checking 9c for crash damage

dougnutz

100 W
Joined
Oct 27, 2010
Messages
138
Hi all, if you ride long enough this is bound to happen and for me it did monday night. I got left crossed by a someone pulling out into the road from my right. My bike hit their front bumper at about a 45 degree angle. I went over the hood and landed in the street. My bike went across traffic to the ditch on the other side. I took a quick trip to the ER but nothing was broken so I was released with mainly soft tissue injuries. As soon as I can move decently I plan to start inspecting my bike and I wanted to get some feedback from the guru's here about what sort of things to expect.

I was going about 25mph mabey a little less, and the front took most of the damage. The front wheel is a writeoff. possibly the shock too, it's hard to tell. I have a 9c on back that seems to have survived mostly intact, but I want to know what I need to do to inspect it?

What else should I lookf for?

Thanks in advance for any advice
 
Thanks,
I pretty much plan to take all the main components off, including the headset, and at very least clean, inspect, and reassemble. I'm just not sure how to check the Hub motor for damage.
 
no I didn't disconnect the power, My wife retrieved the bike a few hours after the crash. According to her everything was off. I haven't yet determined if it was turned off or if the power was interrupted. I'm hoping to start going over it tomorrow and start ordering parts.
 
Chances are the motor is ok, though you could easily have warped the rim. If it spins without making noise, and the wiring is ok, fire it up and try to run it.

Glad to hear you made it without bones broke! I had a bitch left cross me too yesterday, but I was to aware to let her kill me. One advantage of slow boring 20 mph commuters, you can stop.
 
Spinning the motor by hand it sounds quite so I think it's probably ok. The rim seems slightly warped but I'm not too worried about that.

It does have an odd sound when running with no load that I don't remember hearing before. But then I generally don't ever do that. Since nothing inside seems to be rubbing I'm going to try getting the rest of the bike back together and have a friend ride it around to see if runs ok.

Plus I'm buying a bright light!
 
Half of adult bike fatalities occur at night with drastically less cyclists on the road at night. Sure a better light is good, but avoiding riding at night is an even better choice.
 
John in CR said:
...but avoiding riding at night is an even better choice

I commute on my ebike: I pretty much have to ride at night, at least this time of year. My accident happened at 5:30 which is right about sundown. I'm actually on trails most of the commute but for the last half mile I am on public roads.
 
Hopefully the motor is ok, and you don't have any internal damage that'll come back and bite ya later.

If the front took the hit, especially if there's heavy damage to the fork, check your headtube/downtube/toptube joints very carefully. I have a Schwinn steel frame bike that I got as scrap due to what looked like a head-on crash with something, and it actually had twisted and bent the steel suspension fork. The wheel wasn't with it so I have no idea how bad that looked. Anyway, there was damage to the frame itself around the headtube and stuff, so I ended up cutting the frame up and using bits of it here and there on other projects. (like for some of the oval extension bits I needed for the CrazyBIke2 dual-frame-connection point at the front seattube)


I had my own close call day before yesterday; a Prius was going way too fast coming out of the side parking lot area I usually turn into on my way to work, and when I looked just before turning they werent' there, then as I turned they came up on the wrong side of the driving area between the parking rows, right in front of me. I couldn't go any further right due to very long parked trucks sticking out too far so I gunned it and swerved left hard, heading completely out of that side lot and exiting to the street instead, because they weren't even slowing down (I probably wouldn't have made it trying to go around their left side).

Apparently I also pushed off with my right foot on the ground, I guess, to make that hard left, though I don't remember doing it, because my right ankle swelled up later that day, during work. Nothing else I did that day could have caused that, so it was probably then. Since I already always have to keep the weight off my left knee by limping on my right leg, and I have to walk around the store all shift long helping people, stocking stuff, etc., this doesnt work out very well, so by the end of the worknight I was miserable and wishing I was in a wheelchair. I dug out my Bubba Stik cane that I inherited out of the pile of them my mom kept around (it was too tall for her, but it turns out to be about right for me), and spent yesterday at work learning that it still sucks even with a cane, becuase now my right palm, wrist, arm, shoulder, and left rib muscles all ache and throb from having to support much of my body weight, in place of my right leg. :(


So even if you dont' actually end up in an accident, just avoiding one can cause problems. ;)

Mine was in full daylight, so lighting didn't make any difference; it was partly a visibility problem (low-height car vs lots of parked vehicles, sharp corner you can't really see around until you are already turning) and partly an idiot driver problem (going road speeds in a narrow problematic-visibility parking lot). And partly a complacency problem on my end--there is almost never anyone coming out of there, as they tend to exit the other end of it, like I do, so I didnt' slow as much as I should have, and thus couldnt' stop completely before being in the way of the not-going-to-stop Prius. Would've been their fault on the tickets and/or insurance claim, but that wouldnt' have helped me any after being run over by them. ;)

So don't get complacent, either. :(


That said, good bright lighting helps cars see you, even in daytime, even if they don't bother avoiding you. I highly recommend full automotive-style lighting: Side and rear and front marker lights (amber front, red rear), turn signals, brake lights, and really bright taillights and headlights, with LOTS of surface area.

If you have a choice, more surface area with wide-angle light emission is more important than more brightness, though both is best. Really bright point-source lights that only point straight back and front don't do much good if they're not right behind or in front of you, as they still wont' really see you. Or worse, if it's too bright a point, it may cause them to not be able to see the rest of you as well, and they may hit you or something else because of that. A larger surface area that's more diffuse, emitting the same amount of light, will cause less visibility problems and be more obvious to them from a wider approach angle.
 
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