On a surface street, fairly low speed (coming up from a hill climb where I needed a little throttle, but I’m level at this point and slowing down and now just applying brake to reduce momentum), I'm slowing down as I’m approaching the stop sign, no significant curve to the section of road I’m on, bike is upright and on a more or less straight trajectory. The whole thing is pretty standard. Suddenly feel a serious jolt on the bars, maybe feels almost like an impact but there is nothing on the road to impact, next thing I know, I’m looking at the left side of the bike as I’m going down.
When I went down, I impacted the road directly on my left shoulder. No sign of head impact on helmet (I was conscious to keep my head tilted up and let my shoulder take the hit). Bike went down on its left side. Damage so far seems to be bent shifter, broken tank badge, handlebar feeling a little out of place. Another rider rode it back and said the bike was fine except for the weird feeling of the bar being slightly out of position on the left.
The road was not smoothly paved, more of a rough paving job that had seen better days and probably had some of those tiny loose pavement pebbles on it. The area had trees, and another rider asked me if I came upon some leaves. I don’t recall spotting any leaves or anything else when scanning ahead. The bike was in solid shape while riding. The only thing about the bike itself that I am aware could be a factor was that I recently had opened up one of the front calipers and re-inserted the pads and re-applied grease (after heli-coiling a stripped thread on the caliper itself). I had noticed that my front brakes were a little more grabby afterwards, but I didn’t deem them dangerously abrupt, and I had already ridden safely for hours on them. I was nonetheless thinking they needed to be smoothed out at some point.
Trying to logically arrive at a “most likely” cause for what happened here. Any insights based on your more experienced riding careers? The jolt on the bars seems to be the biggest clue I’ve got to go on.
When I went down, I impacted the road directly on my left shoulder. No sign of head impact on helmet (I was conscious to keep my head tilted up and let my shoulder take the hit). Bike went down on its left side. Damage so far seems to be bent shifter, broken tank badge, handlebar feeling a little out of place. Another rider rode it back and said the bike was fine except for the weird feeling of the bar being slightly out of position on the left.
The road was not smoothly paved, more of a rough paving job that had seen better days and probably had some of those tiny loose pavement pebbles on it. The area had trees, and another rider asked me if I came upon some leaves. I don’t recall spotting any leaves or anything else when scanning ahead. The bike was in solid shape while riding. The only thing about the bike itself that I am aware could be a factor was that I recently had opened up one of the front calipers and re-inserted the pads and re-applied grease (after heli-coiling a stripped thread on the caliper itself). I had noticed that my front brakes were a little more grabby afterwards, but I didn’t deem them dangerously abrupt, and I had already ridden safely for hours on them. I was nonetheless thinking they needed to be smoothed out at some point.
Trying to logically arrive at a “most likely” cause for what happened here. Any insights based on your more experienced riding careers? The jolt on the bars seems to be the biggest clue I’ve got to go on.
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