What do you think made me crash?

Question

A week ago I was going down a very long and steep hill, and towards the bottom, just as I was going to slow down (or maybe I had already pulled the breaks, hard to remember) I went flying over the handlebars...and sliding on the ground. The thing is, I don't know what actually made me fall. It happened much too fast.

I had/have a broken something on my left arm, chipped front teeth and road rash on arms and a hip (somehow I have road rash on opposite sides of my right arm...the two spots cant possibly touck the ground at the same time).

Oh and I wasn't wearing a helmet and am probably better off because of it...haha :)

Answer 1

You pulled the front wheel breaks, causing you to flip over the bike.  The back wheel breaks should always be pulled first to avoid injury.

Answer 2

a lot of crashes are like this

JRA [just riding along] and then BAM there is the ground

besides over-applying brakes, other causes may be

1. something in the road [grate or curb or rock]

2. sudden flat tire that came off and got caught in the fork

3. stick in the spokes [the evidence might be gone]

   [people even claim a squirrel can do this and then disappear ]

4. gravel or sand [though you wouldn;t go over the bars, it may have

   happened so fast that you don;t realize you could have just fallen over and slammed into the ground]

wle.

Answer 3

I don't think you should brag about not wearing a helmet....:-|

Answer 4

you could have hit the front brake a little too hard. if your breaks work really well then you can flip over, i know i have when i try stoppies. and your arm could have been rotating enough that the skin can shift so the other side of your arm gets roadrash. sorry to hear that you broke something, chipped your teeth, and got road rash. hope your recovery comes quickly!  

Answer 5

i dont know what ya did wrong but d**n dont ya hate wiping out? talk about embarassing lol

hope your not to mangled up :)

Answer 6

Here's your problems:

1) You don't use 70% of your total braking power by using the front brake.

2) you are scared to use the front brake because your MOM went OTB, not you.  If you shift your weight back as you brake, you will not go over the bars.

3) Though it should be #1, you don't ride with a helmet.

So you can't ride properly, are prone to crashing, and refuse to protect your head?  Why am I even bothering to answer?

Answer 7

It's hard to know exactly what happened, it's like that the first few times that you crash. You're riding along and then all of the sudden your on the ground and you don't know exactly what the #%@* happened. Then you look at your scrapes and think how did I get a scrape on that elbow and that hip and the opposite shoulder. It doesn't seem to make any sense.

The good thing is that with experience you'll know exactly what's happening when you crash. You'll be able to describe in detail exactly what happened, and why it happened. The bad thing is that you'll also be more apt to get injured, because you'll see the crash coming and you'll tense up, making yourself more vulnerable to injury. With a beginner the crash is over before they even know what's happening, so they never get a chance to tense up, the pro sees the crash coming, which gives them a better chance of avoiding it, but it also means that they are more likely to get injured.

Experienced riders actually suffer more broken collarbones for exactly that reason, they have time to put their arm out to try to break their fall, which actually ends up breaking their collarbone. Beginners hit the ground before they have time to react.

Answer 8

...operater error