Bicycle is promoted in many major cities as an healthy and eco-friendly transportation mode. However, cycling is risky and safety issues concern a few thousands of victims every year. In France we estimate an annual incidence rate of 70 road injuries per 100,000 inhabitants. Most of the existing studies focus on particular accident factors and are based on police registry. However, police data are biased and non-representative of cyclist crash circumstances. In this work, we propose to improve knowledge of accident circumstances by surveying 3337 cyclists injured in 2009-2011 and identified from a road trauma registry around Lyon in France. The main objective is to build a cycling accident configuration typology from detailed collisions or falls circumstances. To do so, we built up a questionnaire and tested it. The pilot survey response rate was 18%. Respondents were older, more often women, having more serious accidents, more often in urban areas. We observed that 1/3 accident occurred on a non-business trip, 1/3 on a commuting trip and 1/4 while practicing a cycling sport. A third party was involved in 45% of crashes whereas 37% declared that an obstacle, a loss of control (19%) or/and a mechanical failure (13%) was one of the crash factors. Learning from the pilot stage, the questionnaire design improvement is detailed, enabling a reduction of the selection bias. The final response rate reached 43%. Overall, the survey is successful and improves knowledge in comparison with existing studies.