In the hours and days after a nasty bicycle crash, we run through the Hows and Whys and Whats and Wheretofores in an attempt to understand what the hell just happened to us, and how we can prevent it from happening again.
Of course, just as abstinence is the best form of birth control, not riding a bicycle is the best way to avoid a bicycle crash. However, both these options suck. Plus, at least sexual abstinence is pretty much foolproof. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one instance of immaculate conception involving a woman, and none involving a man…unless you count works of fiction, that is:
I will not inflame the faithful among you by suggesting that the immaculate conception involving a woman might also be a work of fiction–at least not so soon after the alleged immaculately conceived child’s birthday, anyway.
But velocipedal abstinence is by no means a guarantee that you’ll avoid injury. You could fall in the shower. You could get hit by a car while standing on line at Dunkin’ Donuts. You could die from autoerotic asphyxiation, like George Washington did. [Intern: fact-check that.] I’ve invoked the wise words of Frank Drebin before, and I’ll do it again, because he speaks as much wisdom as any of our culture’s most revered philosophers:
Right. So I think we can agree that giving up riding isn’t an option. So what could I have done differently to avoid my own crash? And how should I change my behavior in the future?
Helmets
My feelings about helmets are well known:
So as I flew through the air with an unprotected noggin, you can be sure that one of the foremost things on my mind was, “Boy, if I bash my skull in, I’m gonna look like a real asshole.”
Fortunately this did not happen. Yes, I incurred a cut above my right eye that required stitches, but unless I’d been wearing a full-face helmet with a face shield that could have happened anyway. [Further to one reader’s comments, I now wonder if it was the ancient Oakley M Frames I was wearing that cut me. Yes, I was wearing a pair of ancient M Frames that day, what can I say? After reading that comment I put them on and they line up exactly with the wound.] In any case, from this I can draw any one of a number of conclusions, the two most extreme being:
- I was extremely lucky to have avoided a serious head injury in a high-speed crash and should take this as a lesson to never, ever forego a helmet ever again, because next time I probably won’t be so lucky.
- When people who wear helmets survive a bike crash they say “My helmet saved my life.” I survived a bike crash without a helmet. So, following that logic, not wearing a helmet saved my life.
But both of those make me uncomfortable. The first conclusion is sensible on its face, but it also fails to take into account The Drebin Principle, which is that living your life and eliminating risk are to some extent mutually exclusive. And the second conclusion is obviously silly and glib, because you shouldn’t give yourself any credit just because you managed to Mr. Magoo your way through dangerous situation.
In situations like these there are also people who might ask, “If you had known for certain you were going to crash, would you have put on a helmet before heading out?” Sure, why not? But I’d also have put on full body armor, which would have been a lot more helpful in this case, and which even the most safety-conscious riders never do. (Downhill mountain biking excluded, of course.) But nobody expects you to do that. Plus, since I was able to walk (limp) away, it would be too easy for me to double down and say, “No, actually I still wouldn’t have put on a helmet,” which is lazy and contrarian, even for me.
So, after thinking about it, where I stand on the whole thing is that fundamentally the feelings I have regarding helmets as expressed in the above video and elsewhere are unchanged. At the same time, I now realize that in being so doctrinaire about it I’m making exactly the same mistake as the helmet zealots. I believe that the best thing about bikes is that they’re convenient, fun, and accessible, and that insisting people wear helmets at all times reduces that convenience, makes bikes seem way more dangerous than they actually are (and makes helmets seem more effective than they actually are), and provides people with a convenient excuse to blame the victim in cases where the victim happens not to be wearing one.
But even I can’t claim that wearing a helmet while riding a road bike in technical cycling attire is in any way inconvenient. Wriggling into bib tights and ratcheting my feet into special shoes that I can’t even walk in isn’t an inconvenience, but putting on a foam hat is? Of course not. And once the helmet is on I don’t even remember whether I’m wearing it or not. Sure, if you’re on and off the bike a lot and going in and out of shops and café or whatever it’s annoying to keep taking it off and putting it on again. But if I’m wearing all the dumb roadie stuff I’m not getting off the bike at all. I mean I can’t even walk! Plus, it’s when I’m dressed up this way that I’m going downhill at high speed in the first place. So the truth is, when I don’t wear a helmet in these situations, I’m kind of going out of my way not to wear it just to make a point, which is just as performative and lazy as all the pro-helmet propaganda to which we’re routinely subject.
So will I wear a helmet more often now? Well for years I’d put one on if I was putting on all the other stuff too, but generally skip it if I was just riding in regular clothes like a normal person, and going back to that seems reasonable. And I do think all this is an important reminder that I need to be more flexible in my thinking–whatever the subject–and that I don’t have to take a hard line on everything.
Bike and Route Choice
Okay, having rationalized my own beliefs concerning helmets, let’s move onto the stuff that’s arguably way more important. In retrospect, I made two important mistakes on that fateful ride, and they were:
- My choice of bike
- My choice of route
It was a warm and pleasant day (for December), but it was also winter. This means the roads are in bad shape and there’s a lot of crap in them–especially when it’s a park road at the base of a sheer rock face that experiences regular rock slides. In fact, that road is currently closed to bicycles for that very reason. Yet I steered my bike onto it anyway–not just any bike, but a vintage road racing bike bike with 25mm tires and narrow handlebars. Anyone who’s ridden the skinny-tired racing bikes of yesteryear has experienced that sensation of hitting a pebble or a stick or something and feeling the front wheel almost go out from under you. In this case the wheel did go out from under me, and at high speed, too. So what could I have done differently?
Well, I can’t say for sure, but I would venture that on the Roadini with it’s 38mm tires and wider handlebar and longer wheelbase I’d have been less likely to crash:
It’s also hard for me to believe that if I’d been on, say, the Jones, with its wide, upright bars and three-inch wide tires, I’d have even come close to crashing at all:
So I’d be lying if I said I’ll never ride a racing bike with skinny tires again, just like I’d be lying if I said I’l never ride without a helmet again. But the crash is certainly a reminder to choose my bicycles conservatively–and there’s really no excuse for me to choose the wrong bicycle for a ride when I have so many of them.
[And yes, as a commenter notes, it could absolutely have been a poorly-glued tire. Who needs to be riding tubulars in 2025? Also, the idea that I might have crashed due to a bad glue job and then cut my head open on a pair of M Frames is deeply and profoundly embarassing.]
And of course route choice is at least as important as bicycle choice, and each should inform the other. When heading out that day I thought to myself, “I probably shouldn’t do River Road,” but I did anyway–despite having narrowly avoided a small rockslide on that same hill just a week or two before! Plus, like most cyclists in New York, I’ve always shrugged off the frequent River Road closures and just made my way around the barriers. But as I sat there bleeding and talking to the police officers who called the ambulance for me, we watched rider after rider go around that barrier–just as I would have done if I hadn’t crashed. They’d call after the riders to stop, but the riders would just ignore them. “We’re a real pain in the ass, aren’t we?,” I remarked, to which one the officers replied, “Well, kind of, yes.” She then explained that the barriers were there entirely for our benefit, since if someone were to crash and need medical assistance further along where the road was torn up they’d have a really difficult time getting there.
As it was, I crashed where the road was still open, in the immediate vicinity of the police station and close to the main road. Had I crashed a few miles later I’d have been sitting there bleeding; the police would never have happened by and it would have been difficult or impossible for the ambulance or my wife to get to me, assuming I was even able to call them in the first place. Instead I’d have had to clomp along in my cleats, dragging the wounded Cervino and bleeding from the head.
There’s a lot wrong with the whole “entitled cyclist” stereotype but it’s also not entirely unearned, especially when it comes to our belief that road closures don’t apply to us.
My Age
Aging doesn’t always happen to you suddenly, like a broken chain; it happens slowly, like, uh, a worn chain. In fact it happens so slowly you don’t even notice it…until you install a new cassette and it starts skipping. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but do keep in mind I recently crashed without a helmet.
Oh, right. The point is I’ve descended that hill hundreds of times, but what I never think about is that each time I do it I’m a little older. My vision certainly gets a little worse. My reaction time probably gets a little slower. Maybe 25 year-old me (or 35 year-old, or 45 year-old, or…yikes) would have spotted that pebble and deftly avoided it.
I can’t stop myself from aging, but I guess I could at least be a little more aware of the condition of my chain.