Reinhold Bike Crash Portrait

Photo by Reinhold Stansich found on Flickr

The results of my crash with the MTB that happened yesterday (June 30, 2007). Besides destroying the helmet, the glasses, the trousers and the shirt I had massive graze all over the right hand side of my body. The right glass of the glasses (Adidas Evil Eye) left me with an evil eye indeed, it cut deeply into the upper and lower palpebra and left a big hematoma. It had to be sutured with 4 stitches each.

Looking at the glasses however it is clearly visible (not so clear on the picture however) that the glass kept a lot of big stones out of my eye. So I don't think I would blame the glasses (and to be honest I already bought a new one of the same kind already).

So what happened? Going down from the top I came along a piece of the track with big gravel. This gravel was that deep that the front wheel went deeply into it and I couldn't steer it anymore. Even that I succeded to get it out of the gravel again and reget control it entered depely into the gravel once more and on trying to get it out once more I fell over to the other side and hit the floor with the head and elbow first. Sliding on the ground I injured the leg as well.

Even that the injuries look really bad, I was riding with only 25 km/h when falling over, at least this speed is stated in the Polar S625X that recorded the tour. It as well states that after three and a half minutes (for finding all the pieces, checking if anything is broken, checking the bike and getting my breath back) I climbed back on the bike to ride it home which took another 25 minutes for the 11.5 km I had to go.