On October 29th, around 6 in the morning, I was out riding on a highway near Delhi. I was about to meet up with my friends. I’d had enough sleep the night before, a coffee before heading out, and felt fresh on the bike. The last thing I remember is looking straight ahead at the road. Everything felt normal. And then… nothing. I was going around 30km/hr
I woke up on the ground surrounded by strangers and police officers. It felt like waking up from a dream. I couldn’t move or lift myself up. They eventually put me in a police van and rushed me to the hospital. I spent weeks there, went through cosmetic surgeries, and started a recovery process I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
The weird part is how little sense the crash makes. My bike was mostly intact- no flat tires, no frame or wheel damage. The only thing broken was my carbon handlebar, which had snapped clean in two. My helmet had taken a big hit and was cracked. My sunglasses were destroyed. My right shoe had come off or rather, the sole had ripped from the shoe and stayed clipped into the pedal. I was wearing gloves on both hands, and an Apple Watch on my left wrist. My fingers were severely lacerated, I still have nerve damage on the left hand but the Apple Watch didn’t even have a scratch.
Even stranger, my clothes weren’t torn. No road rash on my body. A big laceration on my left knee was the only lower half damage. Just massive impact injuries I had over fifteen fractures: ribs, vertebrae, multiple fingers, and my left hand. I couldn’t walk properly for over a month.
What’s haunted me since then is the fact that I don’t remember anything about the crash itself. I wasn’t sleepy or out of it, and the road was straight and clear. There was no traffic chaos, no sudden pothole that I recall. It’s like the moment itself got erased.
I’ve attached an image of my Strava ride and a photo of the highway where it happened. I’d really appreciate if anyone has insights or theories.
by angad0406
36 Comments
My wild guess would be that your handlebar failed and caused everything else to cascade.
The last bad concussion i had wiped out about 15 minutes of my memory from before I crashed. I only know what happened because I got told about it afterward.
Carbon bar snapped and your body instantly took the consequences is my guess…sorry it happened to you, hope you ride again.
Your sole delaminated from your shoe, you got off balance, went over the guard rail, landed in the ditch getting all the broken bones and a concussion. The handlebars cracked on impact. You can’t remember anything because you were concussed.
Alternatively, you stem was over torqued and the handlebars cracked, and the same sequence of events followed. Since you are in Delhi, I have to ask no offense, was the bike authentic Giant? Were the handlebars stock? Was work done with a torque wrench?
But my money is on the sole delaminating. I once had a clipless pedal detach from the pedal axel once and I lost my balance immediately.
Edit- I woke up almost 8-10 mins after i guess(the police told me that), I’m not even sure about that since my primary care was more important than trying to figure out what had happened(no cctvs nearby either)😅
Could it have been a catastrophic handlebar failure that caused the crash (rather than a result of it) leading to you basically faceplanting? It seems unlikely but maybe if your bike had fallen over / in a previous minor crash the force had been mostly on the bars and it was carrying that internal damage.
(also sorry it happened at all, it sounds horrific and I hope your recovery is going smoothly so far)
Just a comment about the Strava H/R chart: It looks like your heart rate dropped very suddenly, but that’s because the x-axle is distance. If you instead click on time on that chart you will see that your H/R dropped more slowly.
As to reasons for your crash: Could it be that a car rammed you? Perhaps just hooked your handlebars?
I had a mountain bike crash in the forest last spring that I have no memory of how it happened. I could see on Strava that I had lost consciousness for about 5 minutes (heart rate of around 40bpm for 5 minutes). I have been back to the place and I can’t seem to find any reason to why I crashed at that place.
I don’t know. I hit a solid pole along side the road doing 30km/h. No major damage to the bike, except then handlebar tape. No damage to my clothing and only minor injury.
In your case it might be caused by mechanical failure (shoe)?
It seems likely that you crashed because your handlebar failed. I say this because it’s very difficult to imagine the handlebar snapping in two as a result of the crash. It’s more likely to be the cause.
A close-up photograph of the stem/handlebar area could help with trying to pinpoint a reason for the failure.
It’s possible to damage a carbon fiber handlebar by over-tightening the stem bolts. Alternatively, have you ever mounted clip-on aero bars on that handlebar?
90% sure you got sideswiped by a car.
Concussion and memory loss sucks so bad
About 2 months ago I was out for a short, 20km gravel ride on roads I have ridden billions of times before. The last thing I remember is bombing it down a gravel road and turning on to the main street leading into my small hometown of 2500~people. It was a slight incline that I’ve ridden many times before, and my memory cuts off there.
I wake up in the hospital, in absolutely smashed clothing, severe concussion and no idea what happened.
I still don’t remember anything, but apparently I was driven home by a man whose wife was out walking her dog. He wouldn’t tell my parents anything else, not what happened or what his name was. Apparently I had been driven home, walked down to my room to get my insurance card and all the necessary stuff for the hospital, been driven to the doctor, been there for an hour before being driven in an ambulance to the hospital. All this I can’t remember. I’ve ridden the hill multiple times and I still don’t remember anything. Out theory though, based on my Garmin map showing that I swerved hard left at 35/kmh, away from the bike lane, is that the old lady (whose husband drove me home)’s dog ran in front of me and I swerved and crashed to avoid it.
I’m just happy I wore a helmet, it was cracked in 7 places. Doctors said I likely wouldn’t have been able to tell this had I not been wearing it
I would bet a boat load of money you were clipped by a car. Specifically I think it was a mirror to the bar
Here’s my uninformed guess on what happened. I think the bars snapping are the cause of the crash. If the bars were instead broken after the tumble, I would expect the drops to be cracked and some shift lever damage.
I think you got out of the saddle for a moment, that has the effect of shifting your weight forward and onto the bars. When the bars snapped, you continued your trajectory forward and went “over the bars”. Since your bar cracked on the left side, you most likely fell forward with a slight deviation to the left.
As your body got flung, your bike lifted off the ground and your sole got ripped due to the sudden acceleration. You landed on your head hence the smashed helmets and glasses while the bike landed on you. This also explains the lack of road rash since you tumbled instead of sliding.
Car overtook you and came in too early, hitting your bars is my guess
Aliens
Could be the bar failed or, more likely, the sole of the shoe came off under power causing the crash. The shoe scenario would be similar to breaking a chain under power which is almost impossible to control.
BTW, I was hit by a car once and have no memory of about 30 minutes. I’ve been told I was up walking around and making jokes but have no memory of it.
You probably got hit by a car and ended up on the hood or windshield. That explains the lack of road rash.
You must have wrapped that adhesive tape securing the end of your bar tape too hard /s
Your chain derailed which caused you to put more weight on the handle bars causing them to snap. When the chain jammed your front sprocket a lot of your weight suddenly came to a stop on your shoe thus causing the sole to come off. You either hit your head on the stem or the ground. Are you ok?
I have no idea, just guessing.
Seems like the bar broke and you fell forwards and left. Hit your face and knee, and ripped your shoe apart as you went down
Car wing mirror clipped your handlebar?
My offhand guess is your were lightly clipped by a vehicle, causing you to lose control and crash. A direct vehicle hit would have done more damage to the bike. The handlebar was either the thing struck, or was the first part of the bike to hit the ground and took the majority of the impact.
Second most likely possibility is that your handlebars failed catastrophically. Could be a manufacturing defect, could be damage. Even if you never saw it be damaged it could have happened (maybe someone crashed it on a test ride before you bought it, or an inexperienced tech crushed the part before someone else installed it properly).
Third most likely is you just lost control all on your own and that’s just the way the bike damage worked out.
I could also believe the possibility that your shoe suddenly failed and that caused the accident.
Do you have any medical conditions? Is it possible that you had a seizure at 30kph? Of course all the other suggestions are possible too, but if you remember everything being perfectly normal and the road was clear then idk.
Handlebar failure made you fall to the side and as you were falling a car hit you (not the bike).
It looks like you experienced cardiac arrest. Did anyone at the scene perform CPR? Did they use an AED on you?
Your experience seems eerily similar to what happened to my 12 year old son in April. He was at flag football practice. Out of nowhere, between plays, he just dropped to the ground. His heart stopped and he was unresponsive for 25 minutes. Thanks to high quality CPR he received from a teammate’s dad and a nurse who happened to be in the park, he had blood flowing to his brain until the paramedics were able to revive him.
Ultimately, he went undiagnosed. No heart structural issues, no signs of irregular heart rhythms afterward. Had DNA testing done and it all came back negative. Just a fluke with no known cause.
My son had dirt and grass inside of his eyelids, in his mouth, lost a tooth. He just went completely limp. Likely a similar thing happened to you. When you lose consciousness and your body goes limp, anything can happen. Without video, there’s no way to know exactly how the crash snapped your handlebars or why your bib wasn’t torn, etc.
Shout out to Gurugram/Gurgaon. Still boggles my mind that people ride bikes on the highways there. Then again, a lot of what happens on those roads boggles my mind.
I don’t think I saw pace data in the Strava screen cap.
How fast do you normally ride in that area?
Because even catastrophic handlebar failure isn’t going to result in that many fractures and that much property damage to helmet, etc. unless you were likely riding exceptionally fast.
It’s hard to explain how you could sustain all that damage and your bike very little. Maybe your handlebar snapped and you fell to one side into a car while your bike got pushed the other way?
My wild guess would be a sudden handlebar failure, resulting in you going head first over the bike. Your helmet and hand did the first impact with the road. Therefore, your clothes did not take much damage. The bike probably caused some leverage, and luckily, the shoe ripped first.
Car hit you from behind on your left, hit the handlebar and catapulted you to the right
You got smoked by a car my dude. Probably hit more of you than your bike. I’ve seen thousands of bike crashes and never a sole removed from a shoe.
Hard to tell from the photo, but the shape of the break looks like a car may have clipped your bar from behind. The front of the bar looks like the break peeled the material forward and inward.
Post a good picture of the end of the handlebar tube on both ends where it broke… There’s enough guys with composite engineering experience here that we can at least tell you if it was an overload or some kind of delamination that caused it to fail
Sounds like you had a concussion and you lost your memory of what happened.
I know everything was normal before, but that’s the thing about accidents, you don’t see it coming.
Could be a car, could be a bump/hole in the road,
If you forgot just even 10 seconds of memory that’s enough cause an accident lasts a fraction of a second
And then everything else like the shoes and handlebar are likely a result of the crash.
Everyone’s talking about spontaneous failure of the bars but I fail to see how that happens without either any prior signs or a sudden force like a pothole or a crash. Just riding along at moderate speed on a smooth road, a handlebar isn’t going to go from seemingly good as new to in two pieces with no warning.
I’m definitely on team sideswiped by car. Glad you’ve recovered.
Psychologist here, others have posted the phenomenon of what you perceived before the crash did not get transferred from working memory to long term memory. I also had a personal experience this last November when I had a slow speed fall, got knocked out, couldn’t remember the falling. I’ve fallen other times and could remember the whole thing.
It must have been savage! And you ride in Dehli. I visited a couple years ago and the traffic was frightening while in a taxi. Glad you’re getting better. Best wishes.