G-Zero
Über Member
- Location
- Durham City, UK
Took the road bike for its second outing, a trek to the coast this afternoon, and I don't know if the brain is still groggy after my last set of nightshifts, but I had a few operator errors during the ride.
First oops wasn't much of a problem, but as the sun was shining with clear blue skies, I tested the temperature in the back garden before setting off and decided on a thin 'coolmax' T, with a long sleeve jersey over it, neither of which is windproof.
After a mile in brisk winds I realised it was a lot cooler than the garden and had the sense to return home for a quick change.
Second oops could have hurt.
I was approaching a right hand junction that I was intending, I was riding with my hands on top of the bars at a nice speed for the turn, when at the last second a car appeared in the junction and was badly positioned, partially on on the wrong side of the road (where I was heading).
I instinctively went to apply the brakes to shave a bit more speed off; and grabbed two handfulls of nothing
where the extra brake levers on my crosser are.
I didn't have time to relocate to the actual brakes and leaned heavily into the turn, narrowly avoiding the kerb, but coming out of it with a 'memo to self' not to be so complacent on approaching junctions.
The final oops could have hurt a lot !!
Getting towards the last few miles of the ride, I came from a minor country lane and needed to cross a major dual carriageway (A690) into Rainton Bridge, at rush hour. This dual has a wide central reservation which can usually easily accomodate a couple of cars, but unfortunately the cross over was closed due to resurfacing work.
I was looking across to my exit on the opposite side of the dual and thinking that I could easily squeeze my bike between the cones and head home as normal, without taking the detour which would have entailed a few miles of busy dual carriageway, in narrow lanes.
Anyway, the road was so busy that it took a while to get a safe gap from my right and as I set off with my right foot already clipped in, I was concentrating on getting my left foot connected (new shoes and pedals that I'm not used to yet) and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a line of traffic heading straight at me from my left.
I had safely crossed the first lane, but had missed the fact that I was in a contra-flow and hadn't even looked left
. Thankfully the contra-flow had a slow speed limit and I was out the other side thinking that that could have been embarrassing.
We live and learn !
First oops wasn't much of a problem, but as the sun was shining with clear blue skies, I tested the temperature in the back garden before setting off and decided on a thin 'coolmax' T, with a long sleeve jersey over it, neither of which is windproof.
After a mile in brisk winds I realised it was a lot cooler than the garden and had the sense to return home for a quick change.
Second oops could have hurt.
I was approaching a right hand junction that I was intending, I was riding with my hands on top of the bars at a nice speed for the turn, when at the last second a car appeared in the junction and was badly positioned, partially on on the wrong side of the road (where I was heading).
I instinctively went to apply the brakes to shave a bit more speed off; and grabbed two handfulls of nothing
where the extra brake levers on my crosser are.I didn't have time to relocate to the actual brakes and leaned heavily into the turn, narrowly avoiding the kerb, but coming out of it with a 'memo to self' not to be so complacent on approaching junctions.
The final oops could have hurt a lot !!
Getting towards the last few miles of the ride, I came from a minor country lane and needed to cross a major dual carriageway (A690) into Rainton Bridge, at rush hour. This dual has a wide central reservation which can usually easily accomodate a couple of cars, but unfortunately the cross over was closed due to resurfacing work.
I was looking across to my exit on the opposite side of the dual and thinking that I could easily squeeze my bike between the cones and head home as normal, without taking the detour which would have entailed a few miles of busy dual carriageway, in narrow lanes.
Anyway, the road was so busy that it took a while to get a safe gap from my right and as I set off with my right foot already clipped in, I was concentrating on getting my left foot connected (new shoes and pedals that I'm not used to yet) and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a line of traffic heading straight at me from my left.
I had safely crossed the first lane, but had missed the fact that I was in a contra-flow and hadn't even looked left
. Thankfully the contra-flow had a slow speed limit and I was out the other side thinking that that could have been embarrassing.We live and learn !
