Cycling quotation

Paul Hobson said:

Quoted message said:

It seems the causes of many falls are so commonplace
as to be well-documented -- crossing wet RR tracks at
the wrong angle

Just so I can be sure: The correct angle is perpendicular to the
tracks, right?

Right.

Rich <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> Paul Hobson wrote:
:>
:>>> It seems the causes of many falls are so commonplace
:>>> as to be well-documented -- crossing wet RR tracks at
:>>> the wrong angle
:>>
:>> Just so I can be sure: The correct angle is perpendicular to the
:>> tracks, right?
:>
:> Right.

Any angle reasonably close to 90deg will do in practice...

"Roger Zoul" Any angle reasonably close to 90deg will do in practice...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the road and the tracks are dry, SOME deviation from 90 degrees will
still let you cross safely. But if it's wet, concentrate on reducing the
deviation as much as possible. Or, get off and walk across.

Paul Hobson said:

I'm not going spend time posting as to why people should practice
falling. I don't know that they should. But, as an ex skateboarder, I
will confidently tell you that, in life in general, it's a handy skill
to have to avoid *minor* injuries.

My son is reading this...and he too is a skateboarder, snowboarder,
skier, off road biker and participates in many different sports. He
said that learning to fall is never a bad thing. And not a waste of
time. Maybe for the cyclists on this NG, but not "in general".

If all you do is cycle, then maybe learning to break a fall is a waste
of time and I was wrong. Maybe learning to fall does not help a
cyclist. I can admit defeat here.

All of you cyclists who never fall off your bikes....I applaud you, I
wish I could say the same. At the speeds I travel I think it will help
me.
Plus someday I may go back to my career as a wrestler and I will
definately need to fall properly when Hulk Helga throws me over the
ropes and I miss landing in someones lap sitting ringside and end up on
the floor.

Peace
Maggie

Leo Lichtman said:

"Roger Zoul" Any angle reasonably close to 90deg will do in practice...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If the road and the tracks are dry, SOME deviation from 90 degrees will
still let you cross safely. But if it's wet, concentrate on reducing the
deviation as much as possible. Or, get off and walk across.

Or - seriously - jump the tracks. If you have the skill, that is.

Most people can learn to lift their front wheel, and that's the one you
need to protect from the tracks. If you hop it over each track (and
the flange slots immediately next to the track) it doesn't matter much
what your back wheel does. Assuming you don't hit anything hard enough
to cause a pinch flat, that is.

I've got a set of badly angled RR tracks on my route to work. Nowadays
I do a sort of double hop to clear them. My front wheel never touches
the steel nor the slot.

It's also possible to jump both wheels, although it takes much more
skill. Before I got old and slow, I frequently jumped the entire set
of tracks.

BTW, it's not just RR tracks. Any slot in a roadway that's
sufficiently close to paralleling your path can trap your front wheel
and throw you instantly. Some of the country roads I ride have slots
worn in the pavement from Amish buggies. Those are also bad news, even
though they lack the adjacent steel surface.

- Frank Krygowski

Rich said:

Quoted message said:

Rich is either

(1) One of the smoothest, most skilled riders who ever
lived.

(2) One of the most careful, conservative riders who
ever lived.

(3) A dude who really doesn't ride his bike that much.

I'd guess a combo of 2 and 3.

I ride between 700 and 1000 road miles a year.

So I was wrong--not a combo of 2 and 3 but just 3.

To put in perspective, I ride about 12000 miles in a
year and am good for, um, one or two minor spills per
year. One fall every 9000 miles or so may seem completely
off-the-radar insignificant to a low-mileage rider like
yourself, but keep in mind my rate of minor accident is
many, many times better than any accident rate that has
ever been recorded in any study or survey of any
cyclists anywhere.

In these minor spills, few and far between as they are,
knowing how to fall has undoubtedly prevented injury many
many times over the 25-year course of my cycling career.
I'm not sure an older rider can learn how to fall,
necessarily, but the lack of this skill will certainly
become a problem if the rider, you know, actually rides.

Quoted message said:

I'm not sure why you'd
expect to fall?

Because it's part of the reality of piloting a two-wheeled
vehicle over somewhat unpredictable and chaotic surfaces?

Quoted message said:

Do you expect to wreck your car as well?

I wear my seatbelt, every time out. You? Of course not,
you don't! Why would you?

Quoted message said:

I do fall quite often on my MTB off road, but I don't consider that
unexpected.

I am an avid trail rider, to say the least. I once went
two years (about 3-4,000 miles of singletrack) without
falling one single time. Even in the midst of this long
streak, I wasn't under any illusions that the streak
wouldn't be coming to an end at some point.

(It did.)

Robert

Bill said:

Quoted message said:

Maggie who? writes:

It was once popular to refer to the skill of the "tuck and roll
technique" an imagined sequence that riders visualized.

That was supposed to be for parachutists. When I was about ten I used to
jump of the roof of my house and do a "tuck and roll", but that was
planned well in advance of jumping. You can't plan a bike fall.
Bill

I'm gonna jump in here (again)...

This idea of "tuck and roll" seems very bad at high speeds to me.
Looking at motorcycle gear: the boots, the jackets, the pants -- all
that -- are designed to have the rider slide across the pavement in the
event of a crash. It is when the fallen rider starts to roll that he
starts to bounce up and off a the ground and tries to stop himself (with
himself) that serious injuries occur. Now obviously, no one in this
group wears heavy, expensive synthetic materials designed to withstand
sliding from 70 mph to stop on highway asphalt, but how does
standard-issue lycra/spandex/whatever that stuff is hold up in a slide?

But with regards to the possible dangers of "tuck and roll," what is the
general opinion here? Am I wrong?

\\paul
--
Paul M. Hobson
Georgia Institute of Technology
..:change the words to numbers
if you want to reply to me:.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Roger Zoul said:

Rich <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> Paul Hobson wrote:
:>
:>>> It seems the causes of many falls are so commonplace
:>>> as to be well-documented -- crossing wet RR tracks at
:>>> the wrong angle
:>>
:>> Just so I can be sure: The correct angle is perpendicular to the
:>> tracks, right?
:>
:> Right.

Any angle reasonably close to 90deg will do in practice...

I mostly try not to have both tires simultaneously
on the rails -- which can happen quite easily when
the tracks are diagonal to one's direction of travel.

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

In article said:

The
last fall I had was last year barreling down a dirt path and hitting
very loose sand at the bottom. I went over the bars without brakes and
face down into the sand. You can't plan things like that.

I went over the bars recently, and have vague memories of doing it
once or twice when I was young and foolish. No major injuries in any
of them - just dusted myself off, picked up the bike, and kept going.
(Well, tried. The recent time the way the bike landed forced one of
the front brake arms to pop under the rim of the wheel, so I ended up
having to carry the bike home and get something to pry it out.)

One thing I noticed about this: Going over the bars happens way too
fast for anything but reflex to influence it - one second you're riding,
the next you're on the ground - and my built-in reflexes were enough to
get a safe landing, no need for having trained in suitable reflexes by
learning to fall to make it happen safely.

The only other involuntary dismount I've had was when I oversteered at
4km/h and couldn't get the handlebars back the other way to rebalance
in time to prevent a fall. At that speed, when your attention gets
dragged to what you're doing before you actually start falling, it's
incredibly difficult to hurt yourself in a fall, whether you know how
to fall properly or not.

(I've also had one or two semi-voluntary dismounts when I put my foot down
and let the bike slide out from under me because I couldn't make a turn,
but those don't count as falls, because I went right from on-the-bike to
on-my-feet without on-the-ground in between. Being able to do that above
20km/h is likely to be a much more useful skill than knowing how to fall.)

dave

--
Dave Vandervies [email hidden]
(Yes, I know that the C character constant for backslash is '\\'; I'm
writing English, not C.)
--Keith Thompson in comp.lang.c

Dave Vandervies <[email hidden]> wrote:
:> In article <[email hidden]>, Bill
:> <[email hidden]> wrote:
:>
:>> The
:>>last fall I had was last year barreling down a dirt path and hitting
:>>very loose sand at the bottom. I went over the bars without brakes
:>>and
:>>face down into the sand. You can't plan things like that.
:>
:> I went over the bars recently, and have vague memories of doing it
:> once or twice when I was young and foolish. No major injuries in any
:> of them - just dusted myself off, picked up the bike, and kept going.
:> (Well, tried. The recent time the way the bike landed forced one of
:> the front brake arms to pop under the rim of the wheel, so I ended up
:> having to carry the bike home and get something to pry it out.)
:>
:> One thing I noticed about this: Going over the bars happens way too
:> fast for anything but reflex to influence it - one second you're
:> riding,
:> the next you're on the ground - and my built-in reflexes were enough
:> to
:> get a safe landing, no need for having trained in suitable reflexes
:> by learning to fall to make it happen safely.
:>
:> The only other involuntary dismount I've had was when I oversteered
:> at 4km/h and couldn't get the handlebars back the other way to
:> rebalance
:> in time to prevent a fall. At that speed, when your attention gets
:> dragged to what you're doing before you actually start falling, it's
:> incredibly difficult to hurt yourself in a fall, whether you know how
:> to fall properly or not.

IMO, the only thing you can do to prepare yourself for a fall is to have
good coordination in general (ie, moving your butt/body through its various
ranges of motions on a regular basis) and to have strong muscles and bones.
All else is a [censored] shoot.

Paul Hobson said:

This idea of "tuck and roll" seems very bad at high speeds to me.
Looking at motorcycle gear: the boots, the jackets, the pants -- all
that -- are designed to have the rider slide across the pavement in the
event of a crash. It is when the fallen rider starts to roll that he
starts to bounce up and off a the ground and tries to stop himself (with
himself) that serious injuries occur. Now obviously, no one in this
group wears heavy, expensive synthetic materials designed to withstand
sliding from 70 mph to stop on highway asphalt, but how does
standard-issue lycra/spandex/whatever that stuff is hold up in a slide?

The quick answer? It doesn't. It's hardly better than riding in the
buff.

Quoted message said:

But with regards to the possible dangers of "tuck and roll," what is the
general opinion here? Am I wrong?

I would think it depends on the speed. In a couple of my road wrecks, I
managed to land on my feet (even once when I was hit by a car). But I
have gone over the bars so fast that I barely had a chance to get my
hands up to protect my face. Off-road, I have gone over the bars many
times at low speeds usually just rolled out of it. But on a low-side
crash, whether on dirt or pavement, there is no rolling out of it. The
best you can hope for is to land on your shoulder-blade and side. Stick
an arm out and it may be broken. The same goes for elbows. If you get
your arm in, the worst danger here is hitting hard enough to break your
collar bone (yep, I've done that one too). Road rash sucks, but it is
better than broken bones.

A high-side happens during a fast sweeping turn when your rear wheel
loses grip long enough to start you sliding sideways, then catches grip
again, turing the bike into a lever which launches you into the sky. If
you are lucky enough to land just right, you *might* be able to roll.
But high-sides usually happen at high-speed. No matter what, it is
going to hurt when you land. The worst part about a high-side is all
the time you get to think about what is about to happen as you soar
through the air.

-Buck

Roger Zoul said:

Try not to land on your head, Maggie.

OK, that was truly funny. Thanks for starting my day with a laugh. I
actually rode this morning and remained in an upright position. Nice
ride. A little foggy, but nice.

Maggie..

I'm still standing,
Better than I ever did,
Looking like a true survivor,
Feeling like a little kid.

Elton - The One

Quoted message said:

Rich said:

I don't consider paved roads unpredictable or chaotic.

Perhaps the wrong words. But the paved roads I ride
are strewn with all manner of obstacles any one of which
could cause a wreck to a cyclist caught off guard...

Oh my!! You sound very brave!!

;-)

- Frank Krygowski

Quoted message said:

Oh my!! You sound very brave!!

Keep your shorts on, guy who pretends to be
a bike rider.

Maggie said:

Now this is getting to the height of stupidity. Let me go back and
read what I wrote....ummmm....did I write....."I think we should
practice crashing into walls every day, just in case it happens."
Yea, I must have said that to start the thread. All I said was it was
advantageous to my son to know how to take a fall. I didn't want him
PRACTICING how to fall everyday.

No, that's not all you said. What you said was "I have learned much,
but I have yet to learn how to FALL. There must be a proper way to fall,
but I have yet to figure it out."

Now, if you want to learn some activity, you typically need to actually
do that activity. And I have not argued against the stupidity of it.

Learn to not fall, you'll find it makes riding more fun.

Rich

Rich said:

Maggie said:

Now this is getting to the height of stupidity. Let me go back and
read what I wrote....ummmm....did I write....."I think we should
practice crashing into walls every day, just in case it happens."
Yea, I must have said that to start the thread. All I said was it was
advantageous to my son to know how to take a fall. I didn't want him
PRACTICING how to fall everyday.

No, that's not all you said. What you said was "I have learned much,
but I have yet to learn how to FALL. There must be a proper way to fall,
but I have yet to figure it out."

Now, if you want to learn some activity, you typically need to actually
do that activity. And I have not argued against the stupidity of it.

Learn to not fall, you'll find it makes riding more fun.

Rich

Didn't this whole thing start out with Mark Twain?

Maggie