Decided to try a bit of jumping on a mountain bike at 43 years old and 1 week into ironman training. Ended up with a separated AC joint, 3 broken ribs, something to my back that hurt for 6 months and something to my wrist that still hurts 18 months later.
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This guy!! His first post on the forums and boom!
Welcome @David_parkinson. Hope youāre able to ride despite the hurt 
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Thanks, yeah Iām all good now, it was last year. Deferred my ironman and finished it 4 weeks ago.
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Sweet giblets!! Woot woot!!! Congrats!!! That is one SUFfimg massive undertaking.
You are an IRONMAN!!
Now you just have to get your Knighthood and all will be well in Sufferlandria 
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Iām inspired by all yāall and remembered an incident (I have several) from my childhood. A friend of mine lived in a hollow, just a block from me. I would ride my 20ā bike (b4 mountain bikes existed) down a short dirt trail, jump a small dirt ramp at the bottom and skid on the gravel driveway to announce my presence.
New bike day, I ride my brand new orange and black huffy down said trail, catch some air off the ramp and watch as my front wheel falls off and bounces away. Not how I wanted to announce my new bike to my best friend.
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Ha! Same, but handlebars came out if stem mid-air. Oooph.
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I was once riding a brand new bicycle home that I bought at my LBS.
About halfway, the fork separated from the bicycle. Talk about taking your life into your own hands.
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We used to play bike tag as kids, mom had a tandem, and weād own the block on it. Games usually lasted until the first crash. Then weād wait until the victimsā (plural because there were always at least two bikes in the pileup) wounds were healed and do it again.
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I (over)analyze everything I do to make sure I donāt make any catastrophic mistakes. I also havenāt ridden too many times outside on my bike. And when I do Iām usually by myself and make sure Iām well-prepared - and by myself means Iām also usually extra cautious.
Iāve I have had a few instances, usually when I was much much younger like 1) when I was 8 and riding my first fixie and needed to drive up our steep driveway. I needed to ride downhill to pick up speed and then turn into my driveway without losing momentum so I could make it up. I realized I was riding downhill too fast so when I turned, I turned too late. And I also forgot I had to back pedal to brake. So I tried to flinestone stop, but still ended up hitting the wooden planter wall between our driveway and the neighborās driveway. I didnāt have too much momentum so I didnāt go head over heels, but enough to toss me in the air off my seat and forward a few inches so that I landed straddling the top tube. 
ouch!
2) Back in 2005 my wife and I decided to ride in a charity MS150 Bay-to-Bay bike ride from Huntington Beach to San Diego to support my aunt who has MS. It was 2 days, 50 miles each day, with the option to ride 100 miles the second day. Fortunately we didnāt do the 100 mile option, but unfortunately neither of us had ridden bikes in years.
My wife had a beach cruiser style bike. I bought a $250 Mongoose bike from Toys R Us. We obviously had no clue. Lol. At least we decided to ride our bikes for a month or 2 before to get into shape - tho we didnāt ride very much. And usually only for maybe 3-4 miles at a time. I quickly realized my Mongoose bike wasnāt going to work and borrowed my old 10-speed (with downtube shifters) from my dad that they had given me when I was 12 and had stored in his garage for the previous 17 years. At least that was partly a good idea since it was better than either of our other 2 bikes.
On the day we started we quickly found ourselves falling behind. I kept complaining that my wife was riding too slow. After a few miles we switched bikes and just as quickly realized that it was her bike that was slow, not her. NOT a good choice of bikes. So I let her ride it and tried to pedal madly to keep up.
The next problem was that the route down PCH was NOT flat. Once past Newport Beach we found that the highway was constantly up and down short ridges almost the whole way. Not good for a beach cruiser and a 20 year old 10-speed. I could ride up some of the hills in the lowest gear. But my wife couldnāt. We had to walk a lot.
And then after maybe 20 miles or less the gear cable on my 10-speed snapped. Yeah, Iām pretty sure it was the original cable, too. The on-road support mechanic couldnāt fix it because I was missing the end of the cable which was using some obsolete mech. We had to hitch a ride in a volunteer car to drive us to the half-way point. There the mechanic was able to cut off the gear cable and somehow wire it in and tie it to the derailer to fix my rear gear so that I could ride but be stuck in just the one gear. So I now essentially had just 2 gears - if I switched between front rings.
From there we hitched a ride part way to the destination for the first day before riding the rest of the way in.
The second day we rode as far as we could when it was flat, then hitched a ride with a volunteer past the hill section in the middle, then rode in the last 5 miles. Which on our bikes felt like an eternity.
At least now we can look back and laugh.
We took the train back to Huntington Beach and then a bus to the parking lot to drive home with our bikes which we then never rode again. I sold that Mongoose bike a year or two later. Pretty sure my wife donated that bike, too.
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OMG DUDE!
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Bringing back more memoriesā¦
Sophomore in HS, worked a summer job at a lumber yard about a mile from home and rode my Raleigh Grand Prix to work and back. Nice downhill right away makes for easy speed, but Wolfeboro, NH is a significant tourist town in the summer, so it can be bumper to bumper until I get off that main road to the side streets home. Traffic rolling well, Iām following a car but not TOO closeā¦
Or so I thought. The driver SUDDENLY brakes (for NOTHING in front of him, still have no idea why he did itā¦ UNLESS it was just for meā¦)
I was so not expecting it that I didnāt react fast enough, hit the brakes too late, rammed into his rear bumper enough to jam my wheel stopped, which launched me up and over the bike.
But timing was SO EXACT that I didnāt get the pleasure of landing on his rear trunk because he was already pulling away quickly, so I hit the pavement.
I was so pissed at his āfor nothingā stop and then his ride away (maybe laughing?) that I tried to chase him down to scream at him. The downhill that led into that bottom flat also immediately went right into a very steep uphill about 200 yards long that ended at a flashing red light (the only light in town) that was always backed up. I never caught him, but I sure SUFFered in the attempt!
Probably good, too. Eventually began to consider that I just might share (or even own) the blame, but wasnāt going to admit it!
It is HILARIOUS how hard it is to get out of the pedals! I literally was laying on my back bike totally suspended above me on a very steep, maybe 45 degree slope that was covered in deep, dry leaves a couple feet deep, having slid down about 15ā from where my front wheel hit a submerged rock where the trail crossed this very tight dry creek bed in the terrain.
I KNEW there was a rock in there and even had a premonition as I approached that it would dump me. It did.
After sliding down the hill upside down, I struggled and struggled to get out of the pedals but couldnāt twist my feet enough either way because I was barely keeping from sliding even further down the hill into more rocks and punishment. I lay there struggling, laughing out loud, thankful I wasnāt hurt, and wondering how I was EVER going to get free. Somehow, finally did.
This is why I adopted a Lizard Skins BALL FROG very early on my MTB ācareer.ā When it was eventually too beat up (thankfully not from YOUR particular method of impact 
; mine was mainly for knee protection, in spite of its name), I bought the āupdated versionā and have always kept it on my MTB. Itās made for people prone to the Stupidest, Dumbest, Most Idiotic Thing on a bike. It might look dorky, but so do sliced knees. Some stems are INCREDIBLY sharp edged, and pretty much ALL of them have something on them that wants to hurt you.
@Glen.Coutts Iām embarrassed to say Iāve done that MULTIPLE times with my Domane. I THINK maybe Iāve learned to me a little more careful by nowā¦ but I wonāt swear to thatā¦ 
Reminded me of what I think was the FIRST Stupidest, Dumbest, Most Idiotic Thingā¦
I was maybe 7 years old? Had a gorgeous green and white Western Flyer 20" bike that my Dad bought for me when I was either 5 or 6. He brought it home and put me on the seat, and while he held the back of the seat and trotted along behind me, told me to just ride. I had never ridden a bike till then. We lived by the school yard so he was jogging along, me just having a blast, on the best ever NEW BIKE DAY! We did this for several minutes and I was feeling like a billion bucks! Next thing I knew, I glanced behind and there was nobody there!!!
Dad had let go and I was already riding by myself, no assistance needed! I was a BIKER!!
Forward maybe a year later? I was riding with a buddy, racing around the open school yard having a blast. Then we decided to go riding from the other side of the school (down along the sidewalk around the whole school) and take a ājumpā where that sidewalk came out into the big open play area of the school yard. The sidewalk ended where a paved slope rose up to meet it, and we could ālaunchā off that endpoint, just a little bit, hardly a jump at all unless you really carried speed and gave some lift to catch a bit of airā¦
This was STRICTLY FORBIDDEN for us to do, however! It was right beside the building, and anyone coming from around that corner would be right in the pathā¦
Well, my buddy and I had done a couple jumps already, and I was wound up into another one, giving all I could to get speed (which thankfully at that age probably was fairly lowā¦but)
I neared the corner prepped to jump, whenā¦
DAD!!! Rolled right out from the other side, totally BROADSIDE IN FRONT OF ME!
I SMASHED INTO HIS nearly new SCHWINN TOURING BIKE front wheel and we both went down in a heap.
My bike was unharmed. His front wheel was a total POTATO CHIP!
I was actually SCARED FOR MY LIFE! I donāt even remember being hurt in any way, which is crazy considering the impact, and I donāt think he was.
But if you knew my Dad, youād know he was super-strict, and youād know there was going to be a serious whipping with a lilac switch! I broke the rule, and I broke his bike! I sweated bullets for days waiting for the inevitable.
You know, I never heard another WORD about it. He never lost his cool, never punished me, never talked about what it cost him for another wheel. (That one was history for sure!) Probably the most out-of-character story of him that I remember!
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I have found it easier to pull my foot out of my shoes, and then remove the shoes from the pedals.
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A car once made a right turn in front of me so close, that it took all my bicycle handling skills to escape. I was so angry that I raced after the car. I did catch up to him, and told him what he did. He just meekly apologized, and said he did not see me.
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Oh man! I was almost taken out by a green gremlin. The guy pulled up beside me and turned right as I was beside his passenger door. Thereās no way he didnāt see me.
He was so close that I was able to grab the passenger door handle to keep from going under his car. I rode the turn then released the handle as he sped away.
I was just a kid, and never saw him again. No idea who he was or why he tried to kill me.
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Iāve done that too. Only once, maybe itās a right of passage?
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21 years ago, I was rolling downhill at 25-ish mph on the main road through Hot Springs, VA, passing the famous Homestead Inn, when a driver in a big Homestead work truck blew right through a stop sign on a side street to my left, and him turning left to proceed directly alongside of me as he did so. Then within 50ā of taking MY lane, he turned immediately into a parking lot on the RIGHT, with me still on his right side, screaming, NO NO NO!!! at the top of my lungs, which he should have heard through his wide-open rear cab window.
His huge truck mirror caught me dead straight in the center of my chest as I skidded and plowed into him as he turned.
People heard the crash and came pouring out of little shops that were close by and served by that parking area. I bounced off the truck, hit the deck, didnāt go under the truck, thanks to God, and I literally thought I was going to die in the next minute.
My chest hurt like nothing Iād ever experienced before, so intensely that I could only scream out in pain, somehow gather another breath, and scream again. Several times over.
Someone inside who came out was a medical person and came rushing over, trying to get me to stop bouncing up and down, clutching my chestā¦
I finally got sense enough to think a bit, then grabbed my bike to see how it survived. (
)
I really wanted to yank the driverās head off but managed to restrain myself, and things began to settle down a bit. The small local hospital was like a block up the street, and a rescue squad came and transported me there to get checked out.
X-rays were inconclusive about damage. They found nothing that they needed to address. A state trooper eventually came, took my statement, and proceeded to do absolutely nothing as far as the driver of the truck, no charges, simply told me that the way he would file it would make it plain that the driver was at fault. No addressing a failure to stop at stop sign, no charge for failure to yield, failure to safely signal and turn, nothing. I made it clear to him what I thought of his clear MIS-handling of it. He wasnāt about to upset the largest revenue source in the county.
4 days later, I was back on the MTB, and kept on riding, though I didnāt know what damage may have been done. Just over 3 weeks later, I had ordered a new Lemond frame, paid for by the Homesteadās insurance company to replace my Trek.
In order to get payment from them, I had to sign off on all future claims, which meant I had to get more definitive assessment of my chest.
Had a bone scan done 3 weeks out from the crash, found out it had cracked my sternum, and it was already well along to being healed up.
I was wearing a Bike Nashbar heart monitor belt when I was hit, and the truck mirror edge hit exactly on that hard plastic center part, rather than the steel mirror body hitting me directly.
Impact still cracked the sternum but force was dispersed enough that it didnāt push it in through my heart.
I was pretty close to death that day, I suspect. Iām grateful to God that He kept me here!
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I WENT OVER THE HOOD OF A GREEN GREMLIN WHEN I WAS A KID!
Just started road racing, early '80s. Pulle out right in front of me w/o looking and I went over his hood. Thankfully no major harm done, but sounds like he made a habit of itā¦
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Your experience is one of the reasons I am distrustful of bicycle lanes that are not physically separated from the road. I am much more aggressive now about keeping more than a doorās width from parked cars, and to take the lane if I think there is a possibility of a car going to do something stupid.
I was once almost crushed between a row of parked cars, and a vehicle trying to move closer and closer to the cars. I just banged on the front passenger window and the driver āwoke upā and fortunately pulled away.
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Painted bike lanes are just useless. I have a story from them.
The cycle ride from my old work to the ferry was along a main (and actually the only) road thru a peninsular. The cycle lane is just a painted lane. Because it is a very populated peninsular with only this one road in and out, with a single lane in each direction, it is a really busy road. And of course, at the end of the working day cars are bumper to bumper.
Being on a bike with a bike lane, you can just whip past them and Iād often be 100 or more cars up on my commute.
Anyway, one day I am riding along (itās a 14km ride btw) this bike lane. And Iām passing all the cars, as you do, and this idiot decides itās not fair I can pass him while heās stuck in traffic so he pulls his enormous brand new Land Cruiser (which will only ever get driven on tarmac) partially into the bike lane, blocking me. I back off, he goes back in the car lane. 4 or 5 times, when I try pass, he does this. His side passenger window is open and I can see him watching me in his side mirror. Clearly being oassed by a female, on a bike is unacceptable and he must prevent this from happening at all costs.
I figure I have to just be brave and get past him or Iāll miss my ferry. He clearly knows I am there and surely no driver would ever be dumb enough to actually deliberately hit a cyclist. So when he looks down at his phone I do just that, but quick as a snake, the &#%#% pulls into the bike lane WHILE i am next to him.
Now the next bit was a 100% instinctual I am going to die reaction, NOT a deliberate attempt to retaliate.
I was on my favourite road bike. I did not want it, or myself getting hit. So I uselessly put my foot out to push the car away. Dumb I know. BUTā¦I was wearing Speedplay cleats and the walkable cleat cover was missing. And my bare, sharp metal cleat ran a HUGE scrape down the side of his brand new and very expensive car. There was also a dent. He went absolutely mental and stopped his car. Understandable but heād also maliciously tried to squish me just because. So I debated stopping briefly, but figured traffic was at a standstill and I could make the remaining 9km to the ferry and board it and heād never catch me. And thatās exactly what I did AFTER i told him he can be grateful Iām not pressing charges for attempted murder. I got a photo of his plate and face, gave him the middle finger and went on my way.
I have zero regrets but it was a very dumb thing to do. The trying to pass him I mean. I should have crossed over behind him and over taken in the oncoming traffic lane.
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The banging on a car technique is really effective, thankfully.
We seem to be going thru a phase of drivers being well intentioned towards cyclists here at the moment, which is a relief. But so many are simply just half asleep or on their phones behind the wheel. It is utterly frightening
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