Mine is not at high speed, or even on an ebike, but it could have killed me anyway.
In late 2005, when I'd had the Columbia Comfort Bike (that eventually became DayGlo Avenger) for less than a month, I was riding to work, at perhaps 10-13MPH at most I'd guess. I'd just begun a left hand turn from the left turn lane of the road leading into Metrocenter's Metro Parkway when suddenly I was left holding handlebars that were no longer connected to the bike, and I could no longer steer.
I didn't have time to think, and I didn't have a reaction already trained into me for that one--I'd never even imagined it! I have had many loose stems over the years, for various reasons, but I've always been able to twist the bars with my weight on them just right and force the wheel to turn anyway, or to stay straight, etc., long enough to stop and fix it. This time, there was no way to do that.
THe weld had broken from the stem riser to the part that clamps to the bars themselves. The only things still connected were the brake and shifter cables; I think if I had not been so shocked I could've gently squeezed the brakes and slowed a lot before the crash, but I did not think of it (or anything, really).
I continued coasting at about the same full speed diagonally toward the sidewalk, went up a driveway-type ramp that goes to the canal path (where I had intended to go to) and then kept going diagonally across the sidewalk and down into a 4" deep gravelly "planter" area where there used to be trees years back. Less than a second later the front wheel (which was sliping and skewing already in teh gravel) hit the other side's 4" curb and the bike totally stopped, but of course I did not, and I couldn't even have held onto the bike if I had wanted to, as the only part that coudl've helped me was the bars I was still holding, if they'd still beeen attached.
So over the wheel I went, and all I remember is ground-sky-ground-sky a few times, then THUD and rollrollrollrollFLOP. I'd managed to tuck myself into a ball more or less before I hit, and as soon as I was slow enough I expanded out to stop the rest of it, but i still had landed on the point of my right shoulder, very nearly breaking it. If I'd landed any harder I'd've also hit my helmeted head, and certainly breaking my shoulder and/or collarbone. The jacket and shirts underneath were all torn thru at the impact point, and my hip on that side was badly bruised, pants torn, and both knees and elbows banged up.
I lay there a bit, waiting for the world to stop moving so fast, then the throbbing started. ONE car of ladies SLOWED DOWN just a little bit as they rounded the corner and yelled out "are you ok?" but they ddin't even stop or wait for an answer.
Lots of traffic that time of day at that intersection, and despite me just laying there for so long, not a single person actually stopped to come see if I was dead.
I got up eventually and remembered I was on my way to work, so I limped up there but I couldn't actually do much work before being sent home as I could not handle the pain after a while.
Columbia replaced the stem no questions asked, once I hurt less enough to try contacting them. Was right arond this time of year, so it took until after the new years to get the part, IIRC.
I can't imagine how bad it could've been if this had happened on DGA as it is now, in traffic, at 20MPH.
I might not have survived.
