Have you learned to fall?

[GirishH]

Dear @Sidewinder, truly so so so sorry to hear about your near miss—but I’m really glad you walked away alive, albeit with a lot of scrapes. Truly relieved you’re okay.

Just curious—were you wearing gloves? I’ve become addicted to gloves and helmets because they saved my palms/head after a spill. Now when friends joke about a short ride to the store, I tell them, “Anything can happen.” As you saw in my photo, I keep every bit of skin covered. Still, I’m sure even with my setup, I’d be torn up badly on sharp gravel or a hard spill..

Honestly, I’ve often wondered if I should start wearing leather pants and jackets like motorcyclists do. I’d probably get roasted like a rotisserie chicken—but at least I might walk away from a fall without too many surface wounds!

Anyways, wishing you a speedy recovery..

(10-24-2025, 06:48 PM)Sidewinder Wrote:  Took a hard and unexpected fall after a distracted driver nearly drove her pickup truck into me... happened in the gravel lot of a self-storage place, go figure. The storage compound has two levels, with the front office near the road and the storage buildings on a terrace below, aye? Once you're through the front gate, the pavement turns to gravel and there is a 5 mph speed limit sign posted. I had taken my pedal bike up to my car to retrieve some tiedown ropes for the interior of the rental truck, and I was on my way back to my storage unit when the disaster occurred.

Perfect weather, I'm minding my own and doing everything right... until some idiot with her face glued to her cell phone (no eyes on the road whatsoever) drifted into my lane. Next thing I know, her pickup truck is heading right for me, and I hastily take evasive action! Dodged the truck, but I was already on the hill leading down to the lower terrace, and now I was over on the righthand side of the road, where the gravel was deeper.

With the bike picking up speed despite the gravel, I cut left to set up the bottom turn... the balloon tire washed out, and next thing I know, I'm flying headfirst down the grade. Actually, falling about 45* across and down the face of the road, and landing on sharp gravel which tore me the f#% up. None of this would've happened if the wanker had not nearly run me off the road, and ruined my planned turn to the left to access my storage unit.

In hindsight---which is always 20/20---I should've just rolled straight off the hill and skipped the turn, coming back or even going round the far end of the storage buildings, but there was no time for such consideration. Once I took evasive action, everything happened so fast that the wreck was over and done, and I was lying torn & bleeding in the gravel. Lemme give y'all a tip: I do NOT recommend body surfing in sharp gravel as a form of recreation... there's no joy in it, lol.

Now I'm laid up with a thumb fractured in 2 places... my home rehab project delayed by 1 month as I heal. Here are pics:

[SPINMAN]

(10-22-2025, 03:59 PM)Flowrider Wrote:  Whenever you're riding by yourself, do you text or let someone know where you're going and roughly how long you'll be riding?
And then let them know when you're back

I think it was the mapmyride app that I used to send a real time link to whomever you wanted to see where you are. Maybe to Facebook, too. This was quite a few years ago. I'm sure someone has that still. Strava I think but maybe with premium service.

[GirishH]

I love Strava, but many of its features have gone premium now.. :-(

I’m a sucker for free features, so here’s what I do:

In Google Maps, I tap on my account icon (top right corner),
   

Then I access “Location Sharing.” From there, I share my location for an hour or longer, depending on my preference.
   

[Flowrider]

Wow! that's tough @Sidewinder. Hope it all heals as expected. Take care 🤞🏻

[enkei]

(10-22-2025, 03:59 PM)Flowrider Wrote:  Whenever you're riding by yourself, do you text or let someone know where you're going and roughly how long you'll be riding?
And then let them know when you're back

Good point!

Garmin bike computers have 'incident detection' and Apple Watch and iPhone have crash or fall detection. They can be set up to automatically phone and/or message someone if you crash, presumably giving your location. However, I've played with neither, so I don't know how effective they are.

[Sidewinder]

Got cut off at the library, where I'm currently going for Internet... the cats & I just got into our new home on the 18th of October, and the crash occurred on the 20th. Here are additional shots of the damage:

   

   

   

   

   

Nice bit of gravel rash, aye? Fortunately, that's already fading away, as I'm a fast healer... but the thumb fractured in two places, well, that's a different story. I'm seeing an ortho doctor tomorrow, hopefully he (or she) has good news, since I'm taking good care of my thumb and it feels pretty good overall. I even quit partying, I'm 100% on the wagon, and I'm drinking nutritional shakes, drinking extra milk, and taking Osteo-BiFlex pills (for the knee) so everything mends more quickly. That knee would have to be the one which was already damaged... would've been too easy to balance things out with a blow to the "good knee!" Lol.

Meh, at least I dodged the truck! A good friend of mine who is tech-savvy made an interesting observation, after I told him that these distracted drivers are more dangerous and deadly than drunken drivers: he said it's due to sheer numbers, with far more idiots climbing behind the wheel and using cell phones, than those climbing behind the wheel while drunk! And of course he's right, lol... I'd never thought of it that way, but it's true.

Furthermore, I don't blame the bike for the balloon tire washing out when I cut hard left on the face of that gravel road or hill... I was simply asking too much of the tire. I've broken down the crash many times in my mind since it happened, and it was all physics & geometry. Had the pickup truck driver NOT drifted into my lane, I would've gently braked near the top of the hill and made a gentle left bottom turn toward my storage unit... but after the evasive action, and with no braking involved, the bike was moving fast and the cut I had to make toward the left was harder, aye? Again, in hindsight (which is always 20/20), I should've just rolled straight off the hill at that point, but things were moving much too quickly and I had no time for such consideration. Furthermore, had I been aboard the KTM, the burly Dunlop knobbies might easily have handled the turn. I reckon we'll never know, as I never wanna see that gravel road or hill again, lol.

[Sidewinder]

Might as well post this pic here too... this is the new "cage splint" for my thumb, which is only fractured in one location, not two as originally thought, go figure. Meh, I'll take one fracture over two, any day of the week! I meant to take a shot of the old splint/soft cast for comparison purposes, but I fell down on the job, lol.

   

Okay, I'm off to the Home Depot website to order more stuff, I already paid for my appliances and they're on the way! Cat doors too, they'll be here tomorrow! No more playing butler to the cats! Those blasted varmints! I'll be on "light duty" for a while with the home rehab project, but that's okay, I can still get stuff done...

[Flowrider]

Pretty tough @Sidewinder. Your saying "nothing ventured, nothing gained..." comes to mind here!

---

@enkei. I was on a group ride when a lady accidentally fell getting off her bike and landed on the grass, which set off her Apple Watch emergency alarm. It went to her husband, who was on the ride up ahead. It was good to know it worked if we ever needed it in an emergency

[GirishH]

One of my running buddies had this feature on too, and his family in Germany would get notified and they'd call to check on him. The only issue was that during trail runs or rides, falls are normal—so he’d get a few calls during our 60–90 minute run... :-(

(10-29-2025, 02:23 AM)Flowrider Wrote:  Pretty tough @Sidewinder. Your saying "nothing ventured, nothing gained..." comes to mind here!

---

@enkei. I was on a group ride when a lady accidentally fell getting off her bike and landed on the grass, which set off her Apple Watch emergency alarm. It went to her husband, who was on the ride up ahead. It was good to know it worked if we ever needed it in an emergency

[Flowrider]

Hey @Sidewinder, How's the recovery going?

---

(10-27-2025, 01:28 AM)GirishH Wrote:  I love Strava, but many of its features have gone premium now.. :-(

I’m a sucker for free features, so here’s what I do:

In Google Maps, I tap on my account icon (top right corner),


Then I access “Location Sharing.” From there, I share my location for an hour or longer, depending on my preference.

Sorry @GirishH, I'm a bit lost here. How do Strava and Google Maps interact?

[Sidewinder]

Whoa, good timing... my thumb is slowly improving, but it won't be fully functional until the New Year rolls around, and it may never be 100% again either, aye? It was a bad break, and not only did I break the thumb, I also jammed that joint pretty hard... and all for no good reason. I'm hoping my thumb heals completely and I can get on with my life, but for now I am doing what I can on the home rehab front, even with the thumb the way it is. For example, today I loaded some junk on the property and hauled it to the landfill, since residents who sign up for the program can freely dump up to 1 ton of junk per month. My yard already looks better, lol... and I'll haul another load o' junk to the landfill next week, some old fencing and a tired old swamp cooler which needs to disappear.

I posted some pics of today's haul in my 'Silver City Home Rehab Thread' at http://frugalvillage.com (where I hang out most of the time on the web). The Camry and hitch-mounted cargo carrier looked like some meth head rig, all loaded down with junk, lol. Meh, I made it to the landfill without being pulled over by Johnny Law, and I'm so happy to get rid of all that cr@p in my yard and under my carport! I was in the Infantry, so I don't like seeing ANY trash or old junk on my property, aye? That cr@p has to go... I like any property I own to be in its true natural state, just trees, brush, maybe some natural boulders, no trash or junk, lol. Trash and junk are VERBOTEN! Natural settings only, to bring in more wildlife! I will have feeders & birdbaths on the property, the cats & I like watching the birds, lol. CHEERS!

P.S. Library will be closed for the holiday weekend here in Silver City, so I'll be off the web for a bit... no worries, I welcome the breaks, lol. I have plenty of home rehab work to do, plus I'm hooking up my new TV antenna tomorrow so I can watch football and PAR-TAY this weekend! My big ol' Samsung TV is already hooked up by itself, so I've been watching DVDs for a week, but the new antenna will let me watch a few football games without paying the whorehouse prices for viewing nowadays, pfffffffft. No way I pay one thin dime to watch football, not when my antenna can pull in a few free games! I won't get every game, but I'll get enough to keep me happy, aye? And that's all that counts, lol...