Giant pot hole makes me crash

Don't bother. I crash in the mountain a few times every season, in town once every few years. There are always some to say it is my fault. I don't care, for it is. I mean, when you ride 15 000 miles a year all weather on fast bikes on and off road, you have to accept the risk. Yet, there is always a reason that you were not able to anticipate. Others who are blaming you, were not there and it is easy to say they would have done better.
 
That is one monstrous looking hole for sure. I've eaten it hitting much smaller holes. What if it was a handicapped person in a powered wheelchair? ADA people would be all over it and sue the city.
 
ecycler said:
boytitan said:
Its like you missed the part where i said its not visible from up high. You can prepare from what you can't see. Now that I know its there can I crash again no. Clearly more pics are needed but can't be taken now since now is covering it. Its over a foot deep where it starts.

You surely saw it right before the ensuing panic and wreck or you were not practicing SIPDE! So you came from the side walk and dropped off into the rut... something like a curb or dirt curb made by a truck is reasonable to expect at a sidewalk to road transition. It was not a 2+ foot sinkhole or open manhole cover in the middle of the bike trail at night - which I would call just bad luck. The title of your post and your description clearly show that you take no responsibility for the crash. This was a fixed feature of the terrain you were riding, not someone hiding in the bushes and shoving a broom handle in your spokes, or an animal that darted in front, or a car driver ramming you from behind.

Please reread the end of my post. You were either going too fast for the conditions and/or your skillset. Please do not make yourself out to be a hapless victim of your own decisions and actions - you will learn and progress a lot quicker. I do feel for you and am sorry you got hurt and broke your stuff. That really sucks, but it is a small price to pay compared to broken bones or head trauma and a lot of hospital bills. I have had my fair share of wrecks and large associated bills and costs and they helped me considerably to change the way I approach things. The advice I am giving sounds harsh, but it will help you to consider this perspective.

Again I was at a stop. looked both ways before crashing. Also clearly as I said I did not see it or I would have not stated I did not see it 100 times. From the point I stopped at you can't see it. Next time I guess I should get off my bike and look ahead. By the time I crashed I was disoriented trying to figure out what happened. Mind you it snows here there is now snow covering said hole so it wen't from almost unviewable to completely unviewable.
 
Sorry for being harsh. I didn't mean to sound so self-righteous. I guess the best you can do is write a letter to the city so they know to fix it and be careful out there! It is a good reminder how quickly all of us can go from good day to bad day - especially on two wheels. Thanks.
 
Last week I was headed to post office going down Campbell Road here in Houston. Traffic was bunching up as it approached a stop light and I decided to move onto the grass to allow traffic to pass. I could not have been going more that 5-6 miles an hour. Unfortunately someone at sometime had decided to remove a roadside sign along with its concrete footer. Probably a good idea as it was too close to the pavement. However they did not fill in the big gaping hole and the grass obscured its existence. I managed to discover it ... ass over teacup. Good news is that traffic never slowed :|
 
I think one thing for all of us to (again....) realize, is that you can really get hurt riding! Yeah, yeah, stating the obvious, I know. When I hit the (unseen)temporary electric fence wire across the farm road a couple miles from my rural home last fall, it really brought that point home to me, in a really harsh way. My bad though, I should have spotted it sooner, NOT panic braked, NOT gotten thrown over the bars, hit the rocks, etc. Bottom line is I take it all (riding, anywhere, anytime) a lot more seriously now that it is perfectly crystal clear any mistakes can really get serious quickly. I, like you maybe, was guilty of having TOO MUCH FUN, and got a bit careless. Like some plane crashes I've had over the years, it can be a good thing, it get's your attention and is "a learning experience", (I hate that phase), but it's true. Pain is a great teacher!
 
I have a mirror now so I can focus on the road better and not have to look behind me. Are mirrors considered dorky looking on mountain bikes I don't care. Also theres a video of someone blowing out ktm dirt bikes on a dual sport with mirrors the whole notion from off roaders that mirrors are dorky is kinda dumb.
 
LewTwo said:
Last week I was headed to post office going down Campbell Road here in Houston. Traffic was bunching up as it approached a stop light and I decided to move onto the grass to allow traffic to pass. I could not have been going more that 5-6 miles an hour. Unfortunately someone at sometime had decided to remove a roadside sign along with its concrete footer. Probably a good idea as it was too close to the pavement. However they did not fill in the big gaping hole and the grass obscured its existence. I managed to discover it ... ass over teacup. Good news is that traffic never slowed :|

That's similar to a crash I had one day on the way to band rehearsal in the park. I'd already left the street and was cutting across the grass on the way to a picnic area. There was a service valve cover sunken down into a pretty deep hole, but the tidy mowing job hid it perfectly. I cartwheeled off my bike with a bass drum and cymbals strapped to my back.

Somehow the bike and drum endured it without damage, and I had only a small bruise on my inner thigh where it snagged on the handlebar grip as I flew away. For the lack of damage or injury I must to credit the soft surface and roughly 5 mph speed. The cymbals made a comedic sound to punctuate my fall.
 
craneplaneguy said:
My bad though, I should have spotted it sooner, NOT panic braked, NOT gotten thrown over the bars, hit the rocks, etc. Bottom line is I take it all (riding, anywhere, anytime) a lot more seriously now that it is perfectly crystal clear any mistakes can really get serious quickly. I, like you maybe, was guilty of having TOO MUCH FUN, and got a bit careless.

Your crash report is very much the perspective of a mature pilot. We all get bit from time to time. I blame almost all of my crashes entirely on myself - except for the time the neighbor threw the broom hanlde in my front spokes!

Here are a few fun creeds to live by that frequent the flying and MC message boards where the crashes are more catastrophic:
1. There are two types of riders. Those who have gone down and those that will!
2. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots!
3. You start with full bag of luck and empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill up the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck!
 
My first and last crash for 2017...

Today - Warm day melted snow, then sun went down and iced up the water. Doing 15-22kph just ramping up the throttle on the ped crossing at merge so there was an angle from sidewalk ramp to sidewalk ramp, patch of ice on my straightening up just past last ramp. Back end flew out (Townie tire, no nobs, front had used stud tire that worked great on packed snow. Front tire slid, landed on controller side ripped out phase connection, knee burns, called my chauffeur ;) for a quick retrieval. Cell was out of juice too, so I really need a usb charge port on the battery.
 
My first crash trail riding in quite a while: we are in the last few weeks, if not days, of riding here. There is snow on the ridge behind me, and already snow has fallen at my place, but then melted and dried off. I hit a rare stretch of the rocky trail I was on (NOT a mountain bike single track, a very gnarly dirt bike/ATV type track, terrible riding but I've grown to love the challenge it offers and it is literally in my backyard so I beat myself up on it regularly) that was NOT rocky, just dirt. It was covered by a solid bed of leaves, and fairly steep and I was going downhill. It was some kind of bastard friction less mix of leaf,frost, and mud, unique to this one section of my 5 mile trail ride that day. The front wheel got sideways and my face got slammed into the soft dirt, my nose is still a bit red from the impact but no bleeding anyways. My cheap sunglasses somehow escaped any damage, and about 10 minutes later I wondered if I had gotten any use out of my helmet. I took it off to look at and sure enough there was a big goober of mud and leaf on it, I was lucky there was not any rock where my face impacted, then again if there was rock on that section I would have had traction. Live and learn, and crash, I rode the same trail yesterday but this time really kept a close eye for any leafy sections with no rock. T
This latest crash was "just right", I didn't get really hurt, just banged up a bit, enough to re get my attention.

I had another one, just a "static fall over", last week on a trail across the valley. I had stopped to BS with a guy cutting firewood, still straddling the bike with both feet on the ground. I was facing sideways on a mild slope, and when I turned to leave my what should have been my downhill foot got jammed up between the front tire and the bike frame, hard to explain but I was slowly tipping over and couldn't get my foot over there to stop it. Down I went, no rocks, no pain, just funny as hell really, I told the wood cutter that I was glad he was there to see it, it would have been a shame for it to have gone unseen.
 
Leaves on wood bridges are freaking dangerous in my trails, and responsible for numerous crashes over the last 20 years. Now I prefer hitting the throttle and jump over those small wood bridges. The trails in general, are more dangerous with lots of fallen leaves covering them, because you can’t see what is hidden under.
 
Something tells me that would have a negative effect on Wh/mile. Might make for a decent braking system if you ramp it up enough though.
 
Trying to remember if I've fallen off a bike since I was maybe 16. If so it was probably no big deal because I don't ride so I could have something spectacular happen anymore. When I was 15 I was crowded into the curb at like 40mph by a fellow teenager who I guess didn't like me passing going down the hill on a 25mph residential street. Oh wait, he had to top 40 to catch me. Doubt I'll ever go that fast on regular bicycle wheels again.

That's not counting getting hit and run as an adult by a car coming out of parking lot by some driver who couldn't bother to look. But I guess I didn't see the car wasn't stopping for traffic in the street. Going slow, not so spectacular. I'm not expecting some serious accident on a bike the way that I ride anymore unless someone hits me. I haven't built an electric that can top 30 and I don't plan to unless it's a real motorcycle.

But I see the way some people ride, the way they get irate after THEY almost cause an accident and try to pretend the almost victim was at fault. I worry about some of those people discovering electrics.

Chalo said:
That's similar to a crash I had one day on the way to band rehearsal in the park. . . Somehow the bike and drum endured it . . .The cymbals made a comedic sound to punctuate my fall.

Okay, that conjures up quite a movie scene.

But then so does the title. I picture these teenage stoners without an indulging parent amount them to let them smoke pot at someone's house. So they did this hole off in the hills, they can't be seen from a distance---Then some guy rides right into their POT HOLE!
 
lester12483 said:
I always ride with a backpack and spare tire tube with tools in case I ever blow a tire due to pothole or glass.

I used to carry a patch kit, until the first time I needed it. I had a pinch flat, trying to run too low of pressure on my e Montague's tires, and was about 5 miles from my campsite in a remote area. When I realized I had a problem, I remember feeling smug, as I had the foresight to have that patch kit. But then it hit me, as there was no water around, (my usual way of finding a leak, being immersing the tube in water, other's ways to do so welcomed) plus it was a real windy day, (so couldn't use my ears to find it) how could I find the leak after dismounting the tire? I limped back, stopping every 1/2 mile to pump the tire back up, but since then I have a new tube ALWAYS zip tied to my seatpost, so I can't forget it. I also still carry a patch kit.
 
Whenever I got a new riding jacket of any sort, it was never worn after purchase until it thrown to the ground and run over, leaving temporary but noticeable tire tracks across it. The prevailing superstition was that sooner or later, the likelihood of such tracks on your jacket before it was worn out, was great enough to jus get it out of the way before it occurred with me wearing it! Now you can imagine that the sight of such tracks on my new jacket is alarming to some, but I can assure them that was not wearing it at the time, and I can feel slightly more confident that it's not likely to happen again,... instilling in others, the thought that it is ALWAYS possible, and one should not neglect great caution!

AND,... I've STILL had my share of mishaps! From 50mph motorcycle collisions with deer, to free-flights of several feet altitude over bicycle handlebars! And in every case, it was MY OWN DAMN FAULT!!! Including every instance of being hit by OTHER vehicles. Mostly,.... a matter of too great a speed for prevailing conditions about me.

I hate sidewalks,.... intended for nothing greater than typical walking speeds.
I'm not DEEPLY fond of shared bicycle paths,... intended for nothing greater than typical bicycle speeds.
And the roadways scare the...., well they're jus plain frightening!!! Apparently intended for nothing LESS, than the posted speed limit!!!!
Rugged bike trails? Intended to test your skills,... and mine are greatly diminished in my aging years, so I generally avoid them anymore.

Jus an old man on a bicycle? Awe come on,... e-bikes make ya feel like a kid again, and I luv it!!! Jus FAR more cautious than I used to be,... not slower.
 
DRMousseau said:
... I've STILL had my share of mishaps! From 50mph motorcycle collisions with deer, to free-flights of several feet altitude over bicycle handlebars! And in every case, it was MY OWN DAMN FAULT!!! Including every instance of being hit by OTHER vehicles...

...Jus an old man on a bicycle? Awe come on,... e-bikes make ya feel like a kid again, and I luv it!!! Jus FAR more cautious than I used to be,... not slower.

+1

Riding, we are responsible to save ourselves. A crash is our crash, no matter where it is coming from. Yet, there are some times when we need a strong philosophy to keep our mouth shut. Best is to abstact other users of the street, and see them as moving obstacles.

With decades of riding, crashes are less frequent and less painful. I believe it is due to relaxation and fatalism. When I was young, I was willing to risk a hard crash for the excitement of sport. Now I am relax to choose a safe crash to avoid a hard one.
 
...in every case, it was MY OWN DAMN FAULT!!! Including every instance of being hit by OTHER vehicles...

...Jus an old man on a bicycle? Awe come on,... e-bikes make ya feel like a kid again, and I luv it!!! Jus FAR more cautious than I used to be,... not slower.

Exactly my sentiments. I have, and always will, consider any crash to be my fault regardless of who could be considered legally at fault.
 
I was off road today, and hit some mud with a bit of snow over it, plus it was steep. I made it up a fair ways, thanks to the fat soft tires on my Sturgis Bullet. When I got off to push after finally losing traction, it was all I could do to keep my footing, it was super slick, I was amazed I made it as far as I did. This was a work related ride, not for fun. Coming down this same slick slope, I walked it the entire way, as it was not only steep but also had a side camber.
 
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