Down (almost) but not out, flaming pedestrian

[stevetailor125]

Well it had to happen to me one day, my bicycle against a pedestrian. I was coming back out of Tesco (yes the place with 'those' bikes) on what I thought was a well designed cycle path, a nice high kerb seperating it from the footpath. For some reason only known to her a woman suddenly without looking stepped across the kerbing onto the cycle path without even looking, it wasn't as if she could do anything once on the cycle path but continue in the same direction as the footpath. I braked hard, even tried to get over the kerb onto the footpath, well I stayed on but twisted my knee.
For her part the lady was full of apologies and I decided to cycle in the hope the pain would go away but after 8 miles the second hill was to much and I had to come home by car, still a couple of days rest and I'm back on my bike if it kills me, at least I've got time to fit the late fathers day present, a new wireless cycle computer

 

[clarion]

Ouch. Hope your knee recovers soon. Glad it wasn't worse.

 

[E11a]

Take it easy and don't push your knee too much if it's still painful.

 

[gavroche]

cant be that bad! Think of this TDF rider who went through barbed wires and carried on still!

 

[HLaB]

Unfortunately peds tend to do these things and I'm glad it wasn't too bad.

 

[Browser]

She stepped out because she didn't hear you coming. I've had several close encounters with peds lately and have come to the conclusion, having watched them all jump out of their skins when they finally see me is that they were listening for vehicles, didn't hear anything and stepped out. Hope your knee gets better soon.

 

[punkedmonkey]

Having recently got a new rear wheel with the very clicky freewheel (Halo hub...) I have noticed pedestrians noticing me a lot more.

Maybe we all need to pop a playing card on the back of our bikes to make a noise as we otherwise silently progress on our way....

 

[HLaB]

Having recently got a new rear wheel with the very clicky freewheel (Halo hub...) I have noticed pedestrians noticing me a lot more.

Yeah, I've found people react differently (only natrual ) to voice/ bells etc but the reaction to a noisy freehub is most uniform :-) unfortunately my Campy freehub went silent after 3500miles :-(

 

[sabian92]

Having recently got a new rear wheel with the very clicky freewheel (Halo hub...) I have noticed pedestrians noticing me a lot more.

Maybe we all need to pop a playing card on the back of our bikes to make a noise as we otherwise silently progress on our way....

My favourite thing to do as a kid was to crush a can of coke, bend it at a 45 degree angle then jam it between the V-brake on the back wheel. With knobblies it made a horrendous noise - my street hated me

 

[gallego1968]

Stupid woman, just rest your knee as much as possible.

 

[the_mikey]

Yeah, I've found people react differently (only natrual ) to voice/ bells etc but the reaction to a noisy freehub is most uniform :-)

My fulcrum racing freehub is really noisy, so much so it makes other cyclists look behind to see what all the noise is about.

 

[johnnyh]

Strikes me that an awful lot of peds are going to die rather quickly if electric cars become common - no engine noise obviously means nothing is there!

 

[Browser]

Something which I was musing on whilst writing my reply johhnyh! I am sure that one of the motoring shows reviewed a 'leccy car a little while back and they reported it had had noise engineered into it for that very reason!

 

[Keith Oates]

When I'm going uphill the noise from me panting will let any ped know that I'm behind them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[fossyant]

Man up and ride on. Stay away from cycle paths !