Perilous moments?

[Pelado]

17 years old and stayed up all night trying to make up homework for the end of quarter. Dad had me take him to the airport at 5:30 next morning. On the way back fell asleep on freeway and drifted. I felt the wheels leaving the road and over-corrected at 65 mph. Rolled about 2-3 times down the median of the freeway and landed on the wheels. Very fortunate to have no injuries. I still cannot sleep in a car.

15 years old riding my bike to work on back country roads and ran a stop sign into a car going about 50. My head went through the front passenger window and my shoulder blade stopped me on the frame and then I was thrown back out of the car. Got 5 days in the hospital for that one.

In Bosnia on patrol and came upon a semi truck loaded with unauthorized weapons against the treaty. We pulled around him and my 50 cal gunner had him pull over. I don't think I was ever in danger during that experience but it was the closest I came to combat while in that particular combat zone.

My wife saw my Venmo to DrumNFeather for the NFL survivor game and then my winnings. Apparently that is gambling.

We have so much in common! I too fell asleep while driving on a highway as a teenager and rolled the car a couple times. Didn't include that one in this thread because I was really calm - didn't feel like a perilous moment at all even though I broke my neck in two places and my wrist in at least seven places.

[Bo Diddley]

My wife saw my Venmo to DrumNFeather for the NFL survivor game and then my winnings. Apparently that is gambling.

No! It's an investment in entertainment.

[happyone]

I was driving my 1988 manual transmission Honda Accord (white exterior - hope that doesn't make my racist, Robin) pretty quickly on the way up a canyon to a Utah campsite with my wife, trailed by two of my brothers in town for a visit. Even with my excessive speed, I never really ran into any trouble since the upward slope would slow me down pretty quickly.

On the way back the next morning, I was still driving pretty quickly. I came up to a somewhat blind bend to the right which was tighter than I had anticipated. There was no railing on the left side of the road and a big drop off into the canyon. For a moment, while I turned the wheel sharply to the right, I was sure we were headed for the base of the canyon. After we made it back on the road and my wife's screaming had somewhat subsided, I pulled off at a clearing. My nerves were a wreck but we were still intact. We switched seats and she drove the rest of the way home.

In talking with my brothers afterward, they said that the driver-side wheels had gone over the side of the cliff.

Scary!!! I'm glad everyone is OK

[SteelBlue]

I’d forgotten all about this thread. Nice find.

[Pelado]

I’d forgotten all about this thread. Nice find.

I saw it mentioned in another thread that was recently bumped.

[Scott R Nelson]

I've enjoyed reading all of these perilous moments. Thanks for bumping the thread.

I don't think I've ever really felt in danger due to other people threatening me. Anytime I've felt in danger it has been my own fault.

I can remember snorkeling in Hanauma Bay on the south end of Oahu and going outside the reef to observe the fish in deeper water. I tried swimming back through that gap in the middle and soon realized that swimming as fast as I could barely had me holding position - I wasn't making any progress at all. After a few seconds of panic I thought it through, went over to the side and was able to get back without having to climb onto the reef. I wasn't really in serious danger, but it felt like it for a few seconds there.

Most other cases of serious panic have been while riding motorcycles, usually in the dirt in the hills. There were many times when I was headed down some steep road or trail, got going too fast to be in total control and started trying to figure out the best way to crash. But I don't give up and have always been able to save it one way or another. As I get older I'm better able to avoid getting into those situations in the first place.

[Eddie]

I went for a bike ride Saturday. Longest one of the season - likely last as well.

As I was riding solo, I decided to take the trail on the way back home. So I wouldn't have to worry about cars, etc. It was getting cool enough that even other people on the trail was rare. So I was just riding easy - had one earpiece in listening to a football game.

At one point I decided to take a quick drink. Took longer than normal putting my bottle away back in the holder - and when I looked up I was traveling 16-18 mph and was about 20 feet away from one of those gates they have where the bike/walking trails cross the roads in Davis County. Quickly realized I had around 1.5 seconds and didn't want to try readjusting my grip for a better grab at the brakes at the expense of not having a good grip on the bike when I hit, so I just ended up holding on tight and riding it through.

This is what the gates look like, for those who haven't seen one.

SLC Trail Gate.jpg

Went over the top of my bike. Everything went slo-mo, like in the movies. Which probably would've been pretty cool if I wasn't convinced I was going to break every bone in my body and wouldn't be walking away from this one.

The bike hit the gate first, which I'm sure helped. Since I went over the top, I didn't really hit the gate at all. Bumped it with my left hip, and hooked it with my right arm. My right arm hung up enough on it, that I didn't hit the ground too hard coming down on my back - which was nice. Though I had to lay there for a couple of seconds to take inventory and determine if there were any parts of my body in significantly more pain than another.

My arm was pretty sore on the bicep, where I'd hooked the gate. It turned a nice deep shade of purple about the size of my hand. Frankly, I'm surprised it wasn't broken. And my hip hurt enough that I had a hard time staying asleep that night - I'm a side-sleeper, which doesn't go well with a bruised hip.

Aside from those two bruises, and a small place on my pinky finger that must've hit the bar and lost some skin inside my glove, I wasn't injured at all. I was able to stand up and walk it off for a couple of minutes. Luckily I was in a place with few vehicles or people, so aside from one car stopping to check on me, my pride was mostly intact. Honestly - I'm surprised I was able to get home on my own.

The gate itself had broken the welds on the side I hit where the bars attach to the main pole and bent to change it's angle by 10-15 degrees.

The drop on the right side of my handlebar was completely broken and is now only attached by the bar tape holding it in place. But the brakes functioned enough I could ride the last 4-5 miles home. Couldn't shift gears, but I wasn't really interested in doing more than coasting home riding easy.

Anyway - that's my most recent incident of "perilous moments".

Got home and told my wife I clipped a pole with my handlebars and need to replace the handlebars.

I showed her my bruised bicep that first night - but it wasn't too bad till 2 days later, really. So I've been wearing long sleeves so she won't see it till it looks a lot better. She worries WAY too much already - without me providing evidence that it's all justified.

Postscript: 99% of the trail there are fences at the gates. If you don't slow to go through the gate, you're hitting fence. There really and truly is no other option. As I got up off the pavement and looked around, it didn't take me long to notice that this is probably the ONLY place where there is no fence. The trail is somewhat elevated in this spot - so I would've been on a steep decline going into a church parking lot and there's a pretty good chance I still would've wrecked. But if I'd swerved to the right, I could've avoided the gate and not hit any other obstacles either. Gotta admit - when I looked up and saw that gate, that is the ONLY thing I saw. No time to see anything else.

[chrisrenrut]

A couple of weeks ago, I did a road ride in the hills of Bountiful on my hardtail mountain bike. I just wasn’t in the mood for dirt, but wanted to get some climbing in, and I hate those hills on my road bike.

It was a Saturday morning, and I decided to see how many cars were parked at the Mueller spark trail head (a lot!). Coming back down the canyon, I like to get some speed and then turn up one of the streets to the right and see how far I can carry momentum before pedaling up the hill. I chose the road right before the church. There were leaves on the road, so part way into the turn I realized I was going to have to swing side so my wheels didn’t slide out sideways. Then I saw a car coming down the hill right towards me I’m probably doing 20 mph, in a turn, on a leaf-strewn road.

It was one of those times when time slows down. I evaluated my options. Grab brake and go OTB; do nothing and go into the car head on; turn harder and low-side into a slide. I chose option 4, straighten out, light brakes, and head into the curb. I lifted my front wheel slightly to get over the curb, then slid out on the grass before the wall into the church parking lot.

Heart rate at 200, I apologized to the driver and gathered myself. No injuries, but I felt like I stared death in the face, although worst case was probably a few broken bones and some road rash. I had so much adrenaline pumping, I had to stop a few times on my (ever so cautious) ride home to catch my breath.

You can see the squiggle in the Strava route where my bike gymnastics took place.

28FC11BB-2766-4371-9AC8-8ED5CEA0C757.jpg FC873870-47BE-449B-8692-C11BBF43F4FF.jpg

[Donuthole]

If only we had a forum on this board dedicated exclusively to cycling so we could discuss cycling crashes and near misses and debate whether it is OK to kill cyclists.

[Pelado]

If only we had a forum on this board dedicated exclusively to cycling so we could discuss cycling crashes and near misses and debate whether it is OK to kill cyclists.

I thought we'd already determined that it's not just OK, but encouraged to kill cyclists.

[creekster]

If only we had a forum on this board dedicated exclusively to cycling so we could discuss cycling crashes and near misses and debate whether it is OK to kill cyclists.

CYcling is so great you cant even hope to contain it.