That time you'd accepted you were dead...

[ForkinGreat]

Holy shit. You road riders are crazy.

I guess we seem to have a calm theoretical acceptance of dicey situations, as roadies encounter them often enough.
similar sort of thing with MTB riders - you accept that you are probably going to have a stack at some point, and just get on with riding,

 

[Lazmo]

Yep the road is a crazy place.

Reading all this, I just remembered why I gave up commuting on a motorcycle back in the day – which was the early 80’s.

I was heading up Toorak Road in Hartwell towards the city on a 900 BMW (a 90/6) and had just gassed it away from the cars at some traffic lights. I was belting along a bit. A woman in a Volvo heading towards me decides to turn right in front of me, no indicator, into her driveway. I hit the hopeless brakes and manage to plough into her left front door, but keep the bike upright with no damage, and only crumpling her door and smashing the window. She’s pretty hot BTW, bursts into tears and I end up having to get my bike and her car off the road to stop the massive traffic jam it caused. She’s still so upset, I have to write all the details for both of us and then ride off.

Only minutes later, I pass the gasometer in Tooronga and I turn onto the original South Eastern Freeway, in the right hand lane. A dude in a white XA Falcon, decides my lane is better, and without warning basically runs me into the armco. The BM’s right hand head is scraping along the armco, but luckily I keep the bike upright, hit the picks, go around the back of his car, hold my right leg up and out straight, accelerate hard and take his left mirror clean off. Mirrors didn’t fold back then.

Only minutes later, I’m in the CBD and heading up either Exhibition or Russell, can’t remember. Traffic is stopped and I’m filtering between the cars. The gap between a white XA Falcon on the left and the rear bogey of a semitrailer on the right seems to my now deranged pissed off mind to be OK. But I forget I’m on a POS hopelessly wide BMW and jam the heads into the right rear quarter panel of the car and a left hand rear tyre of the semi. The guy is the car is going off, fair enough, but I’m stuck there, solid as. Lights go green, the tyre of the semi arcs up and lifts my bike way up high, well off the ground, the car veers left, I come back to earth and luckily keep the bike upright, see a gap and gun it and rack off.

Get into work, walk straight into the bosses office, tell him the story, and I drove the company car from that day on.

 

[Calvin27]

Got pulled out this massive rip out to sea with nothing but some shorts and a body board that was too small for me. Was choppy and dicey as anything and my swimming ability is pretty average. This was some stupidly hard ass current and by the time we actually chopped our way to the side away from the rip we were bloody far out. A few minutes and several litres of seawater later we were is slightly less currenty waters (not sure why but the whole beach seemed to be generally pushing us out to sea. Took a whole 15 minutes of shallow paddling (current was huge underwater) and then me and mate just sat there for a while contemplating life lol when we got back on shore.

 

[pink poodle]

This one time I had the man flu...

 

[link1896]

Yep the road is a crazy place.

Reading all this, I just remembered why I gave up commuting on a motorcycle back in the day – which was the early 80’s.

I was heading up Toorak Road in Hartwell towards the city on a 900 BMW (a 90/6) and had just gassed it away from the cars at some traffic lights. I was belting along a bit. A woman in a Volvo heading towards me decides to turn right in front of me, no indicator, into her driveway. I hit the hopeless brakes and manage to plough into her left front door, but keep the bike upright with no damage, and only crumpling her door and smashing the window. She’s pretty hot BTW, bursts into tears and I end up having to get my bike and her car off the road to stop the massive traffic jam it caused. She’s still so upset, I have to write all the details for both of us and then ride off.

Only minutes later, I pass the gasometer in Tooronga and I turn onto the original South Eastern Freeway, in the right hand lane. A dude in a white XA Falcon, decides my lane is better, and without warning basically runs me into the armco. The BM’s right hand head is scraping along the armco, but luckily I keep the bike upright, hit the picks, go around the back of his car, hold my right leg up and out straight, accelerate hard and take his left mirror clean off. Mirrors didn’t fold back then.

Only minutes later, I’m in the CBD and heading up either Exhibition or Russell, can’t remember. Traffic is stopped and I’m filtering between the cars. The gap between a white XA Falcon on the left and the rear bogey of a semitrailer on the right seems to my now deranged pissed off mind to be OK. But I forget I’m on a POS hopelessly wide BMW and jam the heads into the right rear quarter panel of the car and a left hand rear tyre of the semi. The guy is the car is going off, fair enough, but I’m stuck there, solid as. Lights go green, the tyre of the semi arcs up and lifts my bike way up high, well off the ground, the car veers left, I come back to earth and luckily keep the bike upright, see a gap and gun it and rack off.

Get into work, walk straight into the bosses office, tell him the story, and I drove the company car from that day on.

You've used a few of your nine lives up.

 

[fridgie]

About 4-5yrs old and camping with family along the Murray River, we all go down a muddy bank to the water and as I'm so light I slide straight into the river instead of sinking into the mud like everyone else. Didn't know how to swim, sucked a lungfull of water and went under. Mum dived in after me, dad dived in after mum. No real memories of the event but apparently was pretty close. Learnt to swim on that trip afterwards.

Working with a tradie as an apprentice in a supermarket fridge, spent a fair bit of time in there trying to fix it when the tradie screams 'DOOR!'. That was when I noticed how dizzy I felt and vision was starting to blur. We both bolted for the door, crashing through the stock piled up and fell out onto the floor outside. We'd been looking for a gas leak in the system but the door had closed and the oxygen been replaced by the refrigerant. Both of us were close to blacking out in that room by the time it was noticed.

Running late, was about 19yrs old, driving up the highway in the wet, little Honda Civic with 15"x7" rims and 40 series tyres. Aquaplane at about 120kph and start a slow spin, just missed the guard rail on the wrong side and bounced off about a dozen trees while spinning down the embankment. Things went black for a bit and finally it comes to what had happened. I begin doing the check over and notice someone's head sticking up over the Ridge with that 'are they alive' look. I'm shaking like shit but can only find a couple of scratches on leg where the passenger door speaker hit me. I get out and check the car over, every panel destroyed except the drivers door, roof bent in, tree branch in back seat through passenger front window, tree jammed between drivers wheel and wheel arch stopped me going into the river. I'd gone about 30M from start of the guard rail and missed hitting the start of it by about 1M. Tow truck had to run cable off the guard rail to get my car up the bank, then get another towie in to get him out.

Heading to work on a sweeping bend with a T intersection in the wet. Road is 80k limit and I'm doing about 75. Car pulls up at intersection, goes to go then stops, I think they've seen me so just keep going when they decide to pull out when I'm about 40M away. Middle of corner I know if I touch brakes I'm screwed so loft the throttle and start to drift wide to go around the outside, see 2 cars coming at me as the corner straightens and now know I'm screwed. Just touch the brake and car steps out in the rear, try to hold it and it goes, slamming nose first into the bank and flipping, with me not wearing a seatbelt. Just remember grabbing the bottom of the steering wheel and jamming myself down into the seat as strong as I could. Sliding on roof I just missed the power pole at side of the road. Idiot who pulled out farks off, other 2 cars stop to see if I'm ok. Sitting on the roof I'm about to kick the window out when I remember windows have winders so wind down rear window and climb out. Then realised ignition is still on so go back in to get keys out and find sunglasses wedged between windscreen and dash on passenger side. When towie turns up and gets vehicle right way up I noticed the A pillar crushed down and the headrest smashed off the drivers seat by the roof caving in. That's when it really hit me how close it was.

Needless to say, I HATE driving in the wet now, even 20yrs on....

 

[Jpez]

Yep the road is a crazy place.

Reading all this, I just remembered why I gave up commuting on a motorcycle back in the day – which was the early 80’s.

I was heading up Toorak Road in Hartwell towards the city on a 900 BMW (a 90/6) and had just gassed it away fr .

Driving just up the road from there on the Burwood hwy today all traffic was banked up and lights flashing up ahead. As we finally crawled past the accident there was a big bike in pieces lying in the middle of the road. Looking at the pieces of that thing there was no way the rider survived that. Seemed to confirm that notion when I noticed an ambulance pull away slowly no lights or sirens.
Sure put a downer on the day. Looked like he was heading up to the Dandenongs for a fang.

I stopped riding shortly after I got taken out by a taxi pulling over to the side of road and cleaned me up a few years ago. Had a kid and thought fuck that.
It’s not if you come off but when.

 

[Calvin27]

Driving just up the road from there on the Burwood hwy today all traffic was banked up and lights flashing up ahead.

Bicycle or motorbike? I ride that commute daily!

 

[Chriso_29er]

More motorbike stories. Have still never crashed one on road yet, but no longer ride very often.

Closest I came, was on my sports bike going a little too quick through the black spur. Momentary laps of concentration saw me too quick into a tight left hander. No choice but to stand the bike up and hard on the brakes, which saw me cross to the right hand side of an oncoming car before sliding the bike sideways in the gravel on the outside of the corner 1 foot away from going over a steep embankment into the trees. To this day still dont know how I didn't stack let alone the luck of missing the oncoming car first.

My brother decided to change the oil before a ride through the hills one morning. Forgot to tighten up the sump plug all the way!
I was right behind him as the bike droped its entire sump of oil onto his back wheel at 100km/h 20m before a right hander half hour into the ride. Next second the bike was completely sideways with me trying to dodge him without going down myself on the oil trail. Somehow he stayed upright and came to a safe stop.

 

[Jpez]

Bicycle or motorbike? I ride that commute daily!

Sorry, that was unclear.
It was a big jap motorbike.

 

[Hamsta]

Holy shit. You road riders are crazy.

When it comes to descending, I am pretty conservative. I have reached 94 kmph on a beautiful sweeping stretch of public road with an average gradient of 9% in perfect conditions and that was waaaaaayyyyyy fast enough for me. Some of the guys and girls I have ridden with think nothing of threading the center line of bends on some public roads that require braking into super tight switchbacks and are heavily shaded by overhanging trees at 80+ kmph which, to me, is very very crazy and rolling the dice.

 

[Haakon]

When it comes to descending, I am pretty conservative. I have reached 94 kmph on a beautiful sweeping stretch of public road with an average gradient of 9% in perfect conditions and that was waaaaaayyyyyy fast enough for me. Some of the guys and girls I have ridden with think nothing of threading the center line of bends on some public roads that require braking into super tight switchbacks and are heavily shaded by overhanging trees at 80+ kmph which, to me, is very very crazy and rolling the dice.

Nudging 90kph coming down Mt Buller on my roadie I did find myself contemplating the fact that they probably wouldnt find my body for a couple of weeks should I lose it and shoot out over the edge... All it would take is an unexpected bit of gravel on a corner.

 

[dej]

Nudging 90kph coming down Mt Buller on my roadie I did find myself contemplating the fact that they probably wouldnt find my body for a couple of weeks should I lose it and shoot out over the edge... All it would take is an unexpected bit of gravel on a corner.

Not buller but bawbaw. Had the brakes on for the first couple km's and decided on a straight bit to release brakes. It felt like the bike went out from under me as it went up to 90kph. Not long after, i entered a long right hander at about 70kph and realised I wasnt going to make the bend. Put the brakes on and the back wheel started locking up as it was skipping over bumps so i stood the bike up and went into the gravel shoulder managing to stop along the guard rail..
The remaining descent was much slower I often think that the forks or headtube are going to fail when riding downhill. I ride a 30 year old steel frame roady. I'm hoping that being steel, it'll bend first then break slowly, rather than suddenly fail..Could be wrong though

 

[stirk]

Not me, but we were sitting at traffic lights today, 4 car lane road. The light goes green while at the same time a twit was running across the lanes, headphones in, bag swinging and not really caring to give a fuck about crossing signals or cars or her safety, other people will take care of that right!

The left lane was empty and i, and a few others notice a 4x4 ute came crusing through this left lane at 60kph while all other cars at the front in the intersection just sit there frozen in a moment while this lady was running straight into a collision with a car she couldn't see. Was just about to start honking horn when suddenly the lady was distracted by the car right at the front and stopped centimetres before the ute cleaned her up. The ute passed and she started running again as if nothing had happened.

Very lucky person, the driver of the ute got one hell of a fright while she went on running, must have been late for something and that's more important than life.

Said to the wife if she had been hit by the car the first thing you'd say to her likely unconscious body would be, "what the fuck were you thinking you bloody idiot"

And then you'd help the idiot.

Took us a while to recover from someone else's scarey moment.

 

[johnny]

I did that once but didn’t stop.

Two lanes closest to me had a red arrow, I was running late and assumed it was a red light. However the third lane furthest to me went straight on and the had a green light.

I ran in front of the car, saw the people on the other side waiting to cross loo at me in shock, I worked out what was happening in an instant, tried to jump, closest leg cleared the car but other leg got hit on the calf. I recall being upside down looking directly into the traffic lights and noting how dusty it was inside the bit that shades the light. I also recall hitting the road, sitting up and realizing I was in the middle of the intersection (church st and great western highway for those who know Parramatta).

Got up, ran over and apologized to the driver and promptly took myself to hospital with broken arm, broken this/that and a graze halfway across my face from where it broke my fall.

Shit happens.

 

[link1896]

Not me, but we were sitting at traffic lights today, 4 car lane road. The light goes green while at the same time a twit was running across the lanes, headphones in, bag swinging and not really caring to give a fuck about crossing signals or cars or her safety, other people will take care of that right!

The left lane was empty and i, and a few others notice a 4x4 ute came crusing through this left lane at 60kph while all other cars at the front in the intersection just sit there frozen in a moment while this lady was running straight into a collision with a car she couldn't see. Was just about to start honking horn when suddenly the lady was distracted by the car right at the front and stopped centimetres before the ute cleaned her up. The ute passed and she started running again as if nothing had happened.

Very lucky person, the driver of the ute got one hell of a fright while she went on running, must have been late for something and that's more important than life.

Said to the wife if she had been hit by the car the first thing you'd say to her likely unconscious body would be, "what the fuck were you thinking you bloody idiot"

And then you'd help the idiot.

Took us a while to recover from someone else's scarey moment.

Good chance you'd have been confronted with a corpse. Lethal at 60km. A guy jumped out in front of my mate to commit suicide a few years ago.

44km/h is 93G laterally to the head in this modelling.

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/252/1/012001/pdf