Today I rode from London to Chingford, a small town just shy of Essex. Good ride, wonderfully pleasant day. At one point I thought I had a puncture, turned out though a lot of air was being knocked out of my back tire presumably because it was so bumpy. Some sections were mildly offroady type tracks, not fantastic for my road/racing styled bicycle. But all the same, my pride and joy held up well. I followed canals up almost the entire way, these canals are connected to local resorvoirs which provide something like 10% of London's water. One of the more funny bits of the day was, when I decided I needed to visit the gents, bushwacker style. I got seriously stung calfs from nettles. My favourite word of the day is Copse, as in a Copse of trees.
The intention of creating this blog and writing this and future posts is to keep a record of my experiences on the road/bicycling escapades especially relating to what happens to me in regards to my personal safety. I hope that by recording these experiences I will not only be able to ensure that I am more aware of the dangers that are posed by bicycling but also in keeping a public record the safety of others i.e. you the person reading this may well benefit from somebody else having had a few close calls here and there.
So, let me begin. I have a new bicycle and I haven't been cycling for a long time, therefore as is of late I have had only a few dodgy incidents. What has happened prior today I don't plan to include, at least not in this post. But let me now recount what happened to day.
There were too things actually, both of them quite close together, both at dusk and both on the final section of my ride. The first and more serious happened in a local park, I was cycling along at a reasonable pace, being as aware of what was around as possible. My typical cycling mindstate if you will. Off in the distance I spot another cyclist. I presume he can see me because we're sharing the same path. However when he gets within 10 yards of me he decides he'll cut write across me and head up a path to my left. I cut to his left and shot that I'm doing this. He gets the wobbles, misses the path he's aiming for and bails. As far as I'm concerned I see this incident as being entirely his own fault. I don't understand how he missed me, or perhaps miss-gauge my speed, but seeing I'm a nice guy I stopped to see how he was. He bailed ok and had actually ended up on his feet, but still, things like this is what I want to avoid happening to myself and other cyclists.
The second thing was just after I'd turned on to my own street. Some silly buggers, presumably the knew each other where reversing at speed around a corner on the wrong side of the road. There were two separate cars doing this. Fortunatly they did see me and I had plenty of time to bring myself to a stand still however I guess the lesson for me and other cylists is to expect the unexpected. Look out for future posts on experiences in the a day in the life of an avid cyclist.
