So according to the transit authority in my area, there were 27 vehicle-vs-bicycle collisions in 2021. I know 2 of those resulted in fatalities. To be frank I have no idea how those stats add up because we actually have a good size number of cyclists that come through town daily.
Yes!! I got this and it’s nice to know an accident doesn’t have to be fatal for my insurance to pay out 
For me “guilt” isn’t the word I’d use. Does your spouse or children make you feel guilty about it? Is your religion infused with guilt? (Not to sound insulting, but I was raised in that sort of environment). I’m not sure if “fear” is the right word I experience instead, trepidation and anxiety perhaps. My kids are older now but I understand the situation - suddenly there’s more than just you to think about when you head out. What if I end up a quadriplegic or a vegetable? Now my loved ones are burdened. And around here it’s not just that there are more idiots, the percentage of idiots has gone way up (cough cough cellphones). It causes anxiety for sure, and a certain amount of anger because if you’ve lived somewhere for a long time you resent how dangerous those same roads feel now. And although I’m only blocks from MTB in a state park (hence all the idiot traffic), that isn’t the answer for me either. Hikers/walkers and horseback riders are packed on every trail, and they all seem to have this attitude that they’re the ones who belong there. Which is fine, I understand that MTB is the bottom of the yield hierarchy, but when you’re behind them and they know it, and refuse to just step off the trail for a second, the whole experience becomes worse than riding on a trainer. Sure, the danger factor is much less as far as the “guilt” thing, but the frustration factor makes MTB not a good solution for me.
To summarize, I don’t have suggestions, I’m only venting.
@TRusername Easy - I ride in the woods on my mountain bike. I would rather dodge trees than cars.
@FrankTuna Yes - mostly ride with friends or in places where other hikers, runners or riders frequent. I also turn on Live Track in my Wahoo Element app so my wife can locate me if needed.
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@msanford Good point!
How does it alert 911? You specify a list of contacts in the app that receive an alert if you don’t cancel the on screen prompt in time.
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Sorry, I hadn’t really thought of that either. MTB to me is different to XC. Saying that, you look at UCI XC and its positively gnarly. 
I believe the Garmins will message contacts you designate if something happens, but it is literally calling 911 in some capacity giving coordinates if you don’t respond back to it properly in time. It does allow a little bit of time after you go down and finally pick yourself back up with the prompt on the screen asking if you are okay before calling emergency services.
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You can certainly find gnarly trails even on XC trails, but if it’s normal trails and not an extreme area, those are brief sections with routes around. Regardless, the rule always stands . . . ‘when in doubt, dismount’. Walk it in those brief sections and get back on to return to normal trail riding.
A lot of the UCI stuff is manmade sections to test them. If someone made something manmade like that in a section there is typically a ride around option
There’s no mention of contacting emergency services in the case of an incident for Garmin bike computers.
Are you confusing this with the Apple incident detection?
That IS normal trail riding. It’s literally why I ride bikes. Road riding is much safer and less fun 
@KevinKlaes I think am incorrect about emergency services! The messages that come across are intense that come across the screen and I have assumed in the past the unit was it was about to contact emergency services. It appears, Garmin only contacts those you designate as emergency contacts. I apologize to the string for my misinformation and will retract my previous claim. Thanks for letting us know and forgive me!
No worries at all. I just want to make sure you knew what would happen in the case of an incident. Having tested the feature a few times, those are not the moments where I then made good choices after.
One can certainly ride technical trails and love it - most of us do. But most, if not all of us, ride sensibly to within our abilities and make choices on the trails we are riding to be able to go to work the next day. We are in control of those decisions vs a road rider who is at the mercy of the cars hoping the drivers are not distracted, don’t rage, are not speeding out of control, actually see us, don’t pass recklessly around another car, are not under the influence, etc. The road rider is not in control of those variables, they are in the hands of the drivers.
The question on this string comes from someone worrying about death and leaving the family abandoned. If that is the case, go MTB (or Gravel riding) and keep it on the tame side. Off-Road with good decision making is way safer from a death perspective than Road Riding.
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I still disagree. Drivers don’t just punt cyclists off the road willy nilly. Accidents generally occur when either the cyclist or driver makes an error. The road cyclist can mitigate against the majority of these by being an aware, careful and defensive road user. Maybe this is down to individual location, who knows. Maybe it’s because I ride trails many might deem as being dangerous but I ride within my limits; of course things can go wrong in any scenario. 
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Wait, I have so many questions. To start:
- Exactly, how, did you hit two of them?
- Like, did you hit the first one, go airborne, and then bowling ball into the second?
- Or did both deer do a “deer in the headlights” and stand still as you doubled down?
- Were there antlers involved?
- Who had it worse? You, Deer #1, or Deer #2?
I fail to understand how we got nearly 100 responses in this thread and nobody paused to clarify these important details.
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All fair questions.
I was riding alone on a nice sunny day. I had just pushed hard to PR up a small-ish mountain, and was coasting down. Cadence was zero, but it was steep. I come around a gentle right hand turn, and on the left is a hay field with a barbed wire fence. Two large deer (both does, no antlers involved) pop out from under the fence. They look right (to see me), pause, and then dart into the road. The one furthest from me went first, followed by the second one.
I had no time to brake, nor would brakes have mattered. There was no way to guess what they would do (move, not move, move quickly, move slowly, etc.). They waited until there was no evasive action that could be taken… and then they bolted.
I plowed the front wheel into the first deer. I then went human shoulder (left) to deer shoulder (right) with the second deer. Then I met the rough country tarmac sliding downhill on my left side. It was a low-side — not a high side crash.
I lay there for some period of time (did not lose consciousness) and made sure I was not paralyzed. By the time I looked up, there were no deer. I assume they survived … I do not know what became of them but I’m sure they were fine.
I then managed to stand up and pull myself and my bike out of the road, lest some speeder on a country road run me over.
At first, I thought (hoped) it was a minor crash with only minor injuries like a broken rib or two, and so instead of calling for an ambulance I called a friend who lives 30+ mins away to come get me (my wife was at home with the 4 day old infant). Before he could get there, a guy in a truck stopped to ask if I was OK. When I could not speak, or stand up, he realized i was not ok. As luck would have it, he had a bike rack on his truck, and he loaded my bike and me up and took me (at my request) to the nearest urgent care.
The urgent care cut off my clothes and then said —- go to the ER. By then my friend who lived 30 mins away arrived, and took me to the ER.
I don’t know how the deer ultimately fared, only that they weren’t dead on the road. At least, i doubt that they had 4 broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion (2nd that year), and a whole bunch of road rash. Spent one night in the hospital and had to really, really push to go home.
Amazingly, the bike was fine. 100% fine. There was a piece of deer hair stuck in the left side of the front thru axle which I only just removed.
Post-concussion syndrome is definitely real. I had headaches and positional vertigo for 3+ months after this. It got to be really bad. Fortunately, I was able to finally PT my way out of it by around month 3.5 post injury.
I got a LOT of grief for riding after this happened. Folks wanted me to stop, or only ride indoors. But this was like getting hit by lightning — not a predictable event and not something caused by anything I did that was negligent. I now try to avoid riding alone, try to let at least my wife know what general route I’m on, and try to leave a little extra margin whenever possible. I’m probably more of a pain in the ass on group rides now in making sure people are safe.
For those who think off-road riding is “safer” — yeah, maybe it is, but keep in mind there are plenty of ways to get hurt off-road and when you do, fewer people will be there to help you. I ride plenty of gravel and MTB and I think it is wishful thinking to consider it somehow “safer” — even with respect to cars, when I encounter cars on a gravel ride its often just as sketchy if not more sketchy than on most paved roads.
For sure, when the speeds get fast now, I’m often thinking about what would happen if I hit something like that again — not a good thought.
Anyway, happy to be alive and not paralyzed. Looking back on it, I don’t know that there is any evasive action I could have taken that would have mattered, or any lesson to be learned perhaps other than “don’t ride alone.”
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Descending can be sketchy. Glad to hear you’re OK. I used to do a loop where I would descend a big climb for maybe 7miles at avg 30mph. Always was a bit scared and cautious around a few blind corners. I knew a guy who had a bad crash and it had him out for a few months.
That’s exactly how I feel — there are videos on you tube of people hitting deer and crashing high side, landing on their necks, etc. That’s the formula for paralysis and death.
In the scheme of things, breaking ribs sucks short term but they heal predictably. That said, I really don’t want to have another concussion anytime soon (ever).
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