This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Got binned by a van on my way in, thought I was just a bit bruised. Now sat in a&e with a sore wrist/knee/ankle and a mother of a headache. I'm not sure if the headache came on before or because of a&e

Good to see Using Phone whilst Riding CC out for a group ride with the Tippy Toes Riders aka The Bad Bike-fit Squad (BBFS). Im glad the community can coming together to cycle in a badly formed over agressive pack round the outter circle.

Shit, HU fast, must be the weather for it

I was on motorbike today as riding back North afterwork and saw the aftermath of a crash around Oval around 8am on the cycle superhighway

Should probably put in spotted but rapha shorts, concord frame with a front rack, anyone on 'ere?

Enjoy the new elephant and castle layout, dodging the people standing in the cycling having a chat or getting some rays. Pleasant experience all round but think i'll stick to the road.

Really close / punishment pass by a coal lorry (who uses coal?), angry words exchanged at roundabout. Need to buy a camera.

I've ordered two Garmin/GoPro mounts so will have F&R on our two bikes soon.

Which GoPro you running? (sorry, camera thread question, obviously, bit too lazy.)

I'm not. I bought some cheap Apeman cameras.

Pollen/10 today. Sneezing all the way down the Embankment

Starting my ride to work this nice sunny morning, slowly rolling along just a minute from my place and I see a cat chasing a squirrel from the corner of my eye.

They squirrel is zig zagging trying to lose the cat but it’s fine as there’s plenty of space around and I’m going pretty slow.

Squirrel seems to take a course directly at me, still zig zagging, and I’m relieved when I see that it’s not gone for my front wheel but has ducked behind, a split second later I feel the back wheel bump over something that I can only think was squirrel :(

I saw it run out the other side still pursued by the cat so fingers crossed I just caught the squirrel’s tail or something...

(To be fair it wasn’t wearing a helmet or hi viz and I think the sun might have been slightly in my eyes so I should be ok, right?)

Sorry squirrel/10

SM(ammal)IDSY

Never seen this before...

I saw this happen a couple of years ago. The poor thing was flailing around in a lot of pain and the rider had to put it out of its misery.

Glad yours had a lucky escape.

Edit: I posted it on here! https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13036118/

Cold but sunny ride in this morning. Left the house early which meant a pootling a little longer than normal.

Wow, glad I didn’t have to deal with something like that.

Saw a friend come as close as is possible to being slapped in the face by a pheasant last weekend in Essex, they seem to see you in plenty of time but are then drawn to you.

Wildlife is a nightmare.

I did the duathlon in Richmond Park a few years ago and they advise you in the race pack to give way to the deer.

Good advice.

wouldn’t fancy pulling one of those out my spokes...

Free lunch though.

What method of dispatch did he use? The only time I've faced a similar incident was after seeing a duck hit by a car, my friend and I settled on a hammer to put the still writhing bird out of it's misery but, when using the claw side to drag it out of the road, the body came clean away from the head. Turns out what we took to be pain was the headless chicken effect. I was quite relieved at not to having to stove it's head in with a hammer but it's left me still unsure if my squeamishness would have got the better of me when it actually came to it.

Without wishing to introduce too much violent imagery... cleat.

Pheasants are really, really dumb.

Ran over a baby squirrel years ago on a heavy old decathlon hybrid. It seemed unfazed. Tried to run under my wheels in exactly the same spot the very next day so perhaps suffering an existential crisis.

... just happened to have a hammer on you?

When you settled on the hammer which of your other tools did you dismiss? Chainsaw too noisey?

Don't you always carry a hammer with you? Most versatile tool there is. We did consider trying to file its head off but the toolbox in the boot of my buddy's car offered limited options.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_all_you_have_is_a_hammer,_everything_looks_like_a_nail

That's from that popular Alanis Morrisette tune, right?