 1/2 mi. gravel blast with downhills and a few well-setup jumps.

I forgot to mention that it only had a front caliper brake...

He thought he saw a divit that would upset the bike, so he jammed the frame and lo and behold, decided to attempt his best Superman imitation. Shaved off about a quarter inch off of his chin.

[cantvalve16]

Re: Ways to Eat It on a Bicycle

Out riding around with a buddy after school one day as usual, we came across a double jump in the middle of a field. Not huge as far as tall, but a sizable deep gap between the 2 hills. Had a nice long strip before it to pick up speed. Stop me if you have heard this one.
My buddy was a fantastic BMX racer and had the first set of carbon fiber wheels I'd ever seen. I was nowhere near as good as him at anything on a bike. I have seen him ride a wheelie on a mountain bike for a neighborhood block length while changing gears to pick up speed.
He made it over the jump with ease of course. Then he told me that I could for sure handle this double jump. My first one. I rode a heavy Wally World BMX immitation. It was a tank and I was scared. I told him I couldn't and he called me a wuss. Yeah, I know, a wuss.
So I got my best running start at this thing.... but stopped pedaling and got scared a little too soon to hit the jump and too late to stop. Flew over the first completely cased the second. By "cased", I mean that the part of the bike that holds the bearings for the pedals.... ya... I landed entirely on that part.... and I stuck the landing.

I gasped for breath because I caught my stomach with the handle bars.. all the while moaning," I told you I couldn't" and fighting back tears of embarassment. He told me to get up and that I would have made it if I kept pedaling.



Set the way back machine a lil bit farther to when I was 6. I was all excited about family pizza night. The pizza was on the way, so I set out to ride my bike around the back yard until it arrived. Well, I was popping a wheelie and riding it out the back door of the garage. Caught my handle bar on the edge of the door frame and swung my face into the door frame. Busted my lip wide open. Ever try to eat pizza with a busted lip? No pizza for Brian that night.