Inevitability....

It was always going to happen, more a question of when, not if, and last night it happened.
Bike meets incompetent North Sydney driver.

My bike had been sitting at work for a while now and so I decided to ride home as Ric canned squash due to a knee injury sustained whilst training for Oxfam. I decided to follow the usual route, across the bridge and then through the back streets of Mosman, down Parrawi – Battle Boulevard – Seaforth and on to Queenscliff.

Disaster number 1 happened on the bridge when I rode over a rivet and sent my front light flying across the path. Luckily it wasn’t smashed, although the link to the handlebars was broken and so I had to literally hold my light from that point on.

Disaster number 2 occurred on Wycombe Road. For those who know Wycombe, the road bends around to the right about half way up with Wycombe Road continuing straight ahead but the road actually bending right. I.e. if you are going right you have the right of way and don’t need to indicate whereas if you continue up Wycombe you are effectively turning into a new road. Sounds complicated but it really is quite simple.

So anyway I got to the bend in the road with the plan being to follow the road around to the right. Apart from the fact that the car behind me wanted to go straight on, and did, cutting me off in the process. The first I knew was the noise as I hit the wing mirror of the car. The next thing I was down on the tarmac having come off the bike. Luckily I wasn’t doing any great speed by this point as I had reached the top of the hill and so I didn’t have much momentum which meant I didn’t go over the handlebars, with the bike sliding out from under me with me on top of it.

Also, luckily I didn’t appear too hurt, with just a couple of small scrapes down my leg, and so after straightening out my handlebars, taking a deep breath, and telling the woman (complete with fag in her mouth – classy!) just what I thought of her (she said that I didn’t signal right which was correct as I didn’t NEED to signal right as I was just following the road!!), I decided to continue on home, gingerly and cautiously. So much so that I spent most of the downhill part of Parrawi braking!

Anyway, nice to get back onto the bike after a few weeks off. Aside from the accident my legs felt strong backing after up the half marathon…