I started a thread about embarrassing riding accidents (based on recent experience — aack!) over on the Bike Forums list, and people are coming up with some pretty tragic-funny stuff, check it out.
Here is one of my favorites, courtesy of ollo_ollo:
One hot summer day, commuting home from work, I was riding uphill & coasting to stop at a red light. I forgot to unclip & did a slow motion fall sideways to land in the gutter at the feet of a couple homeless guys sitting on the curb with their cardboard sign. One guy says, “I hate it when that happens”. The light changed to green, so I got up & out of there as fast as I could. Don
Hey — another great argument for riding in regular shoes! And this from SDBluefish:
Riding home from the store with a bunch of groceries in a rear pannier. Got to the place where I leave the bike lane and cut over to my street. Doing my usual rolling dismount coming up to the curb, but totally forgot the very long loaf of French bread in the pannier. Leg hit the bread, and the bike and I hit the pavement. Someone driving past in a minivan pulled over, but when they saw I was getting up and cussing a blue streak they decided I was probably OK enough and drove away fast. Now if I’d had a loaf of nice, soft, American bread none of this would have happened! I blame the French.
“I blame the French,” that is classic. Thanks to all on that thread for the laughs. Many of us have been there (if you are a new rider, or just getting back to riding, beware lest YOU go there! ).