PSA re dusty, dirty, gravelly corners

[Xrslug]

I crashed this morning on my road bike, which is the first crash I’ve had in years despite a lot of fast descending on mountain roads. So here’s my lesson that I’ll share for the greater good: Don’t get complacent on familiar roads and pay close attention to the road surface.

In particular, if you’re on a narrow, windy road and you’re heading into a corner and you think “Sure is a lot of loose dirt on the road in this corner,” consider carefully standing the bike up if you can do so safely and slowing down until you make it through.

In this case, about a second after that thought went through my head, my rear tire slid out toward the outside of the corner as I was turning into the apex. I kept it upright for a second as the rear tire slid out but then it gripped as it was hanging out and high-sided me off. I bounced on my ass and elbow instead of sliding. Physics is real. Ouch.

I was riding at a pretty mellow pace so luckily no real harm done other than some bumps and a tweaked back. And holes in the butt of my favorite bibs. Unclear if I would have been better off just low siding but my instinct from riding dirt bikes and mountain bikes was to try to save the rear slide. Be safe out there!

[AngryScientist]

Good reminder.

Dont know where you were riding, but a good work pal of mine was coming down a familiar canyon road in the santa monicas after a particularly bad rainstorm a few years ago and went down hard after some unexpected loose stuff washed into a corner.

Broke his hip. This is years ago and he hasnt been nearly the same man on a bike.

I love rallying downhills, but at the end of the day, always better as non-pro adults to be extra careful.

[makoti]

About two years ago, I went down HARD in a corner. Didn't see anything of note that I recalled, but after, while laying there, I looked around and there was an arc of super fine sand going around the corner then same direction I was going. I remember hearing the "whoosh" of the tire slipping, then nothing but pain. In the ER, they were cleaning me up and said it looked like I rolled around in really finely ground glass.

[cgolvin]

Hope you heal up quickly, Xrslug.

No idea where you were but I've learned this lesson (not the hard way, just the scary way) descending Mulholland and Yerba Buena -- bit of gravel entering a turn, never know if there's more around the bend.

As Angry said, good reminder.

[Ken Robb]

My Role: Never ride faster than you can see--in other words enter blind corners on a line and at a speed that will allow me to alter my line or stop if I discover the worst imaginable surprise. Once you can see the apex and the exit it's ok to speed up. This has saved my butt in cars and on many kinds of two-wheeled vehicles. There have even been instances on roads (like Montezuma Grade) where we have ridden down briskly and found the road clear all the way but coming back we found newly-fallen rocks that caused our "fast guy" to crash in a big way.