The Best Bicycle Crash Of All Time Is Here, So The Rest Of You Might As Well Stop Bicycling (Seriously, Stop)

[Vice Sports] Irish cyclist Matt Brammeier suffered multiple injuries on Saturday when he lost control of his bike and slammed into a moving car at a hairpin turn called Guardsman Pass in the Tour of Utah. The steep turn is already treacherous, but the addition of team cars whizzing around alongside the cyclists makes this a disaster waiting to happen. Brammeier clearly lost control of his bike, and who knows where he would have wound up if he hadn’t hit the car, but he did hit the car and it was ugly.

I know I’m late on this one. I’ve seen this video posted here, there, and all over this land. And I’ve let you down, dear readers. No need to make excuses for me–we all know it’s true. I’ve been busy. I’ve been away. I’ve been lax in my duties. But I think Bender Bending Rodriguez said it best…

I’m back baby! Here to make my triumphant return! And oh, what a return it is. I simply cannot imagine a better “welcome back” gift than this video here. You might look at it and see a simple bicycle wreck, but I see so much more. There’s so much to go into here that I think it bears a full breakdown.

bike1

0:20: Our boy absolutely FLIES into the frame going about five times as fast as anyone before him. Slow down for a sharp turn? Not on this guy’s life! Literally, not on his life, as he is probably about to die.

bike2

0:20: Less than a second has elapsed, but our valiant hero has finally decided that now is the opportune time to apply the brake. Look at that back tire fly off the ground! Will it be too little, too late? Will he manage to right himself? The suspense is killing me!

bike3

0:21: NOPE! DOWN GOES FRAZIER! I’ll be honest, I did feel a little bit bad here. I mean the sound he makes when he smacks into the car…have you ever seen The Return of the Jedi? It reminds me of the sound effect when the Ewok smacks that poor Stormtrooper with a log. Just brutal.

bike4

0:23: Dishrag. Just an absolute wet dishrag lying on the road. Not a good look for anyone, let alone a professional bicyclist. It’s good that the car behind him had the presence of mind to stop, but if it were me I might rather they just run me over and put me out of my fucking misery. I mean, is there ever going to be a time in your life when this isn’t what you’re known for? You blew up on Twitter as Bike Guy Who Got His Spine Caved In By A Car. There’s no coming back from that.

0:24: “That guy’s hurt.” Smart take, video guy. Smart take. I think this is secretly the best part of the video. It’s just the PERFECT level of understatement. Beautiful in its own way. I want this man to narrate my life.

bike5

0:28: “Oh shit, should I stop and help that guy?”

bike6

0:29: “…nahhh.” The callousness of bicyclists is truly a sight to behold. This guy is the only one I’ll specifically highlight (because he had the misfortune of being first), but it’s worth noting that not a single bicyclist stopped to help this man whose spine was clearly just mashed into jelly. Not only that, I don’t think anyone even really slowed down. But I guess that’s just the bicyclist mantra: hear no, see no, speak no thing that doesn’t directly affect me and my selfish bicyclist life.

bike7

0:34: Honest to God, there are eight support vehicles in this frame. EIGHT! I know bicycle races have support vehicles that stay near the riders, but this seems like an outrageous amount of overkill. Have we even seen eight total bicyclists yet? Is this actually a motor vehicle race that the bicyclists are just disrupting? Actually…this is starting to make a lot of sense.

bike8

0:37: “Slow down everyone, slow down! Slow down, or who knows what could–”

bike9

0:38: oh no

see

you should

yeah

you should have slowed down there

bike10

0:44: I gotta give this guy credit though. He knows what he did. He knows he fucked up. That’s the resigned look of a man who knows that he has made his bed, and now he must lie in it.

bike11

0:49: Seriously, I can’t get enough of this guy. I wish I could bottle that despair and put it in my coffee every morning. The best part is that nobody even cares about him because that other guy is still lying dead on the ground. It’s like when your girlfriend dumps you, and you go to your friend for sympathy only to find out that their grandma just died. Nobody cares about you or your problems anymore, bike guy. You just got tragedy trumped.

Well, there you have it. A blow-by-blow breakdown of the greatest video to hit the internet in quite some time. You might remember the bus video. Or the slap fight video. But I feel pretty confident when I say that this one beats them both. Whether it’s the initial impact, the quiet, understated genius of the videographer, or the two-birds-with-one-stone glory that is the second accident, this is a thrill-a-minute blockbuster as far as I’m concerned. I’ve watched it about 95 times in the last week or so and I’m not sure I’ll ever get sick of it.

PS. He’s alive and somehow didn’t liquefy his entire spine so if you were thinking about feeling guilty for laughing, don’t bother (also, this may not be the blog for you).

About Falco

I hate bicyclists. My only regret is that I can't grow a beard.
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6 Responses to The Best Bicycle Crash Of All Time Is Here, So The Rest Of You Might As Well Stop Bicycling (Seriously, Stop)

  1. bicyclebill2000 says:

    Welcome back, Falco.  It’s been almost two months since the last time you s̶e̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶s̶h̶ posted here, and I was beginning to think that you had gone off on some misguided vendetta or another and something had happened to you.

    I still think you’re a jerk, but you are after all still a human being (second class) and in the words of John Donne:
    “No man is an island entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….
    ….Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…”

  2. P.A.B says:

    Hey falco! good to have u back! if you enjoyed this video try looking at “critical mass attack” on youtube.

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