Crashes accidents and crashes

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Jan 19, 2011
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i had my rear motor mount stud strip the other day. but i continued to ride the bike anyhow. it gradually became quite loose and my engine was wobbeling. so i decided to stop riding it. i am in the process of fixing it now. but it got me thinking. do people often have accidents with their bikes such as the engine ripping off, or the chain coming off the sprocket, or a tire falling off, or a frame/forks breaking? it seems that these things might happen some what often. because with an engine on a bicyle we are putting quite a bit more stress on things that arent built to take it. so i was wondering if anyone had any accident stories to tell?

especially maybe about chains coming off. because that is what worries me the most. as i cant seem to get my rear sprocket aligned perfect. and about 1/3 of my chanin is kinda loose. and the rest of it is tight. and i notice a slight roughness and jerking while riding. and i think its because of the chain going tight, then loose. i want to get a pinneapple sprocket mount from spooky tooth but they arent taking orders... and also the tensioners i am having problems with too. i keep stripping the bolts! does anyone know where to get a better tensioner? or know the best way to make your own that will hold up well?

i just wonder how loose the chain has to be to come off. and will the sprocket not being aligned and the chain having loose and tight parts make that happen? does it happen often and has anyone experienced it? is it really bad when it does happen??
 
I always feared the chain coming off when I had my Schwinn HT setup, but never did!

I know I have read one or two posts here where the rider's chain did come off... I do not recall the amount of damage or injury though.

My only mechanical injury so far was when the headset would not hold the handlebars tight and while riding, the bars rolls forward throwing me over the front of the bike.... almost blew out my shoulders when landing... it hurt bad for a few weeks I tell you!
 
i had my rear motor mount stud strip the other day. but i continued to ride the bike anyhow. it gradually became quite loose and my engine was wobbeling. so i decided to stop riding it. i am in the process of fixing it now. but it got me thinking. do people often have accidents with their bikes such as the engine ripping off, or the chain coming off the sprocket, or a tire falling off, or a frame/forks breaking? it seems that these things might happen some what often. because with an engine on a bicyle we are putting quite a bit more stress on things that arent built to take it. so i was wondering if anyone had any accident stories to tell?

especially maybe about chains coming off. because that is what worries me the most. as i cant seem to get my rear sprocket aligned perfect. and about 1/3 of my chanin is kinda loose. and the rest of it is tight. and i notice a slight roughness and jerking while riding. and i think its because of the chain going tight, then loose. i want to get a pinneapple sprocket mount from spooky tooth but they arent taking orders... and also the tensioners i am having problems with too. i keep stripping the bolts! does anyone know where to get a better tensioner? or know the best way to make your own that will hold up well?

i just wonder how loose the chain has to be to come off. and will the sprocket not being aligned and the chain having loose and tight parts make that happen? does it happen often and has anyone experienced it? is it really bad when it does happen??

The chain going loose then tight means you have not centered the back sprocket to the wheel. The back sprocket needs to be parallel to the rim. Take the back tire off the bike and loosen the rag joint bolts enough to move things around. Position the tire so you can look down on it to work on centering the sprocket to where the hub is centered. Get the tension on each bolt about the same keeping things centered. Once it's tight to where things don't move anymore then keep tightening things down keeping the sprocket and rim parallel. As far as alignment sometimes it's which side of the sprocket you have faceing out, the offset inside or posititoned to the outside.

Back bolts have been my problem, too. I've had a loss of the nuts once and the last time the studs broke off! I have a very bad seat post angle to back motor mount angle interface to deal with. It's no where close to being right. All the solutions boil down to fabricating and welding up a steel back mount that uses the stock boltholes. I stole the idea from a bike I saw on youtube that used band clamps to hold the motor to the frame. ;)

Spookytooth is going through an ownership change at this time. Hopefully they will be back up soon. I want the pineapple joint. too :)
 
i know why the chain is how it is, but i cant get it centered because the center hole on the sprocket doesnt fit over anything. it will only set very loosely over top of an object that almost fits in the hole, but is slightly too big. so it wants to off center itself very easy. i know i could make the hole on the sprocket bigger. and make it fit over the outer hub. but if i do that than the sprocket will be too far in and make the chain hit the tire. and maybe even the spokes. thats why i really want the pinneapple mount. but since i dont know when ill be able to get that i wonder if anyone has tried the more expensive manic mechanic 3 prong hub mount thing?
 
I had a bad bike accident when I was about 10 years old (31 years ago).
It didn't involve a motor, but the bike itself.
I was riding a 26" 3 speed cruiser type bike (can't remember the make) and I literally rode over a small dirt hump on a trail at about 5 mph maybe.
The fork tube broke in half up inside the head tube of the frame, the forks fell out of the frame head tube, and I fell on the broken fork tube. When the fork tube broke, the forks just fell out of the frame causing me to go off the bike over the handlebars.
The broken end of the fork tube went into my right shoulder, and it took over 150 stitches to close it back up. I lost 1/2 of the muscle in my right shoulder and back in those days, there was no such thing as physical therapy. The scar that i have today is about 6 inches long, and its a nasty looking thing. It's very thick and noticeable because they had to stretch my skin and overlap it to close it up. When I fell on the fork tube it went in at an angle, which tore my skin and muscle all apart.
I still think what might have happened if the fork tube would have hit me anywhere else other than my shoulder. What if I landed on it, on my face? What if i landed on it with my throat, or if it went into the left side and hit my heart?
I was about 2 blocks away from my house when this happened and I can remember running home with my hand over the hole in my shoulder.

My parents went after the bicycle manufacturer, and we had tests done on the steel that was used to make the fork tube to prove that they broke form poor quality steel and not from the bike hitting something head on. the break was clean just like it had been sheared off and the tests showed that the steel was very poor and too thin. I don't remember all of the specifics of the test, but the bicycle manufacturer was at fault. They had to do a re-call on all of their bikes because of this.

To this day, I suffer from arthritis and pain in my right shoulder. It's not something that has ever kept me from doing anything or from working, but I have pain every day of my life. I have become used to it, and I have learned to live with it. I did get cortizone shots and I did do some physical therapy when I was in my 20's but it didn't really help. By that time the damage was already 10 years old and it healed in it's own way.

Don't ever think that a bike will never break, because I am living proof that it can and will happen. I never let this deter me from riding bikes, motorcycles and unicycles. I even raced bmx for awhile after the accident, and continued to do crazy jumps and stuff like that. I will still hop on a pedal bike and ride wheelies and jump from time to time. Riding my motorized bike doesn't scare me at all, and I have never crashed, or even came close to crashing in it.
The thing that I do think about tho, is when that fork tube broke, I was riding normally and moving fairly slow. I wasn't jumping or doing something stupid. I didn't ram into a brick wall with the bike or get hit by a car. I was just riding normally, just like I was supposed to on that bike.
 
i too have gotten into a pretty bad accident on a bike. it was a dyno bmx bike. about 10 years ago now. i was riding it down a decently steep hill and i decided to try and peddle for what ever reason, i was already going super fast. and because i was going so fast my peddles just spun around. my foot got sucked under the left peddle jambing my toes into the road. this made the bike start to wobble and i couldnt control it. i flew off the bike and some what over the handle bars. and landed right on my face and skidded to a stop. i got right up and was trying to figure out how bad i was hurt. i emdiately found i was missing a tooth. and half of another one. and my face was covered in blood and i had gravel stuck under my skin. i had some friends who were riding ahead of me and looked back and saw i had wrecked. they came back. and we went to their house which was just 2 blocks away. when i tried to set on the couch i discovered my knee hurt really bad. then i started to get kinda shaky. i decided to walk to an ambulance garage which was a few blocks away. as soon as i walked through the garage doors i started to black out and i sorta fell into some paramedics arms. they put me into an ambulance and took me to the hospital. i remember being really mad because they cut my jeans off. and they were really expensive jeans haha. i ended up with road rash all over my face, 1 tooth broken off at the gum line, half of the tooth next to it broken off, and another tooth that the root ended up dying. i also had road rash all over my hands and arms. i broke my wrist, and i tore a tendon in my knee. i still have some scars on my face and hand. but not very bad. after the accident i was using lots of neosporin. and i credit that with lessoning the scars. my wrist heeld up, and doesnt bother me. but my knee has some problems. i was supposed to use a brace for a month. but i kept it on a day and took it off. i have hurt the knee many times afterwords because it is pretty weak. and my knees were really weak from birth as it is. but im suprised i came out of it as good as i did. because i had to be doing probably 40 mph. and then almost emidiatly just hit the road. it was a very fast violent wreck. i didnt ride a bike for a few months. but i got back on the horse after awhile. i was sore for probably a month or more... and i actually never got my teeth fixed right. that night the dentist met me at his office and did a root canal. and put a temporary fake tooth in. but i never went back as i was supposed to. and over the years it has turned green and has chunks that have fallen out. i really need to go get it taken care of.
 
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Wow, I hope that is a tall tale! If not, I hope you can get proper help.

I have had the chain jump loose a couple times on my mb. Once I was going really fast, but luckily the chain just fell next to the big cog and I just stopped the bike. The other time, I was trying to start the bike, and the chain wedged between the cog and coaster break arm, at about 5mph. I stumbled, but it just irritated me and did not injure. I found out my axle nuts had worn threads from use and over tension, and it let the axle walk a little. I want to weld vertical dropouts on the frame so the tension is on the frame and axle, not the nuts.

I heard a dude died because he didn't know how to tighten his Quick Release axles, and they came off while he was motoring. It was in the paper, I think in Arizona, last year.
 
I have a chain come off everyday i've gotten use to being throwen off. Like a rag doll in fact i've gotten thrown 2time today. Cause of the darn chain tenioner going in the spokes every time i ride this one. I got one i dont ever have problems with but this new bike and motor kit has givin me fits from the start. I useally land on my back or the side of my shoulder on asphault least its softer than concreate but harder than grass. Thats what a good helmet is for i already cracked to bicycle helmets trying to get this bike rite.
 
I still think the "best" accident on a bike I've ever heard of was the one my then 18 year old son was in in 2001.

He was living at the top of a fairly tall hill, and working at the gas station that was near the bottom of it, at a county/state road junction. He opened the station each morning, which meant getting there at 4:30 am, and he rode his bike every day. The hill is really steep, with two fairly long straight stretches with an 85 degree, banked corner at the bottom, and a shallower 1/4 mile stretch before crossing a good sized creek. From where he'd enter the road to the bottom corner was 8/10 miles, and drops 340 feet.

He'd usually hit the bottom corner at 60+ mph and use the short stretch before the bridge to slow it down. One morning he'd just come through the corner and straightened up when a "wall of brown fur materialized in front of him" (his words). He hit a mule deer spike buck at the right shoulder, and flew over the bike handlebars and the buck's back, flipped in mid-air to land on his shoulders and the back of his (fortunately) helmeted head, and slid down the road to a halt.

Minor road rash on his left hip and on both hands, the helmet looks like somebody used a power grinder on the back, and it was split up the center. His knapsack was destroyed, but did save him from much road rash on his back. The worst injury was from the buck's antler - it tossed it's head as he hit it, and the right antler was jammed into his knee and ripped down the outside front of his calf.

He rolled off the pavement, got himself together, and walked his demolished bike to the station. Once there he called home (he was living with my brother and his family), and my brother drove down to collect him. My sis-in-law is an RN/Nurse Practitioner who is an e-room trauma specialist, and she cleaned/treated the knee wound - it took 31 staples to close it. Left one heck of a scar.

Oh yeah - come daylight, my brother went down and looked at the scene of the accident - found the dead deer laying in the underbrush beside the road, with a broken back.
 
Wbuttry, you should try a different tensioner then, or weld that one to the frame. Good luck.

Simple Simon, did you harvest the deer? Deer jerky is some of the best cycling snack food ever.
 
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