On my daily commute through London yesterday I had slightly more interaction than I would have liked with a pedestrian. And then the pavement.
The story went like this: I was trundling along, not too fast, with right of way, along Wigmore street; 3 idiots start crossing the road into my path. I shout, 2 of them see me and stop, the third doesn’t. I slowed down, still shouting, thinking she isn’t going to keep going is she? Oh yes she is. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite stop in time, so she collided with my shoulder knocking me over.
Fortunately, by the time we made contact, I had virtually stopped so it was an almost comedy tip over onto the pavement. Had I not been clipped-in (and new to it too) I would probably not have gone over. She and her colleagues did at least stop to make sure I was ok (I was) and that the bike wasn’t broken (it wasn’t).
I guess if you have to come off, doing it at this speed is the one you want, although perhaps a softer landing would have been nicer.
Now maybe I haven’t taken this as seriously as I should but I do certainly acknowledge that I was very lucky here. And I’ve learned three things from it:
- Learn to up-clip quicker
- Learn to shout louder
- Ensure I have my polite but withering insults ready (they were coming to me thick and fast on the way home…)
The story went like this: I was trundling along, not too fast, with right of way, along Wigmore street; 3 idiots start crossing the road into my path. I shout, 2 of them see me and stop, the third doesn’t. I slowed down, still shouting, thinking she isn’t going to keep going is she? Oh yes she is. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite stop in time, so she collided with my shoulder knocking me over.
Fortunately, by the time we made contact, I had virtually stopped so it was an almost comedy tip over onto the pavement. Had I not been clipped-in (and new to it too) I would probably not have gone over. She and her colleagues did at least stop to make sure I was ok (I was) and that the bike wasn’t broken (it wasn’t).
I guess if you have to come off, doing it at this speed is the one you want, although perhaps a softer landing would have been nicer.
Now maybe I haven’t taken this as seriously as I should but I do certainly acknowledge that I was very lucky here. And I’ve learned three things from it:
- Learn to up-clip quicker
- Learn to shout louder
- Ensure I have my polite but withering insults ready (they were coming to me thick and fast on the way home…)