Olympic cyclist Annemiek Van Vleuten in intensive care after horrific crash

James wrote:
On 09/08/16 04:41, Duane wrote:


Yeah, I didn't see why she hugged the right before that turn. I would
have been on the left trying to cut in. But that's what I was saying,
maybe they were worried about the curbs.

I wouldn't be worried about the curbs, preferring to focus on not crashing.

It's like at school exam time, 51 is a waste of a mark, but 49 is a
waste of a year ;-)


Yeah I was just wondering why she took that line. I doubt it was just bad
judgement but I guess anything is possible.

--
duane

jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 3:17:58 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/8/2016 2:21 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 7:48:18 AM UTC-7, Duane wrote:
On 08/08/2016 10:26 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, August 7, 2016 at 8:09:15 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr3v1SWg5cw

Helmets don't help?

I knew this was coming! I would certainly want a helmet in that
situation, which involved a combination of really bad circumstances
-- high-siding into a curb and doing a head-stand. Whether the helmet
actually mitigated any injury is a conclusion that I would have to
leave to the biomechanical experts. Looking at the head-strike, and
in light of her long hair, it is highly likely to have mitigated scalp injury.

Apart from the helmet issue, the take-away might be to get your
weight back and take a wider line. I would have gone to the far left
and then cut the apex of that turn. She was hugging the far right
and ran right into the apex, locked her rear wheel and high-sided. At
least if one takes a wider line and wipes out, it's a pretty tame
low-side crash -- except for the curb, which was the really killer.

-- Jay Beattie.


Yeah I would take anything that would help in that case.

What was up with those "rut" things along the left side of the road? It
looked to me that her wheel caught that.

Check this:
http://gizmodo.com/the-science-behin...zed-1784950831

A male racer broke both collar bones there before this race.

On that gizmodo.com link, I think the best follow-up comment was this one:


"watch the video again, her rear drifted out BEFORE the paint. It was
over application of the breaks, and then a panic reaction to the drift
to try to buck forward on the front w/ breaks which went too far and
locked the front. If anything, the front tire stopped/turned on the
paint more aggressively than she expected, causing the rear to break free.
Often that “paint� is really a lot of reflective grit, which when dry
is like worn sandpaper- which will grab.

It would be nice to see some crash barriers other than a high curb on
the outside of the descent turns, especially decreasing radius like this one."


If I had been racing that course, I would have been in the left lane at
the beginning of the clip, taking the hard right from the top of the
turn. She was going too fast for that tight inside line, braked, lost
rear wheel traction, over-compensated with her front brake and
high-sided. As noted by others, the dangerous part of that course was
the "road furniture" -- the curb. The road itself looks well paved and
it even appears to be banked in the right direction, although it kind
of breaks lane-center. It's a tight turn, but the world is filled with
steep, tight turns. The European racers see them all the time.

For those interested, here's the relevant Google Street View. The
corner in question is just ahead:
https://goo.gl/maps/wrL5mqbVakq

Monday Morning Quarterbacking is easy, of course.

Gawd, that is a dopey course. I didn't watch the road race because I was
watching the Tour of Utah on live feed. Anyway, I didn't appreciate from
the video how narrow that is -- with a really tight, steep right. Even
starting from the far left, you couldn't carry much speed through that
turn. It should have had a mass of hay bales, to the extent that would have helped.


Yikes.



--
duane

On 8/8/2016 9:03 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with they should have done this or that and not crashed.

It's amazing that people will scour the internet for helmeted crashes
and use them for trolling. But it's your hobby, isn't it, Sir?

Crikey, this lady is a bicyclist good enough and experienced enough to
race in the friggin Olympics!
That shows that the unexpected can happen even with experience and
skill. An amateur/casula rider out
for a ride can also encounter something totally unexpected that can
cause them to crash.
I think the only avoid every falling whilst on a bicycle is to simply
stop riding a bicycle.
I've seen the odd bicyclist fall over at an intersection where the
bicyclist was doing a track
stand and something caused the front wheel to slip a bit and wham down
they went.

And I'm sure their helmet saved them from death or worse, right?

Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.

A) I've had two moving, on-road falls in well over 40 years of
enthusiastic adult cycling. Both were under 10 mph. Neither had any
serious injuries, and in the one for which I wore a helmet, it did nothing.

B) Your unspoken implication is that if someone does have any kind of
crash, they will need a helmet for protection. How can you forget the
100+ years of pre-styrofoam cycling, during which there was never a
plague of traumatic brain injury?

C) And again, why do you restrict your fear mongering to bicycling?
It's simply not a major risk for TBI.

Take a look at the 2008 Phillips Report on TBI in Ireland:
http://www.nai.ie/assets/15/015AB446...ips_Report.pdf

Look at Table 6.1 to see that ALL road users are just 22% of the
problem. Look at table 6.8 to see that cyclists are only 15% of that
22%. (I can help you with the math, if you need it.) Look at table 6.9
to see that pedestrians, motorcyclists and motorists tend to have much
more severe TBI than bicyclists.

And stop trying to make bicycling sound so damned dangerous!


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 8/8/2016 10:39 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/8/2016 9:03 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident
wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with
they should have done this or that and not crashed.

It's amazing that people will scour the internet for helmeted crashes
and use them for trolling. But it's your hobby, isn't it, Sir?

Crikey, this lady is a bicyclist good enough and experienced enough to
race in the friggin Olympics!
That shows that the unexpected can happen even with experience and
skill. An amateur/casula rider out
for a ride can also encounter something totally unexpected that can
cause them to crash.
I think the only avoid every falling whilst on a bicycle is to simply
stop riding a bicycle.
I've seen the odd bicyclist fall over at an intersection where the
bicyclist was doing a track
stand and something caused the front wheel to slip a bit and wham down
they went.

And I'm sure their helmet saved them from death or worse, right?

Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an
accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.

A) I've had two moving, on-road falls in well over 40 years of
enthusiastic adult cycling. Both were under 10 mph. Neither had any
serious injuries, and in the one for which I wore a helmet, it did nothing.

B) Your unspoken implication is that if someone does have any kind of
crash, they will need a helmet for protection. How can you forget the
100+ years of pre-styrofoam cycling, during which there was never a
plague of traumatic brain injury?

C) And again, why do you restrict your fear mongering to bicycling? It's
simply not a major risk for TBI.

Take a look at the 2008 Phillips Report on TBI in Ireland:
http://www.nai.ie/assets/15/015AB446...ips_Report.pdf


Look at Table 6.1 to see that ALL road users are just 22% of the
problem. Look at table 6.8 to see that cyclists are only 15% of that
22%. (I can help you with the math, if you need it.) Look at table 6.9
to see that pedestrians, motorcyclists and motorists tend to have much
more severe TBI than bicyclists.

And stop trying to make bicycling sound so damned dangerous!

P.S. If _your_ personal riding experience involves lots of high-impact
crashing, please do wear a helmet.

But more important, learn to ride better. It can be done!


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 6:03:17 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 6:30:29 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 2:38:44 PM UTC-7, James wrote:
On 09/08/16 00:26, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, August 7, 2016 at 8:09:15 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr3v1SWg5cw

Helmets don't help?

I knew this was coming! I would certainly want a helmet in that
situation, which involved a combination of really bad circumstances
-- high-siding into a curb and doing a head-stand. Whether the helmet
actually mitigated any injury is a conclusion that I would have to
leave to the biomechanical experts. Looking at the head-strike, and
in light of her long hair, it is highly likely to have mitigated
scalp injury.


Sure. I'd want body armour all over - not just on the top of my head!

Apart from the helmet issue, the take-away might be to get your
weight back and take a wider line. I would have gone to the far left
and then cut the apex of that turn. She was hugging the far right
and ran right into the apex, locked her rear wheel and high-sided. At
least if one takes a wider line and wipes out, it's a pretty tame
low-side crash -- except for the curb, which was the really killer.


It looked to me like she also over cooked the front brake and
effectively did an endo.

But hey, it was a race. Crashes are more likely in racing, and at high
speed.

I don't ride like that outside of racing, or at least training for
racing - and under those circumstances a helmet and gloves are probably
sensible!

I rode 93km on Saturday over a twisty, hilly circuit, through drizzle
and on poorly maintained roads. I didn't crash. I rode cautiously on
the down hill bits and turned my lights on due to the poor visibility..

I did a 100k ride with some friends on Sunday that involved descending a twisty, rutted, wet descent with off-banked turns and on-coming traffic as fast as I could -- naked, with no helmet. O.K., I was wearing a helmet, and it saved me. This descent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZOiYXwvYWc

Depending on road banking, it's very much like slalom skiing, except without edges. One of my favorites (in the same vicinity): http://tinyurl.com/zvepwyq The first curve in the foreground is about 90 degrees, 15% grade off-bank and blind. I tend to slow down a bit. Why does a mini-van show up every time I go wide? If I start getting crazy, I think "I'm on blood thinners."

-- Jay Beattie.

That car looks like the driver is barely in control of it. What would happen if another car were coming the opposite way when that first car was drifiting into the other lane?

It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with they should have done this or that and not crashed. Crikey, this lady is a bicyclist good enough and experienced enough to race in the friggin Olympics! That shows that the unexpected can happen even with experience and skill. An amateur/casula rider out for a ride can also encounter something totally unexpected that can cause them to crash. I think the only avoid every falling whilst on a bicycle is to simply stop riding a bicycle. I've seen the odd bicyclist fall over at an intersection where the bicyclist was doing a track stand and something caused the front wheel to slip a bit and wham down they went..

Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.

No, but even Olympic quality cyclists can make mistakes, particularly when hypoxic or taking chances to keep up or take off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRM3bFXlyNk By the way, I'll be riding there or near there on Sunday.

Bicycle racing is a risky activity, and helmets are mandatory. Risk includes the potential for human error. A lot of riding is not particularly risky, and the argument in favor of helmets is less strong. Note that thousands of Dutch and Danish ride to work without helmets, and apparently, the injury rate is very low. I wear a helmet as a matter of routine and have benefited from wearing a helmet. One has to assess his or her risk profile and dress accordingly.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 11:40:48 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 6:03:17 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Snipped
Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.

No, but even Olympic quality cyclists can make mistakes, particularly when hypoxic or taking chances to keep up or take off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRM3bFXlyNk By the way, I'll be riding there or near there on Sunday.

Bicycle racing is a risky activity, and helmets are mandatory. Risk includes the potential for human error. A lot of riding is not particularly risky, and the argument in favor of helmets is less strong. Note that thousands of Dutch and Danish ride to work without helmets, and apparently, the injury rate is very low. I wear a helmet as a matter of routine and have benefited from wearing a helmet. One has to assess his or her risk profile and dress accordingly.

-- Jay Beattie.

The point I tried to make is that even if a person has bicycled for years sometimes a crash will happen to them because of road debris or some other unforseen thing. That's why they're called accidents.

All I'm doing by posting these events is showing people that crap can happen when you least expect it. Sometimes a helmet on your head helps mitigate the severity of any injuries. You don't have to be a racer in order to have a crash. Sometimes it's a simple defect in the road in a location where the defect isn't seen in time for evasive action to be taken. Also, I've NEVER said helmets shold be mandatory nor have I ever said that helmets will protect from all ijnjuries in all cases.

Some people ride in a manner that an accident is more likely to happen or they ride in an area where someone else might cause an accident. It's simply up to the individual to weigh their risks and then choose what protection or other safety equipment they want to use.

One thing that I have noticed over the last few years is that traffic volume is drastically increasing as are cases of totally distracted driving. This has lead to a rise in the number of struck from behind accidents involving bicyclists as well as other motor vehicles.

Cheers

On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 3:39:20 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/8/2016 9:03 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:

It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with they should have done this or that and not crashed.
B) Your unspoken implication is that if someone does have any kind of
crash, they will need a helmet for protection. How can you forget the
100+ years of pre-styrofoam cycling, during which there was never a
plague of traumatic brain injury?

Actually, to give the Philips report a statistical importance that it doesn't deserve, but only because Franki-boy has already done so, let's quote one of its conclusions:
"Pedal cyclists were the most likely road user to have an isolated head injury (81%)."
Mmm, applying Franki-boy's methods, I'd conclude from that fact alone that helmets are particularly important for avoiding TBI.

C) And again, why do you restrict your fear mongering to bicycling?
It's simply not a major risk for TBI.

See above. Either Frank Krygowski is too slack to read the report he recommends to us, too stupid to understand what it says, or he's deliberately lying to us. There are no other alternatives. (I can go through the logic of this in detail if anyone cares. The headlines are that in a country of fewer than 4m people, there are abnormally few cyclists precisely because the roads are dangerous and perceived to be dangerous for cyclists, so that 69 cases of TBI is actually a high number relative to the number of cyclists in 2008. All the numbers from the Philips Report, in the proper local context, tell a different story to the snake oil Franki-boy is trying to sell.)

Take a look at the 2008 Phillips Report on TBI in Ireland:
http://www.nai.ie/assets/15/015AB446...ips_Report.pdf

And this is Franki-boy's source. As it happens, I live in Ireland. In my area the modal share of cycling in 2016, after years of government promotion schemes, is 0.4 (that's zero point four per cent) and I can remember 4 cycling deaths in roundabout ten years in a population of under 50,000 for my riding area. By Krygowski's methods cycling should be declared very dangerous indeed where I live, on those numbers alone. On the contrary, for sensible adults, according to my experience, cycling is more than safe enough.

Krygowski continues:
Look at Table 6.1 to see that ALL road users are just 22% of the
problem. Look at table 6.8 to see that cyclists are only 15% of that
22%. (I can help you with the math, if you need it.) Look at table 6.9
to see that pedestrians, motorcyclists and motorists tend to have much
more severe TBI than bicyclists.

You're wanking, Franki-boy. That entire report deals with such small numbers that detailed analysis is fraught with all kinds of statistical difficulties. The total number of pedal cyclists dealt with is 69. Subdivisions (including some double-counting in for instance in table 6.11 where cyclist numbers of 2, 2, 1, 0 and 1 are dealt with) are simply unreliable for statistical analysis.

And stop trying to make bicycling sound so damned dangerous!

But you're the one making cycling sound dangerous by screeching continuously at the top of your voice, Franki-boy.

Also, Franki-boy, since you pretend to know about statistics, and even smugly offer to help Ridealot with the math, and then you don't warn us that these very low numbers are ipso facto statistically dicey, a suspicion of deceit arises.

You should stick to what you know about, Krygowski. You don't know **** about statistics. Or polemics for that matter; I've never seen you try on a single unit of advocacy which was not counterproductive.

Andre Jute

PS I think the Philips Report is a fabulous piece of administrative and clinical writing, very useful for planning hospital budgets and giving consultants an overview. But for statistical analysis of the worth of helmets it isn't so hot, and any sensible statistician, pressed for a conclusion, would have to say that the sentence I quote above -- "Pedal cyclists were the most likely road user to have an isolated head injury (81%)." -- is the strongest indication from the report, and come down on the side of helmets. Sorry, Franki-boy.

On Mon, 8 Aug 2016 22:41:33 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 8/8/2016 10:39 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/8/2016 9:03 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:


It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident
wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with
they should have done this or that and not crashed.

It's amazing that people will scour the internet for helmeted crashes
and use them for trolling. But it's your hobby, isn't it, Sir?

Crikey, this lady is a bicyclist good enough and experienced enough to
race in the friggin Olympics!
That shows that the unexpected can happen even with experience and
skill. An amateur/casula rider out
for a ride can also encounter something totally unexpected that can
cause them to crash.
I think the only avoid every falling whilst on a bicycle is to simply
stop riding a bicycle.
I've seen the odd bicyclist fall over at an intersection where the
bicyclist was doing a track
stand and something caused the front wheel to slip a bit and wham down
they went.

And I'm sure their helmet saved them from death or worse, right?

Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an
accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.

A) I've had two moving, on-road falls in well over 40 years of
enthusiastic adult cycling. Both were under 10 mph. Neither had any
serious injuries, and in the one for which I wore a helmet, it did nothing.

B) Your unspoken implication is that if someone does have any kind of
crash, they will need a helmet for protection. How can you forget the
100+ years of pre-styrofoam cycling, during which there was never a
plague of traumatic brain injury?

C) And again, why do you restrict your fear mongering to bicycling? It's
simply not a major risk for TBI.

Take a look at the 2008 Phillips Report on TBI in Ireland:
http://www.nai.ie/assets/15/015AB446...ips_Report.pdf


Look at Table 6.1 to see that ALL road users are just 22% of the
problem. Look at table 6.8 to see that cyclists are only 15% of that
22%. (I can help you with the math, if you need it.) Look at table 6.9
to see that pedestrians, motorcyclists and motorists tend to have much
more severe TBI than bicyclists.

And stop trying to make bicycling sound so damned dangerous!

P.S. If _your_ personal riding experience involves lots of high-impact
crashing, please do wear a helmet.

But more important, learn to ride better. It can be done!


Ah Frank, when I was a kid Father Murphy, down at Sacred Heart, used
to give all the young lads St. Christopher Medals. When I was in
Indonesia a friend had a decal sort of thing with a verse from the
Holy Koran glued on the dash of his car and when I came to Thailand my
brother in law gave me a Buddhist Amulet and told me that it would
protect me from being shot.

From memory none of the kids at Sacred Heart got hurt on their bikes,
my Indonesian friend didn't have a car wreck in the 20 years that I
was there and so far I've not been shot.

And, I might add, Lourdes, three years ago announced that they had
received an official declaration from the Bishop of Pavia, Italy
stating that the 69th miracle has taken place there.

I'm not sure that a helmet is required.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 09/08/16 11:03, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Monday, August 8, 2016 at 6:30:29 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, August 7, 2016 at 8:09:15 PM UTC-7, Sir Ridesalot
wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr3v1SWg5cw

Helmets don't help?


It's amazing that if something/anything is posted about an accident
wherein the rider was wearing a helmet the AHZ people come out with
they should have done this or that and not crashed. Crikey, this lady
is a bicyclist good enough and experienced enough to race in the
friggin Olympics!

1. AHLZ. Not AHZ. The anti helmet _Law_ zealot bit is important.

2. It would seem the person who won the race was better than just good
enough. She didn't crash.

That shows that the unexpected can happen even with
experience and skill.

As has been explained, this was a _race_ where people are expected to
push to the limits of physical ability. She exceeded her capabilities
to ride and not fall off. She had no escape. No buffer. If it was not
a race, she could probably ride down there a million times and not fall
off once.

An amateur/casula rider out for a ride can also
encounter something totally unexpected that can cause them to crash.

Sure. It is much less likely though, as the casual rider is not likely
pushing the envelope of control.

I think the only avoid every falling whilst on a bicycle is to simply
stop riding a bicycle. I've seen the odd bicyclist fall over at an
intersection where the bicyclist was doing a track stand and
something caused the front wheel to slip a bit and wham down they
went.

I've fallen probably well over a dozen times over the years of racing
and riding. I've never damaged a helmet or my head. A helmet has not
helped me.

Are people here saying that when bicycling there will NEVER be an
accident? If so, that's nearly inconceivable.


Accidents happen. Casual cyclists usually travel slower, crash far less
often, and don't hurt themselves as reliably as racers.

Wear a helmet if you like, but don't force everyone to wear one just
because you think a helmet is necessary for your type of riding and
exposure to risk.

--
JS

On 09/08/16 12:18, Duane wrote:
James wrote:
On 09/08/16 04:41, Duane wrote:


Yeah, I didn't see why she hugged the right before that turn. I would
have been on the left trying to cut in. But that's what I was saying,
maybe they were worried about the curbs.

I wouldn't be worried about the curbs, preferring to focus on not crashing.

It's like at school exam time, 51 is a waste of a mark, but 49 is a
waste of a year ;-)


Yeah I was just wondering why she took that line. I doubt it was just bad
judgement but I guess anything is possible.


I would have wanted to ride the course beforehand. Were they not warned
the descent was very tricky? Her line was terrible, but I think mostly
because she had overcooked the previous corner a bit, and that left no
room to prepare for the corner where she crashed.

One of the 2 day tours I've competed in a few times, used to have a few
descents. One in particular seemed to cause a nasty crash at least once
during the weekend of racing. Every year someone planted themselves
against the hill and busted themselves up pretty bad. So what do the
organisers do? Race to the top of the hill so you don't race down it.

Of course now, our young racers get less race descent practise.

You have to break a few eggs to make a sponge cake!

--
JS