Trying to figure out a bad bike accident, please read!

[ANT 666]

The view is dad fell off!....

 

[midliferider]

The answer to your specific question is that no, this accident was not caused by the chain slipping.
The reason is this. The drive train of the bike is made in such a way that wheels move freely even when the crank stop moving.
Take a bike, hold its rear wheel up and move the rear wheel. You can see that rear wheel will keep spinning independent of the crank. Now if you want, spin the wheel by pedalling, now stop pedaling, you may slip the chain, but the wheel will continue to spin.
So this accident was not caused by slipping the chain.

 

[Levo-Lon]

The answer to your specific question is that no, this accident was not caused by the chain slipping.
The reason is this. The drive train of the bike is made in such a way that wheels move freely even when the crank stop moving.
Take a bike, hold its rear wheel up and move the rear wheel. You can see that rear wheel will keep spinning independent of the crank. Now if you want, spin the wheel by pedalling, now stop pedaling, you may slip the chain, but the wheel will continue to spin.
So this accident was not caused by slipping the chain.

you have nailed it bud.10 out of 10, grab a beer and rejoice

 

[MichaelW2]

My rear wheel lockups have been caused by the chain wrapping between small cog and chainstays, after a rear mech cracked. It was a case of instantaneous braking, and a sudden skid stop, but did not cause me to crash. Other types of de-chaining don't lockup the wheel.
If your dad doesn't know what caused the crash, you won't guess. Could be poor road surface, unusual camber, debris, animal, lack of concentration, late braking.

 

[midlife]

Get well soon as they say, I've had a few offs in my time and the bike has usually been bent a bit more than the one in the pic.

Shaun

 

[IDMark2]

I have had an accident where I was freewheeling down a sloping road off a bridge and stood to stretch my legs a bit as the gravity propelled me. My rear wheel locked suddenly, I slid to a halt eventually while desperately trying to free my left heel from the spokes of the wheel and being unable to unclip because my foot was locked by the wheel as well.
After what seemed like ages the motion ran out and I fell over into the road.. nothing was coming, no one was there to see and one loose spoke, a large bald patch on the tyre through to the tube and a red face were the only casualties.

Only afterwards did I think, idiot, you should have unclipped the other foot and tried to come to the inevitable stop on that side, but brains weren't obviously used analytically while trying to free myself to regain control. Perhaps a similar but more unfortunately ending accident might have happened?

 

[fossyant]

Sh1t happens on bikes. The chain probably ended up like that from the crash impact. The end of the pedal has been sheered.

Debris or grid on road ?

 

[Mile195]

Already said by others but the chain wrapping itself around ye chain ring probably didn't directly cause the accident, but may have caused him to lose control.
I've had a chain wrap itself around the chain ring a few times, usually when it's a bit worn, and always when changing gear. The worst that's ever happened was that I ruined the front dérailleur. it bent it out of shape as the chain was dragged into it from the wrong side. But on every occasion, the rear wheel has continued to turn and I've slowed to a halt. It can take you by surprise and swerve a little though which, especially at 35mph, could perhaps have caused him to lose control.

 

[mjr]

1. Helmets are not meant to fall to bits as easily as oft reported - the soft bit should compress first.
2. Discussion of this should go in https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/the-cyclechat-helmet-debate-thread.187059/

 

[Drago]

Uh oh, someone used the "H" word!

 

[jefmcg]

Thanks guys, This helps me a bit. Hopefully he will remember someday!

I'm not a doctor, but i don't think he will remember. We store things in our short term memory, then some of those things get written to long term memory. It's common after a blow to the head to forget the minutes just before and after. It's not a sign of long term or serious damage, it just means that the short term memory never got stored, so it's gone for good, even when he makes a full recovery and gets all of his memory back.

A friend of mine was "doored" and witnesses reported that she was alert and talking immediately afterwards. She says that she was unconscious. What almost certainly happened is the witnesses are right, but she didn't lay down the long term memory so she believed she was out. Even before the accident, she has little memory, except for a single image of an open car door. So similar to your dad, but with witnesses, so there is no mystery. That was the extent of the damage to her head, so she was not nearly as sick as your dad, but she recovered completely.

 

[jefmcg]

Forgive me for being a cynic but you do'nt want to sue someone perchance?

I don't see that as being a problem. He wants to understand what happened to his dad. And if that turns out to be the failure that was due to some manufacturing fault or due to poor servicing, then he is within his right to sue. More than that, it might even been his duty to do so**. If the OP is USAsian, even more so, because 2 million Americans are put into bankruptcy by medical bills every year.

**The job the main character in Fight Club has is a real one. Car manufacturers who are aware of a fault work out if it is cheaper to pay compensation to the injured and the families of the dead than to recall and fix the fault. If people didn't sue when faults led to injury, car safety would be much lower.

 

[Neilsmith]

I'm not a doctor, but i don't think he will remember. We store things in our short term memory, then some of those things get written to long term memory. It's common after a blow to the head to forget the minutes just before and after. It's not a sign of long term or serious damage, it just means that the short term memory never got stored, so it's gone for good, even when he makes a full recovery and gets all of his memory back.

A friend of mine was "doored" and witnesses reported that she was alert and talking immediately afterwards. She says that she was unconscious. What almost certainly happened is the witnesses are right, but she didn't lay down the long term memory so she believed she was out. Even before the accident, she has little memory, except for a single image of an open car door. So similar to your dad, but with witnesses, so there is no mystery. That was the extent of the damage to her head, so she was not nearly as sick as your dad, but she recovered completely.

Very true, my best friend had a very serious accident earlier this year on his Mtb, 5 months on and he still doesn't know what happened, he remembers just before and just afterwards, I won't recount as it's very unpleasant. He had severe injuries but never lost consciousness ( all head and facial injuries ) but has never remembered exactly what happened, probably just as well.

 

[nickyboy]

Cycling down a hill at 35 is something not without risk. I've had some near misses but it sounds most unlikely that it is as a result of some catastrophic failure of chain. Going down a hill fast there is little load on the chain and there is little likelihood of changing gear. In that, it's probably the least likely time for it to happen

As others have said, much more of a risk going down a hill is evasive action due to vehicles/animals, bad lines through corners, poor road surfaces and speed wobbles*

*speed wobbles can happen to anyone at any time. I had an almost catastrophic one this week on a hill I've bombed down about 100 times without incident. Only just managed to recover it but that entailed going straight on at a bend on the wrong side of the road. If something had come the other way I'd have had to bail into the verge

 

[vernon]

The original poster has not been back since his initial flurry of postings.