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And finally a very recent one, which could have been much worse. Riding back to my house coming uphill my handlebars suddenly broke clean in two, where the bar meets the stem. There wasn’t any impact to have caused this it just happened. Luckily there was nothing to hit so I somehow brought the bike to a stop
That's some impressive honking!
The destination (work) is the worst part.
I think my first bad commute experience was when i was about 12, on the way to school and i slipped a pedal on a roundabout, ran the chainring up my calf and OTB'ed into the gutter. Amazingly lucky my head didn't take the curb really. Council roadworkers picked me up and a girl from my class pushed my bike to school for me as i limped with a gashed leg... teacher then made me go to A&E.
... nowadays something happens almost on a weekly basis. Worst recent situation was a toe-to-toe with an earthworks truck driver. Nearly ended up with an assault charge - but the guy ended up apologising and the cops felt he was genuine (and had no previous) so let him be.
Then of course there's the mechanicals. This happened to me on Wednesday on a forestry road. Just caught sight of a big tangle of fencing wire and thought i'd cleared it. Nup.
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barrow, wifes family grew up there. Her and her brothers say the highest point (both culturally and physically) is the top of the slag heaps. They'd moved from southern england, double-barrelled surnames, taller than everyone else and thier mum died within a few years, it was not a good time for them.
I used to commute through the country park to HK airport. Got chased 40 metres by a king cobra 😳 it was not big but recently hatched and hungry. I don’t like snakes!
The guy got a ban but only 6 months.
taller than everyone else
Thank you. Laughed till I cried at that.
Mine seem pretty tame compared to these. Had plenty of near misses from idiot drivers and cuts/bruises from falling off.
I remember one morning, I had a puncture when it was chucking down with rain. A white van stopped nearby and the occupants seemed to take great delight in laughing at me and calling me "w****r", along with the associated hand signal as I was fixing my bike.
Some people are strange.
Probably the 2 worst ones from my commuting in London
First was commuting home on a Friday eveneing after work, pubs spilling out onto the streets with well oiled workers, I stopped at the lights heading south past The Swan in Stockwell. Set off when the lights changed and got halfway across the junction honking out the saddle when my chain snapped and I smashed my balls straight into the back of the stem and then caught a pedal into the back of my leg whilst uncliping. Had to try and get to the pavement past the bit that was fenced off before I could try and assess any injury with unsympathetic drivers tooting while I was in the middle of the junction. Was very worried I may have split something within my shorts so had to rummage in my shorts in front of the pub. Luckily I was only bleeding from the back of my leg so I was able to waddle the remaining 1.5 miles home to lie down for the rest of the evening with carefully applied ice.
Second was hitting cooking oil on the road. Thought it was water so just cycled straight through before going down like a sack of sh!t at about 20mph. I ended up with my head under the front of a car coming the other way who had stopped to wait to let me past. I was about 30cm from the tyre. Had he not stopped, I am pretty sure I would have been done for. As I got up, shaken and slightly confused as to what had happened, a lady following me hit the oil and came off, and while I was helping her up off the ground another man came through and whilst calling out to see if we were OK came down too. Somehow all riders were fine with only minor rips to clothing.
I was on my way to give a talk to an audience that included mostly teachers, heads of dept and the Director of Education. On the way I snapped a chain. No problem, fixed. Got to meeting, took helmet off, cleaned up. Did talk, noticed everyone looking at me (even more) oddly. Went to the loo, looked in the mirror, I had oily finger marks around my throat where I had taken my helmet off, looked like I had been strangled by a grease monkey
Smashed my front tooth to pieces after my gears jumped and sent me OTB whilst cranking hard to stay in front of a car that had been hassling me. Caused quite a scene as all my coworkers stopped in turn to help out. Found bits of tooth in my beard on the way to dentist. Knew my gears needed attention but hadn't been able to find the time. On the bright side, it was a very wonky tooth and the fake one looks much better now!