The adventures of......

a cyclist in traffic......

Had two incidents in the last week which were not good.

One was a little old lady in a Nissan Micra who turned across my path as I was coming downhill at 25 mph. Thankfully I recognised her as a hazard, covered my brakes and managed to control the bike sliding downhill and missed hitting her....I would not have given much for my chances of slamming into the side of her at 25mph.

So I looked back at the scene on my way home and tried to figure out if there is anything else I could do to avoid not being seen. My jacket is black and bright aqua so it does stand out against various backgrounds but not as much as my "nuclear" pink one! And with it being the middle of the day I didn't have any lights on the bike. So more high vis and constant blinking lights might be in order. However I think I could have dressed up like a lighthouse and she would not have seen me. I was not car shaped.

Then I fell off! On a junction going uphill and I had a 4x4 with a trailer in front of me. We both set off when the lights changed and my left foot stays clipped in to the pedal, as the right one comes over the top the aim is to catch it and clip in. Sometimes (especially on the new bike with new pedals) it takes me a couple of efforts to clip in. Sadly not this time, I got it first time. I say sadly because the guy driving the 4x4 stopped, dead, in the middle of the road and I had just set off, was clipped in and didn't have time to adjust, I braked to avoid cycling into the back of the trailer and promptly fell over! I could not get my right foot out the pedal quickly enough. And an oncoming car clipped my helmet on the way past. The poor lady was horrified, she heard the bang and thought for one dreadful moment that she had run over my head! I had to give her a hug and tell her it was honestly not her fault. Thankfully she was not going too fast but I have a nice streak of Nissan black on my helmet and my vision was somewhat impaired for a few hours. I got myself checked out remotely by my ophthalmologist friend who described perfectly what I was seeing and it seems like I had an ocular migraine which can be caused by a blow to the head.

http://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/ocular-migraine.htm

Obviously everything is fine now of I would not be writing this blog :)

I think I may have to save some pennies and invest in a satnav and route plan off the busier routes. More cycling round leafy Cheshire lanes required and less of the A6!

Oh and more high Vis!

and an on board missile system for those who don't even look! ;)