Ouch

[juliet]

I fell off my bike this morning :-( Turning left off St James' Road onto a side road, and the road must have been slippery as the bike went out from under me. No serious harm done, as I wasn't going fast and basically just went down in a heap. I'm going to have a cracking bruise on my leg, and my back aches a bit. The bike is fine.

Nice drivers (one in car, one in van) waiting to turn out of the side road stopped and checked that I was OK. I am feeling a bit bad because I can't remember if I said thank you, but I'm sure they understood!

Continued to the osteopath. Osteopath tutor came in & did fairly hardcore crunchy thing on lower back. Sudden pain in upper back, burst into tears. Most embarrassing. The osteopaths said that it was to do with your body reacting to the earlier trauma, and also shock, and not to worry, but strongly recommended that I go home and have a nice cup of tea. Which is what I have done.

On the way back I noted that that bit of road has now been gritted. Don't know if someone else came off there, or if the van was a Southwark one & phoned it through. It is strangely cheering, though!

(To forestall any comments about the danger of bikes: in 7 years of daily cycling (somewhere in the region of 20,000 miles, I reckon), including on actual snow, this is the first time I've ever come off like that. I am pretty sure that I've fallen off my own two feet more often than that :-) )

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

It seems to be the season :(
I came off a few days ago on the way to the office while making a gentler-than-usual turn in a place I've been many times before. It was on a very foggy day and I think the fog had mobilised the grease and crap on the road enough to make it very slippery. Not very pleasing either, really.
Fortunately, the road was closed to most traffic so I had much less risk of being crushed by a bus than I usually would had had there. And it's years since I came off like that too.

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

The bike is fine Well that goodness for that! :) Glad you're OK - I think perhaps you should have TWO cups of tea though, just to be on the safe side...

[juliet]

I am about to do just that! And have a bath, also as per osteo recommendation.

(NB I hope this is not bike-offputting!)

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

Bec was going to lend me her bike tomorrow to try out this whole bicycling lark, but now I will never be able to even look at a bicycle! I might have to get a car instead. Er, no, not really. I'm still looking forward to trying cycling.

Glad to hear you're all right!

[catsgomiaow.livejournal.com]

Not offputting at all - I'm probably going to go PROPER SLOW round corners until I get some confidence anyhow...

[juliet]

This is v wise! I will be taking a bit more care around corners till the roads clear up a bit. Some real proper rain would do it.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Oww - glad you're OK. A woman came off her scooter on the corner of my road last week, and when I went to help her I found the road was horribly greasy. I think the mucky fog we've been having is doing it.

[juliet]

Yeah, I think you're right - the road looked a bit odd when I was picking myself up (I couldn't check properly as I had gloves on), and quite a lot of road-grub came off on my leg where it hit the road.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I am being incredibly timid round corners at the mo, especially if the surface looks at all wet!

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

Glad you are OK. I've also had occasional falls and tend to remember those bits of road well when I see them again.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

This might cheer you up:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/61-bicycles/

[steer.livejournal.com]

Oh dear -- you're the second bike accident in my friends list in 24 hours. Glad you're OK!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Dude! That's... not a bad record by my standards :) But yeah take care of yrself.

[juliet]

In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I've had another handful of falls in those 7 years as well:

- in Oxford, took a corner too fast & clipped the kerb. Grazed knee & hand.
- couple of years ago, seatpost snapped. Sprained wrist, badly grazed leg (it scarred).
- 2 x clipless moments during first day or so riding clipless (these don't really count as I was stationary at the time, that being the nature of the clipless moment).
- (most embarrassingly) Rode into a kerb, thankfully very slowly, when looking over shoulder on first time out on Cepheus (audax bike) as I hadn't realised quite how light the handling was.

Still not a bad record, though. I've never had a traffic-related accident.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Yeah my problem (with clipless - or even cleats of any sort) is that a lot of the times when I've stopped, there's still a moving line of traffic beside me. And a lot of my calm mental state on bikes is due to the knowledge that I can in a second flee the bike and be hoofing it to the sidewalk :)

Owow on the seatpost snapping though: I've recently become paranoid that at some point when I'm off-saddle, the axle the pedals are on will go.

[juliet]

If you're stopped, you have one foot unclipped anyway (the classic "clipless moment" being when you forget to do this. Normally on about day 2 of riding clipless, when you're used enough to it not to think about it all the time but not used enough to it not to have to...). It takes a fraction of a second to unclip the other foot - I don't think it would delay me to any significant extent if I had to hop off the bike in a hurry. It becomes entirely automatic - I "unclip" even on the rare occasions I'm wearing flat shoes, now.

Pedal crank or BB snapping = monumentally unlikely. The bit on my seatpost that went was a thinnish lip at the rear of the bit the saddle sits on - poor design TBH and my existing seatposts don't have it.

If you *did* have a crank break, you'd fall off, sure, but unlikely to do serious damage. Break a wrist if you fell awkwardly, maybe, or a collarbone if you were really going and speed.

[htfb.livejournal.com]

I did have a crank snap once, as I stood onto the bike from stationary. It's less likely than your handlebars going, though. Both have opportunities to be really unpleasant.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I may have mentioned this before but I managed a kerb after the winter beer festival. I was looking at Clare and saying "don't fall off your bike, dear aaargh"

[htfb.livejournal.com]

Youch. I'm sure there are other causes of clinical shock---I had to learn them for a first-aid badge or lifesaving medallion or something, once---but coming off the bike must be the most typical. Hot drinks.

You've reminded me that I need to swap my brake-blocks.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

Sour! On the plus side, awesome bruise!
Hooray for bikes!

[shadowdaddy.livejournal.com]

Second-to-last time I came off my bike was on the slick cement of a parking structure, within a few hundred yards of my intended bike rack. Boo for wet roads. But that was at least 8 years ago.

It's amazing how fast you can bounce back up when there are cars coming.

Glad that you are generally only bruised, and the bike is in one piece.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

'tis a bad day. I just poured copious freshly made tea onto my wrist. Luckily have found ice so won't have to spend the whole day by the sink.

In 15 years of daily tea-drinking (let's say in the region of 20,000 cups) I've not done this before! Or not so badly.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Glad you're in one piece and not permanently damaged or anything. Hope you feel better soon, and the bruises heal rapidly.

[adjectivegail]

Glad you're okay and that you're following Sensible Advice. Also glad to hear the road's been gritted :-)

[barakta]

My partner, a recent convert to cycling fell off her bike about 2 weeks ago, nasty arm and leg gash plus bruising to her shoulder and knee. She was more pleased that the bike was ok and more worried that I'd try and stop her cycling again than her injuries. I was more worried by her cycling home on it as her asthma kicked in due to the shock of the fall and the sun setting temperature dropping thing. She does know she can get a taxi or tube and carries enough money/Oyster enough to do that.

Her accident was caused by grit on a towpath somewhere, and there was a nice man who checked if she was ok. She was more worried about his dog slobbering on her, so she figured after a basic "body parts check" that she must be ok.

She's obtained a better tyre for her good bike and been out shopping on the folder a few times, so I figure she must be okay. She now has an "in emergency" leaflet in her wallet cos I can't be contacted by phone and her family are idiots.

I hope you recover soonest and that any bruising is as minor as possible.

[juliet]

A thing that may be useful for her to know (although obv I hope she doesn't fall off again!) is that you can fit a bike in a black cab.

Towpaths can be a PITA - gravel is a nasty surface to ride on. And it gouges chunks out of you if you do fall!

[ludy]

meep! (but yay! for you being ok)