My funniest breaking accident was sprinting flat-out with the mountainbike and suddenly realize that a guy in front had a puncture and decided to walk his bike directly after the finish line. I started breaking on concrete on a narrow water dam, got out on sand and after the sand into asphalt. Three different surfaces was at least one too much for me to parry for. The last sample from the bike computer was a speed of 0.7km/h when the bike was standing on the front wheel. Then one sample with zero speed and zero pulse. My back touched the back of the walking rider - he standing and me with the head down and the hands on the asphalt. Quick tumble on the ground and up on my feet which was just enough time for the guy to surprised turn around. A lot of people laughing wildly or damning themselves for not getting their cameras out quick enough.

A big problem with the narrow tires of a bike is that 2-3cm2 surface area means a very small patch of oil gets dangerous. 3cm2 front-wheel contact area means 30kg/cm2 for a 90kg rider/bike combo when breaking. A car breaking maximum may have 200cm2 surface area and maybe 1200kg on the front wheels for a surface pressure of 6kg/cm2 - that factor 5 clearly explains the high air pressure in the bike. A crack in the asphalt in the direction of the road can be very dangerous. And if the front wheel starts to go sideways on an oil slick too small for a car to notice, the large forces when trying to catch the bike may strip a lot of rubber since the material in a bike tyre is not 5 times harder than in a car tyre. I have had one front-wheel slip in a curve that required me to replace the tyre because I stripped enough rubber to feel the whole bike shake on every front-wheel rotation. All it took was one small unexpected patch of sand. When I got home I noticed I had lost about a mm of rubber to the right of the center line.

Luckilly, I don't have to worry about ice with the road bike. Northern Sweden have too long winters so an MTB with spike tyres is more suitable five months/year. And two more months with MTB and standard tyres.