Tag Archives: crash

Cycling

[Commute] 12 miles since my last crash

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During this post the author details his latest mishap and the resulting rapid horizontal realignment that followed.  However in order to abate your worries I can categorically state that I’m fine and not badly injured.  The bike is barely damaged at all.

So that being said what happened.. well I was not even a mile from home when I cross a small section of shared space before I turn left and join the main road.  Picture if you will a small road that used a long time ago to be a rat run, that cyclists are still allowed to use to get to the old T junction.

On the junction is some pedestrian lights (technically a Toucan crossing) that allow cyclists to cross the road.  No idea why actually as there isn’t a cycle path on the other side of the road.  My plan is to turn left, and as I approached the pedestrianised section I watched the lights change to give pedestrian (and cyclists) priority.

I’m heading left so I plot a path between the pedestrians, not going too fast as I’m not unsociable, into the clear road.. it’s clear because the busy traffic is stopped at the lights.  So I turn in and start planning to get back up to speed.. 

Then things go bad so very quickly, my nice wide empty road now contains a dust cart going the wrong way.  The dust cart was doing a big swinging maneuver so it could reverse into a service road on the other side of the street.  The driver had anticipated that anyone would be coming the other way as the traffic lights were red.  

I hit the brakes knowing that as I’m currently cornering it will only be a matter of time before I lose it and hit the deck.  That seemed a better option than hitting the oncoming dust cart.

As a result I have some road rash on my elbow and a large bruise on my hip.  Which is just the extra aches that I didn’t need after yesterday’s excursion.  Anyway apart from being annoyed at myself and a bit fragile, nothing much to report..  will need to patch up the handlebar tape, but that is it for damage to the bike.

See I’m fine.. nothing to worry about.  Could have been worse, if I had hit him I doubt that I would have managed to damage his paint work.

Cycling

[bike] The language of crashing

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Last week I was involved in a bicycle crash.* I was hit by a metallic painted smoked glass windowed BMW at at about half ten at night as I cycled home from climbing.
I was riding through Camberwell in the bus lane, having just passed a bus, and was now on the inside of a line of traffic waiting at traffic lights.

The car in question decided that he didn’t want to wait in line and could use the bus lane to slip up the line of traffic and he was going to turn left anyway so that made it all right. I haven’t checked the hours of operation on that bus lane, I don’t remember it being a 24 hour one.
So he pulled into the left lane, which was a problem, as that is where I was.
Now I my spider senses had tingled so I had a very small window of realisation of what was going to happen, so was already slowing down and swerving towards the left hand curb as he drove into me. This vastly reduced the seriousness of the crash, (I’m not going to say accident, as it was clearly his fault) so I wasn’t knocked off my bike.. I had time to yell out a short warning before we made contact.
Not that it prevented the inevitable crash, that just meant that a lot more people got to see it..

Not that there was much to see, it is not like I fell off or anything. I just bumped my shoulder against the side of a car, wobbled a bit and stopped. The car drove on for another 20 feet before the driver realised that he was going to have to stop before he could lean out of the passenger window to ask if I was ok..

Given that I hadn’t fallen off, there was no bleeding and apart from my shoulder being a little tender I was fine, so I told him to be careful and carried on home.
I wasn’t badly hurt there didn’t seem to be any mileage in doing anything else.

So I have spent a week with a sore shoulder, there are still some actions that are achy, so I will have to take it easy for a little while yet.

Anyway the point of this post was to try and talk about the language and the conversations that have happened in the following week. I have dealt with several..
“Cycling is so dangerous”
“Were you wearing a helmet”
“you’ve got to be so careful”
“you just hear so many bad stories”
“you have to watch out out for lorries”

I’ve been trying to explain that basically I am fine, just a bit stiff, and it is not that bad. You ride carefully, but if the people in the cars are not paying attention, they are going to catch up with you from time to time.
But that doesn’t mean that cycling is a bad idea.

And I just have no idea how to articulate that.

* Spoiler, I am ok, there is no need to worry, nothing broken with either me or the bike, but I am a bit achy.