Another scary experience from my younger days. First, the factors that later combined to give me my Impending Moment of Doom experience.
1) I worked as a workshop technician in a technical college and had got one of the welding apprentices to make up a single wheel trailer frame from scrap tubing. After some experimentation I got it to work with my lightweight bike, though it weighed more than my bike before I fixed anything to it.
2) I'd also acquired a Shimano roller dynamo which had some shortcomings when fixed to the bottom bracket, such as slipping in the wet. I had the wizard wheeze of attaching it to my Karrimor front carrier so it pressed down on the top of the front tyre. Result, no slippage. However, when it rained, an elegant curl of spray came back and accurately soaked my glasses. I bent up some aluminium sheet to make a mini mudguard. It looked odd, but it worked well. It was a vast improvement on the awful battery lights of that era. The weight in front of the steering axis probably wasn't a Good Idea, but caused no problems in normal use.
So, I attended my cycling club camping weekend in mid Wales. I got well oiled with some of my clubmates, and retired to my tent. I was having long distance relationship issues at the time, and couldn't settle. At 2 am I had the bright idea of riding home in the dark. It was a nice Summer's night, it wasn't cold, and I felt like giving the lights a good try out. So I loaded up the trailer, got on the bike and went. Foolhardy? Or just fearless. I would have to think hard about doing that sort of thing nowadays, three or four hours riding on my own in the dark. Still, it was Wales in the 1980s, nobody about. I pedalled steadily, being careful about speed down hills, as the tail very much wanted to wag the dog if the speed rose too much.
The only notable incident was that a car overtook me then stopped. Was I about to get mugged? Nope. They were making an early start to their summer holiday, and were lost. I was able to give them directions, and they turned round and sped off into the darkness.
About 40 minutes from home it started drizzling. No problem, it was warm, though my top soon became wet. As I was rolling down a long hill in the dark, the front light flickered and went out. I had a feeling that the dynamo fitting might need retightening as occasionally it had loosened in the past. I reached out and put my hand on it. A mistake, as immediately I got a hefty jolt up my wet arm and fortunately didn't fall off. My other hand came off the brakes as I concentrated on trying to keep control, as the trailer joined in the fun and I fishtailed down the hill in the blackness trying to keep off the verge which I could dimly see in my peripheral vision. Early on a Welsh Sunday morning, nobody would be around for hours. I had a fleeting image of my battered corpse being found by the roadside, after the crows had had their fill. I was trying to gently use the rear brake while all this was going on and just as I thought I was going to be thrown off everything calmed down as if nothing had happened. I came to a halt pretty shaken up. I fumbled for my torch and an allen key and tightened up the dynamo. I spun the front wheel and the lights worked. I checked the trailer and all the fittings were tight, and the tyre pressures were OK.
What could I do but carry on, carefully. I got home without any further incidents and though I used the trailer around town I didn't use it for any longer trips after that. I'd planned to make shorter, lighter version but somehow never got around to it as my panniers were more handy.
) and shot back into the grass. I thought I had got off scot free until I heard a strange flapping sound from behind, turned out I'd ripped a couple of inches of tread off the carcass of my nearly new Hutchinson folding tyre! I think I glued it back on with rubber cement until I got home whereupon it was superglued and had a full & long life afterwards, probably longer than the woolly kebab from Westerdale.
