I just did my lumpy little shopping/Metro ride and had a very near miss with a car! Confession time: In terms of the Highway Code, it was 100% my fault. In terms of lack of skill/judgement, it was 90% my fault.
I had ridden up one of the local hills on my singlespeed bike, done a little loop up there and was heading back to go down the hill. I do a little side street slightly uphill to a t-junction with a road going straight up the hill from right to left. I turn left and then almost immediately right onto another road. It is very hard to do slowly in my one gear so I always take a run at it. If I hit the left turn on the road ahead at speed I can sprint up and turn right without much difficulty. The thing is, the traffic coming up the hill has priority. 19/20 of the time there is no traffic on the other road. Today there
WAS...
I didn't spot the other car in time to abort my left turn, which was bad enough, but I was far enough in front of the car for that to have been ok. My
BIG mistake was to continue to do my right turn as if the car were not behind me. Sprinting uphill I could not take my right hand off the bar to signal so I started my turn without signalling, only to discover a rapidly braking car coming into my peripheral vision from my right!!!
Startled driver screaming from car: "
Bloody hell, mate... [if you don't want me to squash you with my car] give us a chance won't ya!"
Startled ColinJ shouting back: "
Sorry, mate... my mistake!!"
Driver: "
Oh, well, don't do it again!"
I was definitely to blame but I think the driver could reasonably have judged that it wasn't safe to overtake an unpredictable idiot cyclist who had just shot out in front of him!
Having survived that, I did another hill and went off to Lidl where I bumped into two former colleagues doing their shopping (a different two to last week!). We agreed to get together soon for a night at the pub. For once we will do it in Todmorden though, instead of Hebden Bridge. It is only fair since half of the group live over here.
No Metros left today so I'll do the crosswords online.
I was pleased that my legs feel fine after my 103 km ride on Saturday. I'll try to get another metric century ride in during the week, possibly on Wednesday. The forecast is looking ok. I'll have to think about my route...
Good morning people, need to wash the car today, we got a lot of ash fall round here from the big fire in Birmingham.
