Are you OK? That must have been cold, as well as painful.

I'm fine, thanks. My jeans were soaked in ice water which masked any temporary pain. I was on my way to have a pint with an old friend I haven't seen in a while. A couple of good beers and good conversation made me forget about wet pants and a shoe full of water.

Last March one day when the temps plummeted from 40s down to 10 by mid-evening, I wiped out in a briny puddle, soaking my pants. They froze so quickly I couldn't hardly even bend my knees in order to pedal the bike. I'd have been crawling home or stripping down if I'd had even another couple of miles to go. Story moral- Leave studded tires on til assured of ice free conditions at night or stay home. Be safe y'all.

BUT... I'VE BEEN RIDING 700cc 25mm TIRES ALL WINTER!!!!! OH NO!!!!





Although, admittedly, I dialed down the psi to 80... so, yeah...

And you have the best falling stories.

There may be a link.

Falling just keeps you saner.

I ate huge pavement in front of May Day Cafe this weekend. I don't know what happened but I don't believe there to be ice or cars involved [just happened really fast]. I know I landed directly on my left knee and injured my right elbow somehow. They are okay but pavement is not forgiving at all.

that sucks Nickel! Did you get a croissant at MayDay to asuage your hurt knees at least?

I did; I got a hot chocolate and sweet potato bread to try and block the pain with insulin response. It worked pretty well!

And you're proof of this? Maybe you should fall more

Stupid shiny metal plates on the east end of the WAB. Road rash up the left side. OUCH. I sure am glad I was wearing a helmet, my brain would hurt more otherwise.

Last Sunday a week ago, I wiped out and broke off a front tooth... Most of the road rash is gone, but I miss my tooth : (

Still my favorist crashes are when I'm miles from home and have to bike with blood pouring and in shock...

Summer of 2004. I was heading over to a friend's house and decided to pick up some snacks at the market across the street. Snacks retrieved, I hopped on my bike and _gently_ rode off the curb into 4th street (i checked both ways, no worries). As my front wheel was hitting the ground, two things occurred to me:

1) my handlebars were the wrong way around
2) i was sideways in the air

The next thing I remember, I was laying in the gutter with my bike knotted around my legs and my hands still on the bars. I tried to get up, but every time I tried to lift my torso, intense waves of stabbing pain would run through my body and pin me back to the ground. I laid there for about 5 minutes before I managed to get up, stumble across the street, throw my bike over my shoulder, hike up three flights of stairs and vomit on the floor. I laid in bed for about 2 days moaning, groaning, wondering how the fuck my headset managed to crack and watching star trek before a friend made me go to the hospital, where I found out I'd broken my hip.

Spent the rest of the summer hobbling around on crutches, eating painkillers and watching startrek.

==

It was a cold, rainy, miserable night in March of 2008, and I was first-date stupid giddy. We were meeting up at a spot about 15 blocks from my house, and I was just getting into Dinkytown when it stopped raining. Had I not been stupid giddy, I probably would have realized that the lack of rain meant that ice would be forming, and I would have been ready for the block-long sheet of ice on 15th.

So there I was, cruising along at a good clip, when all of a sudden I got that horrid sliding feeling, promptly followed by the "oh this is going to hurt" premonition.

My bike slipped out from beneath me; I hit the ground. and slid. and slid.. and slid.. thought to myself "holy shit, I've been sliding for a really long time" and finally, about 50-60ft later, pinballed off a street sign and came to a stop. I got up, sort of slid around some more, looked around to see if anyone saw that, saw that someone did, yelled "Whoa, I'm ok! It's icy" and then watched them fall, taking down their friend.

No bruises, nothing hurt -- pants were a little destroyed, but it made for good conversation. We wound up dating for like 6months!

==

I was on-call, annoyed, hungry, and craving cheese curds. It was about 2:30am when I finally gave in and headed over to Santana's. I came around the corner at 7th and 4th street, into the front-end of a car in the wrong lane, with their lights off, making an illegal turn. I saw the front-end, thought "oh shit" and bounced off the windshield. I remember that slow-motion-flying feeling, the impact on the windshield, the sensation of sliding backwards and the feeling of pavement on my face. I jumped up, dragged my bike off the ground and sort of blindly tried to walk up to the driver window to see if they were alright.

I didn't really know what was going on, but I realized that something was amiss when I couldn't push my bike. I looked down and the fork was completely bent backwards into the tubing, and the wheel was bent in half. They sort of freaked out, and I had one of those "whoa, this is harshing my mellow" moments and decided to walk across the street to sit on the curb. Some random Indian couple showed up to bring me some water, and I asked the dudes for a ride home. They moved the KEG onto the floor, put a seat down and tossed my bike into the back. They dropped me off, sped away, and it took about 2hours for me to realize that I probably should have handled that differently.

All said and done, I only gained a quarter-sized scar on my shin from where I either nailed it against their plate-holder or my pedal, and a healthy paranoia at partially-obstructed corners.

==

I was once walking my bike, got my shoelace caught in the pedal, fell forward and split my chin open. We got about half a block before my friend remarked "holy shit! you're fucking bleeding.. like.. A LOT OF BLOOD." On the upside, she took of her shirt to apply pressure against the wound, so there was like totally side boob.

epic.