Who has never had an "off"?

Have you ever come off your bike?

  • Never

    Votes: 16 7.3%
  • Once

    Votes: 32 14.5%
  • A few times

    Votes: 131 59.5%
  • Too many times :(

    Votes: 41 18.6%

  • Total voters
    220
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gaz71

Über Member
Location
teddington
Ive come off a few times as a kid but only once as an adult.Embarrassingly i was stationary at the time! As i went to get off my bike in Bushy Park my standing foot slipped off the small mound it was on,i lost my balance and the bike ended up on top of me.
 

jonny jeez

Legendary Member
I know. My reply was a light hearted. Maybe I should have added the appropriate winky smiley ;)
Oh, Sorry.
 

jonny jeez

Legendary Member
Ohh, the mention of beer related offs reminds me of my younger military days when my ride home involved a short detour along a path involving a sharp 90 degree turn routing the path around a large pipe positioned about 2 feet off the ground.
Guaranteed every time I'd ride home after a few beers I'd end up over the bars having failed to negotiate the turn, which in those days was probably a near weekly occurance, good job I was a bit more bouncy in my youth than now.
I know its not clever to find this funny but a mate of mine told me a few years ago, when I.met him at the pub, that he had slept in a field the night before. I thought it sounded very romantic untill he added "well, I woke up in a field so assumed id slept there" he had ridden down the hill behind Farnborough high street (near pratts bottom aptly enough) full of beer and gone straight on at a bend, up a muddy slope and was thrown from his bike. Whereupon he curled up and slept the night.
 
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smutchin

Cat 6 Racer
Location
The Red Enclave
Went for a post-work pint with a colleague, the next time I saw him, he was in hospital with a smashed up face and limbs...

Apparently, on his ride home from the pub, a bollard had recklessly stepped out in front of him without looking.

The worst drink-related off I've had was when leaving the pub, hopping on my Brompton, it collapsed under me as I hadn't done up the central hinge properly. It wouldn't have been so bad but it was witnessed by the hordes of people still drinking on the pub's front terrace. One of them came up and shook my hand to thank me for giving him and his mates such a laugh.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
On the other hand, I find the attitude that crashing is an inevitable part of cycling very trying :tongue:
Ah crap. I had a car crash into me today. :sad: I was at a staggered crossroads and going straight across the stagger into a no-entry-except-cycles road when a motorist coming the other way didn't keep left and turned right across me. Looking at the video now, it looks like they didn't indicate, but my handlebar camera only saw them for about 2 seconds - how fast do Skoda indicators flash?

Anyway, I emergency-turned left (towards a rather solid brick wall! :eek:) but their right wing mirror still caught my right handlebar, disconnecting my gear cable (and snapping my click box as a result, which I didn't notice until I tried to ride on). No contact with me. I put a scratch about 10mm long on their wing mirror. So about £50 of vehicle damage each, I reckon. We shook hands on it and agreed not to take it further. Now I wonder whether they settled because they shouldn't have been driving on that resident-access-only road... but never mind. I've saved the video just in case.

Really, the most annoying things were riding home stuck in 46" gear (27" x 48:28) and the Dutchie being out of use for 2-5 days until replacement parts arrive (if it was a Sturmey 3-speed, two local shops stock spares - another reason to change).

I came back here because I thought I'd have to update my answer but I didn't come off this time so it doesn't change my answer to "Have you ever come off your bike?"
 

fimm

Veteran
Location
Edinburgh
When I was a student I was cyclist past a shop and thought "Oh I need - " can't remember what, now, so jammed on my brakes and went over the handlebars! Not damage as far as I can recall to me or my bike.
Since I got back into cycling
- 2 or 3 clipless moments
- one from the road bike on diesel that has left me with some kind of permanent damage to my left thumb
- one on ice on the Brompton (this is the one I have to repeat without the unmentionable headwear to see if the outcome is different)
- one due a pothole being just the right size to swallow the Brompton front wheel leading to the loss of a small amount of skin from the palm of one hand
- rear ended on the Brompton at low speed at a roundabout which broke the rear rack and left with me a saddle-shaped bruise on my behind
- and on Sunday I fell off while messing up my triathlon speed mount which I think does not count for the purposes of this thread (to be clear, I know how to do this, I think I was over confident and didn't concentrate on what I was doing!)

Edited to add: last year was the first year I tried to record all the cycling I did (rather than ignoring the Brompton) and Strava says I did just over 6100km - that's 4000 miles ish, isn't it?
 

die_aufopferung

Active Member
Location
Derbyshire
I did pick "too many times" but if I'm honest, all but one of those was due to inebriation - the other one was due to hitting a big patch of ice a few years back which convinced me to swap to studded tyres for winter riding. So really as long as you don't cycle home from the pub, I'd say offs are pretty rare.
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Apols for thread resurrection but I had a proper off today. Blimey, they hurt don't they?

Turning right about 15mph in right turn only lane....next thing I'm lying in the middle of the road, water bottle rolling to the kerb. No rain around here for several days, presumably diesel spilt Impact points were right hip and just below right elbow, plenty of skin lost from both

Cycled home (I'd only gone about 6 miles). Now watching the cricket feeling a bit sore and achy but thankfully nothing major
 

KneesUp

Guru
Sorry to hear that @nickyboy I believe the form is to ask how the bike is - How's the bike?

I've not had an off as an adult, but had a few as a kid. Once when I borrowed a mate's French bike, which had the brakes connected the 'wrong' way. That hurt. Once when my own front brake calliper bolt came off, so when I braked the calliper pulled out of the fork, stopped when there was no cable slack and threw me over the bars, and once when I borrowed my brother's new fangled mountain bike to go to the pub, believing that it's knobbly tyres made it impervious to ice. The didn't.
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Sorry to hear that @nickyboy I believe the form is to ask how the bike is - How's the bike?

I've not had an off as an adult, but had a few as a kid. Once when I borrowed a mate's French bike, which had the brakes connected the 'wrong' way. That hurt. Once when my own front brake calliper bolt came off, so when I braked the calliper pulled out of the fork, stopped when there was no cable slack and threw me over the bars, and once when I borrowed my brother's new fangled mountain bike to go to the pub, believing that it's knobbly tyres made it impervious to ice. The didn't.

Bike's mechanically fine. Right brake lever is heavily scratched, as is back QR. No biggy

Car drivers stopped to make sure I was OK (I was lying in the middle of the road at the time) and one called police to tell them of diesel at the junction. A cyclist stopped and he was riding to my town so he rode with me to make sure I and the bike were OK

I'm guessing I will be pretty sore tomorrow
 
Location
Salford
Apols for thread resurrection but I had a proper off today. Blimey, they hurt don't they?

Turning right about 15mph in right turn only lane....next thing I'm lying in the middle of the road, water bottle rolling to the kerb. No rain around here for several days, presumably diesel spilt Impact points were right hip and just below right elbow, plenty of skin lost from both

Cycled home (I'd only gone about 6 miles). Now watching the cricket feeling a bit sore and achy but thankfully nothing major

You'll be stiffer tomorrow, have analgesia at the ready

GWS

Or large quantities of beer

Both work

One's better
 
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