Head first over handlebars?

In article said:

Tony Raven said:

There is a view (Jobst or Sheldon?)

Jobst.

Quoted message said:

that going over the handlebars is
not inevitable and results from people failing to brace themselves
sufficently against the handlebars with their arms.

It is inevitable when there is not sufficient distance to stop normally,
one's brake and hand is strong, and all alternatives are less desirable.

Yes - I think Jobst's position is merely that _some_ cases of people
going over the bars could be avoided by better bracing. (And you missed the
state of the surface - on ice, for example, locking the front wheel will
skid rather than flip.)

In the case of the somewhat dazed cyclist I met on Friday, the problem
was bags of shopping caught in the spokes. I did suggest that he could
buy some panniers and a rack (and indeed some lights) in the Halfords
we passed, but didn't push the point.

Quoted message said:

Best wihes to Pinky.

And from me.

Chris came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

[1] ride along with the front brake on and rear wheel rising in the air,
sort of a reverse wheelie, and can be used on very sharp corners to
swing the rear end round even quicker.

It also looks really cool when executed well, or by Angelina Jolie on a
motorbike (Tombraider).

When my eldest son was learning the tricks of the trade as a trials
rider, we became on first name terms with the Triage crowd at Kings Lynn
A&E - but he can Endo pretty well now.

Spare ribs anyone ... 😉

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!
ebay 4608494471

davek said:

Not a good day to be out on two wheels yesterday, but then I think
part of being a sensible cyclist is knowing when to leave the bike at
home.

Or, keep off the back roads till about midday.

Response to davek:

Quoted message said:

And incidents like the one Pinky was
involved in have even less to do with the type of vehicle you are riding.

I'd speculate that the incidence of SMIDSYs might be slightly lower with
recumbents, because of the WTF factor; but I'm putting that possibility
forward with no confidence that there'll be any supporting evidence for
it. ;-)

--
Mark, UK
"They've eliminated the middleman. The corporations don't have to lobby
the government anymore: they *are* the government."

Mark McNeill said:

I'd speculate that the incidence of SMIDSYs might be slightly lower with
recumbents, because of the WTF factor; but I'm putting that possibility
forward with no confidence that there'll be any supporting evidence for
it. ;-)

I read a story many years ago about an elderly driver who became so
engrossed in watching the pumping action of a recumbent rider's legs
that he didn't notice the car in front had stopped. Still, at least the
rider wasn't involved in the SMIDSY.

--
Danny Colyer <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/>
Subscribe to PlusNet <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/referral/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Tony Raven said:

... I did manage for the
first time to fold the back wheel under the Brommie on Friday with an
emergency stop.

Ouch. What did that sound like when it landed?

--
Danny Colyer <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/danny/>
Subscribe to PlusNet <URL:http://www.colyer.plus.com/referral/>
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest." - Thomas Paine

Mark McNeill twisted the electrons to say:

Quoted message said:

I'd speculate that the incidence of SMIDSYs might be slightly lower with
recumbents, because of the WTF factor; but I'm putting that possibility
forward with no confidence that there'll be any supporting evidence for
it. ;-)

Does that mean us "Dark Siders" should stop trying to convert everyone we
see? Afterall, if recumbents become too common then we might become more
invisible?
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

in message <[email hidden]>, Pete Biggs

(') said:

James Annan said:

I think Jobst's position is not that an endo is always avoidable just
by bracing better, but that a lot of endos (perhaps the vast
majority?) could have been. I think that's probably not unreasonable
in a panic braking situation especially with riders who are not very
experienced. ~0.5g on your arms all of a sudden is a large force.

That's fair enough, probably right.

It's got to be worthwhile even for experienced riders to practise their
emergency-braking skills, especially after getting a new
bike/brake/wheel.

Mountain biking tricks of getting your centre of gravity as far back over
the rear wheel as possible really help with emergency braking, even if
on a road bike. It's worth practising when you don't need it, so that it
comes more naturally when you do.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Morning had broken, and there was nothing we could do but wait
patiently for the RAC to arrive.

LSMike said:

Going head first over the handlebars of a normal bike seems all too
common, and I've done it a few times myself. I've just read of a
couple separate ones, including poor Pinky.

You need to practice riding a bike more. If you go over the handlebars
then you hit something, something hit you (there may not be much you can
do about that) or you didn't use the front brake properly. Under heavy
braking your bum should be off the saddle and hanging over the back
wheel. It is very difficult to flip a bike in this position.

Peter Clinch said:

I don't think you'll get any useful data set to be able to compare, and
in any case accidents are so variable as to render specific instances of
better safety as rather woolly things in an overall picture.

LOL, yeah I'm not exactly looking for data, just something to
discuss/argue about. 🙂

Quoted message said:

In short, I think the differences in riding position have /far/ less

Quoted message said:

effect on safety than the rider, to the extent that they'll come down to
being lost in noise if you could gather the data. I do wish more people
would realise that before they write off recumbents as death traps for
the suicidally insane, and that their own mounts are less than optimally
safe in every possible way.

Pete.

Agreed. That last is a little like the ill-thought comment "That must
be uncomfortable."

Danny Colyer said:

Ouch. What did that sound like when it landed?

Unrepeatable.

Zog The Undeniable said:

LSMike said:

Going head first over the handlebars of a normal bike seems all too
common, and I've done it a few times myself. I've just read of a
couple separate ones, including poor Pinky.

You need to practice riding a bike more. If you go over the
handlebars then you hit something, something hit you (there may not
be much you can do about that) or you didn't use the front brake
properly. Under heavy braking your bum should be off the saddle and
hanging over the back wheel. It is very difficult to flip a bike in
this position.

.....for an orangutan if on a road bike with quite some reach to the bars.

Another tip (for when you do get it wrong): Let go of the front brake
before the rear wheel is too high and re-apply when it comes back down.
You'll only go over the bars if you hold on to that brake (or hit
something, possibly).

~PB

Simon Bennett said:

Or, keep off the back roads till about midday.

I did suggest to m'colleagues that we stick to the A28 for the post-cafe
return leg of our outing but they were having none of it. Which was
fine, until we reached the top of a short descent to be faced with sheet
ice all the way down to the bottom...

I got off and walked. Or rather slid. No way I was attempting that.

Next time I shall either be more insistent or make my own way home. It's
no fun when you have to ride that defensively all the way.

d.

Mark McNeill said:

I'd speculate that the incidence of SMIDSYs might be slightly lower with
recumbents, because of the WTF factor

I think you may be right.

I was tailing (at a distance of a couple of hundred feet) a certain
laid-back three-wheeled URC regular for a short stretch of the Poor
Student 200 earlier this month and noticed that cars were taking a lot
more care over passing him than they were over passing me.

Purely anecdotal, I know, but fairly conclusive, I thought.

d.

Zog The Undeniable said:

LSMike said:

Going head first over the handlebars of a normal bike seems all too
common, and I've done it a few times myself. I've just read of a
couple separate ones, including poor Pinky.

You need to practice riding a bike more. If you go over the handlebars
then you hit something, something hit you (there may not be much you can
do about that) or you didn't use the front brake properly. Under heavy
braking your bum should be off the saddle and hanging over the back
wheel. It is very difficult to flip a bike in this position.

You're right, I and all of us here, can always improve our bike
handling. But, no, it's still easily possible to lift the rear wheel
when braking hard in the dry and hanging your bum as far back and down
as possible. If you can't then most likely your bike has poor brakes.
It's a limitation of the bicycle - draw a line from the CofG to the
front wheel, and you're nowhere near the same angle as on a low
recumbent.

Pete Biggs said:

Another tip (for when you do get it wrong): Let go of the front brake
before the rear wheel is too high and re-apply when it comes back down.
You'll only go over the bars if you hold on to that brake (or hit
something, possibly).

~PB

Yup, I've lifted the rear a few times on my upright, and done exactly
this. It's less easy to do under the stress of an impending accident,
though I did manage it in a miss a while back.

On 2006-01-31, LSMike <[email hidden]> wrote:
[snip]

Quoted message said:

You're right, I and all of us here, can always improve our bike
handling. But, no, it's still easily possible to lift the rear wheel
when braking hard in the dry and hanging your bum as far back and down
as possible. If you can't then most likely your bike has poor brakes.
It's a limitation of the bicycle - draw a line from the CofG to the
front wheel, and you're nowhere near the same angle as on a low
recumbent.

The only time I went over the bars was many years ago, at the age of
about 16. I was coming down a steep hill in Brighton and a car pulled
out of a side road without stopping. The next thing I remember is
landing on my feet, the impact making a stinging sensation in my soles.
I was completely unhurt though the bottom bracket was never the same
afterwards.

I've no recollection of what happened at the moment of impact. I can
only suppose that I went flying through the air, my feet clearing the
bars because the hill was so steep.

Anthony

--
Anthony Campbell - [email hidden]
Microsoft-free zone - Using Linux Gnu-Debian
http://www.acampbell.org.uk (blog, book reviews,
on-line books and sceptical articles)

davek said:

I was tailing (at a distance of a couple of hundred feet) a certain
laid-back three-wheeled URC regular for a short stretch of the Poor
Student 200 earlier this month and noticed that cars were taking a lot
more care over passing him than they were over passing me.

I've noticed a similiar effect riding my tandem. Drivers need to look
twice to see what they are approaching and consciously or
subconsciously steer further away.

Iain

Alistair Gunn said:

Does that mean us "Dark Siders" should stop trying to convert everyone we
see? Afterall, if recumbents become too common then we might become more
invisible?

Indeed. Much as if everyone had a Brompton you'd have trouble taking
them into cafes and shops, onto trains etc.

But I think the chances of 'bents becoming anything other than unusual
in the next few years because of what's said on urc are a bit on the low
side...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peter Clinch said:

But I think the chances of 'bents becoming anything other than unusual
in the next few years because of what's said on urc are a bit on the low
side...

Pete.

I think 'bents are becoming much more common nowadays, if perhaps not
from the talk on URC. Though I got converted here. Thanks again to
Danny!