This isn't recent but about 25 years ago when I was cycling to the office every day in Melbourne, I decided to blow off work one fine morning and pedal down the coast, to the tip of the Mornington Peninsula. Which I did. I called in sick - guiltily, because I'd never pulled a stunt like this before - from a payphone in Frankston and went my merry way down the coast. I had a glorious day. Fish and chips at a seaside cafe and then rode the rest of the way down to Cape Schanck - then a remote headland on the seaward side of the peninsula. It was late by then and I had a long way to ride back to Frankston where I planned to catch the train the rest of the say home. When I saddled up to start the long lonely ride to Frankston I saw I had a flat. No big deal. I fixed it. Went twenty metres and it was flat again. Fixed it again, cursing my rotten luck - and being prone to guilt, feeling this was karmic comeuppance for playing hooky. When the tyre went flat a third time in a few metres I grew worried enough to take a close look and found that my rear tyre was shot completely. I had nothing I could use for a boot, no hope of repair, the nearest town was eight lonely miles away and most unlikely to have a bike shop, even if I could walk there before dark. To say I felt despair would be putting it mildly.
Just as I was beginning the long lonely trudge, feeling that Karma and the puritan work ethic had really caught up with me this time, a car rose over the hill behind me - the first car I'd seen in ages. It pulled over. It had a bicycle rack on the back - I am not kidding. And it was driven by a young Catholic priest. He hopped out, looked at my tyre and said: looks pretty final to me. How about I give you a ride to Frankston?
Two hours later I was home and hosed, cooking up some pasta, and smiling to myself about the age-old secret I had been let into: God really does look after drunks, children and tramp cyclists...