How often do you crash?

[tatanab]

As Victoria Pendleton said on Sports' Personality of the Year when asked "how often do you fall off", she said "There is a great difference between falling off and crashing".

Proper crashing, i.e colliding with something or being hit by something --- I reckon the answer for me is probably 3 times in the last 300,000 miles. Falling off, usually at low speed, the last time was probably 15 years ago.

How often have I hit my head in one of those events - twice.

[pjclinch]

Last ten years I've had quite a few comedy SPuD topples and the odd low speed "unplanned deviation from intended route" with worst case of a hand down, but nothing I'd really characterise as a "crash".
Last one of those was an OTB from the Brom a bit over 20 years ago when I hit a pretty savage speed bump while paying no attention whatsoever. I was wearing a helmet but as I took it on the chin it didn't help. It hurt (I went to A&E in case it needed a stitch, it didn't) but nothing broken.

I'm a pretty pedestrian rider, mostly tour and utility, on formal MTB trails usually limit myself to Blues on the MTB and never Blacks, and I don't race or do many group rides (and the ones I do do are never fast). In the JCC I coach beginners at we have a champion Enduro/downhill rider who is awesome but has quite the list of bust bikes and broken bones...

Pete.

[Mike Sales]

I have developed a reaction of habit to cars approaching a junction on a side road on the left when I am on the main road and so have priority. If they are not clearly slowing to a stop I move out a metre or so, to give myself more room for avoidance, should they keep going. Three times, twice in one week, this lee room has saved me an off when the car was half over the stop line before it finally stopped. Judging by the driver's face when I passed close in front of them, they had not seen me until very late.
I also like to take left turns a little wide, to discourage the vehicle that I hear slowing behind from attempting an overtake on the bend.

[Vorpal]

I crashed a lot when I was a kid. Doing 'BMX' on home made jumps and tracks, racing, and riding our bikes down the hill as fast as we could. You know, being kids

I also crashed twice as a teen. Once, when I rode into the back of a car because I was chatting with a friend & not paying attention to what I was doing. The other time, I was forced off the road by the driver of a large, expensive car . Someone near the incident called the police, and I luckily got a police officer who was a cyclist. He told off the driver & gave me a couple of tips.

I don't think I've crashed since, though I have fallen over a few times, always at low speed. I slid on ice once maybe 14 years ago(?) when I realised a moment too late that the road was untreated. I have had numerous near misses.

I have never hit my head.

[pjclinch]

I have developed a reaction of habit to cars approaching a junction on a side road on the left when I am on the main road and so have priority. If they are not clearly slowing to a stop I move out a metre or so, to give myself more room for avoidance, should they keep going. Three times, twice in one week, this lee room has saved me an off when the car was half over the stop line before it finally stopped. Judging by the driver's face when I passed close in front of them, they had not seen me until very late.
I also like to take left turns a little wide, to discourage the vehicle that I hear slowing behind from attempting an overtake on the bend.

Moving to Primary on approaching a side road and/or to influence road users behind you is all National Standards Cycle Training stuff, the former very much standard procedure at Level 2 (i.e., what kids typically get as "Bikeability").

Pete.

[Mike Sales]

I have developed a reaction of habit to cars approaching a junction on a side road on the left when I am on the main road and so have priority. If they are not clearly slowing to a stop I move out a metre or so, to give myself more room for avoidance, should they keep going. Three times, twice in one week, this lee room has saved me an off when the car was half over the stop line before it finally stopped. Judging by the driver's face when I passed close in front of them, they had not seen me until very late.
I also like to take left turns a little wide, to discourage the vehicle that I hear slowing behind from attempting an overtake on the bend.

Moving to Primary on approaching a side road and/or to influence road users behind you is all National Standards Cycle Training stuff, the former very much standard procedure at Level 2 (i.e., what kids typically get as "Bikeability").

Pete.

Good.
I am much too old to have been taught Bikeability, and this sort of thing was not in the Cycling Proficiency syllabus. I did learn much that was useful and has stayed with me.
I remember us all standing in rows in the playground waving our arms, playing at directing traffic like a policeman at a junction .
I wish that I still had my Cycling Proficiency badge.

[Nearholmer]

I also like to take left turns a little wide, to discourage the vehicle that I hear slowing behind from attempting an overtake on the bend

Ditto, but I got a nasty surprise last year when a person on a light motorcycle with L plates nearly hit me in that circumstances by beginning to undertake me on my left on the space so created, then dropped back and close-passed me on the right instead!

They’d been riding on my back tyre, looking to slip
past on either side, I guess.

[jgurney]

My most recent fall may have been a bit over 10 years ago, but probably not so I selected '1'. It involved my rear wheel sliding sideways due to a thick layer of cow exhaust on the surface of an unlit lane.

That had been my first fall since my teens in the 1970's, when I recall two, one due to an inner tube bursting while cornering, the other due to a brake block flying out of its holder while descending a steep hill, leaving me unable to negotiate the bend near the bottom and being precipitated into the hedge.

Apart from the falls, two non-fall collisions in 50 years, both being struck from behind while commuting by people who didn't realise I was going to stop. Once by a motorist who apparently assumed I would carry on riding over a zebra crossing with pedestrians on it, and ran into me when I stopped, the other time by a cyclist who similarly thought I was going to ignore a red light and intended to follow me past it, then ran into me when I stopped.

[Bmblbzzz]

I voted "Less than once a year" and was going to say "probably more like once every ten years" but having read the comments, perhaps, by some people's definitions, I crashed last summer. What happened was that someone tried to push me off my bike; I wobbled but carried on, they fell over behind me. I don't consider that a crash, but others might do.

Last crashes before that were 2016, car over the centre of the road on a tight bend, and 2012, clipless moment. So let's say once every five years.

[Lance Dopestrong]

Not since I was a kid, so 50+ years ago.

However, I made up for a future crash free adulthood by breaking a leg and pelvis in different incidents, and squashing my space hoppers to the extent of requiring stitches in another. I was the cycling Evel Knievel of the early seventies.

[Pebble]

Is there a crash fairy in the same way there is a puncture fairy ?

I wouldn't wish to tempt some malicious fairy by saying .....

[Carlton green]

I had a tumble on a bike;

We're discussing crashes, not only falls. I've hit loads of stuff and been hit many times without falling. I've even had a bike break into two while I was riding it and not fallen.

Unlike those people who attach themselves to their pedals and seem to fall and crash at least once a week for a while.

Attaching your feet to the peddles might have advantages but I prefer not to do that and to have the ability to move my feet away from the peddles when needed.

The OP hasn’t defined what he means by a crash, if he does then we can work to his definition but in the meantime it’s down to the individual to decide what it means (or includes) to them . To my mind the essential part of a crash is that it has an unintended impact, whether damage results - it mostly but not always does - or not is another matter. To my mind an accidental fall incudes an impact (one thing crashes into another), which may or may not result in damage worth remarking on.

[Lance Dopestrong]

You absolutely can move your feet away from pedals when clipped in. Once you've got the knack it takes no longer than detatching your foot from flats.

The main issue is that people try SPD type systems before their fundamental riding skills and coordination are at the required level, and that's what causes problems.

[Carlton green]

You absolutely can move your feet away from pedals when clipped in. Once you've got the knack it takes no longer than detatching your foot from flats.

The main issue is that people try SPD type systems before their fundamental riding skills and coordination are at the required level, and that's what causes problems.

I’ll take your word for it, doubtless it’s a matter of opportunity and acquired skill. However, as far as I’m concerned, loose toeclips is the limit of attachment that I’m prepared to risk. With respect the term YMMV applies to an awfully large amount of things .

[Nearholmer]

Or, they just don’t get on with SPD.

I couldn’t, and gave up trying after about six years when I ended-up sitting in the middle of the road, contemplating the front bumper of a Ford Transit as it headed towards me, having failed to get one foot properly out of an SPD as I came to a stop to turn right, and losing balance.

I think my “fundamental riding skills and coordination” were probably not bad at that stage, after about thirty five or forty years of cycling, much of it with metal toe clips and leather straps. No, the problem was that I always found the foot-motion needed for SPD unnatural.

I have since used Magped magnetic clips, which have a surprisingly high “pull off”, so retain the foot well, but an unclipping motion that comes naturally to me.