I really don't crash all too often and generally when I do they are hardly memorable.
I wouldn't chalk it up to skill (although several years of mountain bike racing certainly helped) or even over-cautiousness, more than likely just the experience of riding a bike for 51 years and kind of knowing what sort of situations will lead to a bad outcome. Generally far more satisfying for me are the times I almost crashed, but didn't! I learned early on some little tricks that help me avoid crashing when I think to use them; the one I like the most is related to tire choice. I don't mind running slicks or semi-slicks on the back, but on the front I like to have a few knobs on the tire or at least the outside edge. A small thing, but having that extra little bit of bite up front can keep you from losing front traction at those awkward times. rail crossings, metal steps, Wet curbs, etc. Generally I pick the front wheel over them so it's not an issue, but occasionally you get caught out. Luckily these are typically fairly low speed crashes and are more embarrassing than anything. The one wreck that always sticks with me is from many years ago (92"?); I was riding my fairly new XO-1 on my standard after work 42 mile loop in Houston. Probably doesn't take a genius to figure If I left after work and I was out for 42 miles I was arriving Home *in the dark*. :-( Additionally, a few miles from home a light rain kicked in; those old Avocet tires had a sort of inverted tread, fine when you're going straight!! 2 blocks from Home I came around a corner, a corner that I knew like the back of my hand, but maybe I was going a little faster than usual? I don't know, but there was an expansion joint going down the center of the street that was about 2" taller on one side than the other, my front wheel caught it and I went down pretty hard. So, I lay there on the street taking stock of my situation. Bones broken? No! Good! Blood/road rash? well yeah, but partially because it's wet, not too bad! At this point I notice the headlights of an old Dodge van slowly creeping my way. I stagger to my feet, picking up the bike and examining it for damage. Front wheel is not aligned with the handlebars as could be expected by the way I went down, but otherwise everything seems fine. As I am swinging my leg over to limp home, the guy in the van pulls up and says "is your bike OK?"; I say "I think it's fine" and he drives off. After he left I started thinking that maybe the guys priorities were a little *off*, because he didn't really care if *I* was OK or not! Just the bike! LOL -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/8c7929da-7df5-4e3d-8262-cd8e913fb632%40googlegroups.com.
