Fell Off My Bike, and Vowed Never to Get Back On | Hacker News Reader

Fell Off My Bike, and Vowed Never to Get Back On

nytimes.com

13 pointsedw51921 comments

I agree with the comments of hugh3 here.

I also have to point out, though, the lack of substance in the original article. It reads like a High School essay. It's basically an anecdotal tale (I rode my bike...I fell down...my friend Jen was there...so was my husband...I remember a PE coach once saying....). Yes, there's a Dr. Lowenstein referenced, but is again just more anecdotal insight (such as those gained standing around the water cooler). In the end, nothing is really learned (except for quite a few tiny details about the writers life).

In summary: junior-level NYTimes reporter needs to submit a story, yet it's a slow news cycle. So, she leverages her bike mishap into a story, getting her friends names in the paper, and some free advertising for Dr. Loewenstein.

I'm sad for journalism, but that's another common story.

And don't forget that if it bleeds, it leads. That's yet another facet of modern journalism I hate.

I would think that the main factor distinguishing running injuries from cycling injuries is the nearly-dead factor.

It's very hard to die from a running injury, but any major cycling injury is probably just a little bit of bad luck away from being a broken neck.

It's largely perception.

Professional cyclists crash several times a year, often at far greater speeds than any normal cyclist would ever reach. A routine tumble will happen at in excess of 25mph. I can't remember the last professional to die in a road crash. Collarbones break because they're supposed to - unpleasant as it might seem, they're natural crumple zones.

There are certainly classes of accident that happen to commuters but not professionals, but they happen to runners just the same. If you get hit by a car, it doesn't matter a great deal whether you're running or cycling, the car carries most of the kinetic energy either way.

The risk of being put off by accidents is that cycling is far safer than not cycling. Study after study has shown that the cardiovascular benefits massively outweigh the risk of traumatic injury - cyclists live markedly longer than non-cyclists.

The cure-all for cycle safety is simply more cyclists. Most drivers aren't malicious towards cyclists, just inexperienced in maneuvering around them.

Hmm, interesting. I have been doored once on my daily bike commute in Cambridge, MA. I've slipped and fallen once. A few times a month I have to swerve or brake hard because someone didn't see me. And I'm fairly experienced at this point (about a year of cycling every day) -- when I started out, I was dodging cars and pedestrians once or twice a week.

I haven't had any major injuries myself, but a friend was doored recently and hospitalized. He had surgery twice and missed well over a week of work. Months later, he still can't ride.

My point is just that it certainly doesn't FEEL very safe. The claim of health benefits is certainly something I want to believe.

And I definitely agree that more cyclists on the road would be good. Drivers just don't look for cyclists -- practically ever. If there were better bike lanes and they were always full of cyclists, people would probably learn pretty quick.

I've been in probably half a dozen cycling accidents since I started "seriously" biking (city-street commuting) which have ranged from clumsy falling (my fault) to getting door-ed and hit by cars. I've been there with the vowing-never-to-ride-again, but with the incidents involving cars, the outrage sometimes helps to motivate returning to the saddle, fueling cyclist-driver antagonism, as in "cars can't keep me off the road." It has also helped to remind me to treat every car door as a potential trap, and every car as a pseudo-malicious beast out to get me, and thus ride with more vigilance and care.

Neal Stephenson wrote something like that in Zodiac. The protagonist mentions his philosophy on riding his bike as the assumption that he is wearing a fluorescent vest, and there is a million dollar bounty on his head - if a car sees you and has to consciously make the decision to not kill you, you're already wrong.

Bike Ninjas are usually that way out of paranoia... you know the type: dark clothes. dark bike. no lights. no reflectors. sometimes riding against traffic like they used to teach us in kindergarten.

Most of them think that motorists really are out there to kill them, so they'd rather not be seen and rely on their own perceived "skill" to stay alive.

I can't see the whole text, but I've been in a few pretty good crashes. Once (http://is.gd/hZVO2 ) shattering a few teeth and my maxilla after being edged off the road by a motorist. More recently (http://is.gd/hZWdH ) I ran over a moving deer while traveling pretty quickly for a bicycle (~35 MPH before I saw the deer, no clue how slow I got by the time of impact). Both times, the bike helmet spared me quite a bit of damage.

Without submitting to The Paywall Of Doom, I have no idea what happened to this guy, but a good bike crash can be pretty scary.

People on HN are always complaining about the NYT paywall but I never see it, are you talking about the "sign up for an account"-wall? The site is still free right, the paywall is going up next year? As I recall, clearing your NYT cookies sometimes lets you through the account signup.

But, I agree, a good crash is definitely one of the scarier things I've experienced, and it sounds like you've had more than your share of "good" ones.

I have to use some kind of euphemism to describe them to convince myself I still like bike commuting. I'm still picking scaly pseudo-scar material from my elbow.

Of particular note: the first big crash was due in part to me being inexperienced, only back on the bike for a few months. I wasn't riding the way I should have been, and I was not prepared for the situation. The second crash happened because I spent too much time scanning the road for cars and road hazards, and not enough time noting my surroundings. A co-worker saw me hit the deer (he was a few cars back) and says he saw it in the field from the top of the hill, before it wandered into the deeper brush that it'd eventually jump out of right in front of me.

Taking some of the blame and acknowledging that both crashes were ultimately avoidable has helped keep me on the bike, and it's sharpened me up a bit while riding.

Paywall of Doom? Registering is free.

Note: if something is being given to you for "free", but you still need to sign up, the product is YOU.

I suppose I could go trawl BugMeNot.com or something, but eeh.

> Note: if something is being given to you for "free", but you still need to sign up, the product is YOU.

Is that inherently bad?

No, I just don't feel like paying that particular price. I lurked on HN for years before I signed up. All the content here is free for the consumption of the world. I really just don't want to have yet another company with my email address and yet another password I have to remember for the two times per year NYT has exclusive content I absolutely have to read.

Scary indeed. Here's an image of my helmet after I crashed in a race a couple years ago. Not fun!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davemabe/5220685015/

Yikes! Mine wasn't nearly that destroyed. How badly was the rest of you hurt? The bike?

I had a concussion but other than that I was pretty much fine. The bike handled it pretty well too - new front wheel, new saddle, and new bar type was pretty much all that was required to replace.

When I was younger, I had aspirations of getting into the X-Games for freestyle bmx and dirt jumping. Those dreams ended when I broke my leg doing something very mundane.

I was grinding down a box with a decline which was about 3.5 feet off the ground. I had lost my balance, and instead of putting my right foot down on top of the box, I put my left foot down, 3.5 feet, onto the sloping decline. After recovering from my fall, I twisted my foot 180 degrees back into the "normal" position. Not thinking clearly at the time, I didn't even realize what had just happened. I got up, walked over to my bike and got back on, only to fall off within a few moments. At that moment, I felt my leg (which still was in my shin guard) and I felt it wobble/seasaw up and down in the middle. Right then, I knew something was wrong.

I broke my tibia, fibula and ankle all in one go. After surgery, I ended up with 2 pins in my ankle, a plate and 5 screws in my tibia and was on crutches for 4 months (these were removed a year after). To this day haven't ridden BMX, though I can ride mountain bikes and snowboard better than I had before. I cringe with agony anytime I see someone take a gnarly spill, remembering the pain I had once experienced.

Fell off many times; lucky to never break anything yet.

It is surprising how little we do to remain safe on a bike - strap a block of styrofoam to your head, and you're good to go! Not even wrist guards. A football player wears more, they travel far slower on grass and hit lighter objects, and look what they wear.

Even so, no way am I going to wear more than spandex and a helmet - it would vastly impede my performance etc.

Does anyone vow not to drive again, or be a passenger in motor vehicles after being hit, hitting another car or injuring or killing a pedestrian?

You'd think you'd hear of such since more people drive, and the bad crashes are worse.

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