What Happened to Bob Dylan: His Motorcycle Accident

An essential feature on What Happened to Bob Dylan: His Motorcycle Accident, featuring in-depth facts.

Bob Dylan crashed his Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle near his home in Woodstock, New York, on July 29, 1966. Dylan claimed that he fractured several vertebrae in his neck. The facts of the accident remain unknown because no ambulance was called to the scene and Dylan was not taken to the hospital.

According to Dylan’s biographers, the crash provided him with an opportunity to escape the pressures that surrounded him. In his autobiography Chronicles, Dylan stated, “I’d been in a motorbike accident and I’d been hurt, but I recovered.” The truth was that I wanted to escape the rat race.” He made few public appearances and did not tour for nearly eight years.

Dylan began editing D. A. Pennebaker’s film of his 1966 tour once he was well enough to begin creative work. ABC Television showed a rough clip, but they rejected it since it was incomprehensible to mainstream audiences.

On bootleg versions, the film, named Eat the Document, has since been exhibited at several film festivals. Dylan recorded approximately 100 songs in 1967, away from the public eye, at his Woodstock home and in the basement of the Hawks’ nearby property, “Big Pink.” These songs were originally provided as demos for other musicians to record, and they were first heard as hits for Julie Driscoll, the Byrds, and Manfred Mann. Columbia released a selection as The Basement Tapes double LP in 1975.