Have you ever crashed?

[DeniseGoldberg]

...lots of crash stories...

Ouch - I have to say I'm amazed that you still seem to be happily riding your bike with all of your crashes!

...crossing some baaad train tracks (they cross the road at worse than a 45 degree angle). had some truck drive into my bike lane, and scare me bad enough not to turn sharp enough, i went down.

Ah, nasty train tracks. I ride across them if they run perpendicular to the road. But I am more likely to put my feet down and walk if they are angled - unless the road I am on is totally empty of vehicles. Then I'll head across at the right angle.

Have any of you crashed on the road? Is it as bad as it looks?

I'm afraid that based on your question "have you crashed" you are getting stories only from those of us who have crashed. And I think the whole point of the question was to help you get past your fear of falling. It seems that everyone who answered who has crashed has also moved past the crash and continued riding.

A certain amount of fear - or maybe I should say caution - may be good, but I hope that you don't let these stories scare you away from cycling. As I said before, I really believe that if you look at the overall number of crash-free rides vs. the rides where someone has hit the ground - well the crash-free happy rides are much more common.

--- Denise