worst. wreck. ever.

Tales from the trails..
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wintermute
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worst. wreck. ever.

Post by wintermute »

At least it was for me! This is also how I have mismatched brake levers and shifters.

Back in the spring of '98 I was out on a long (20 mile-ish) ride out of town from school. I had decided to try to ride to the top of a small hill to see how far I could see from the summit. I didn't make the summit though, ran out of gas and decided to head back down. Only problem was that the path (dirt road) I had taken was straight up the hill.

I laid the bike down a couple times during the decent before I committed myself to going all the way to the bottom, which in hindsight was a bad idea.

I had full pull on both brakes to no effect as I hit the bottom, which had a slight dog-leg right that I failed to make. I caught what was effectively a dirt wall-the side of a rut created by dump trucks-and proceeded to go over the bars. It felt like I flew for 15' through sagebrush and weeds before landing on my head and shoulder, using every millimeter of protection my helmet had!

My A2R landed to the side, chain off and the handlebars had done a complete 360. The left GripShift housing was destroyed and the front brake handle was hanging by its cable. the cables off the right side went over the stem, locking the rear brake.

There I was, 10+ miles from town with a broken, un-rideable bike. Luckily a farmer was heading into town and gave me a lift.

I got off lucky, no broken bones or anything, just a scrape on my shoulder.

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Mark
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Re: worst. wreck. ever.

Post by Mark »

That seems like the worst (best) wreck without injury that I've heard of so far.. :)

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