The daily Close Call

I have it on good authority that tossing a ceramic spark plus over your shoulder into an oncoming windscreen can also be quite effective.

Only on the toughend side & rear glass it totally destroys them - cracks the whole window into little bits. Windscreens these days are laminated so it'll just chip or crack it.

A chip or crack is still likely to be an MOT fail, mind you.

Just had my car MOT'd successfully with a chipped windscreen and non-functioning speedo & tacho! The tacho does work sometimes and allows me to roughly check my speed. I was amazed. Apparently it's safe to not have a speedo....I have got used to it and I now drive it by feel

Some fucko in a 4x4 turning right in Acton, across me. I'd slowed expecting some fucktard to make that very move so I avoided him. Abuse.. go.

Happened a few times to me recently that has, in most cases the driver has had a hand up in apology while they're doing it, as if what they're doing is some sort of involuntary reaction. Fuckers !

Don't know if it is the heat but I experienced some seriously agro drivers on the way home this afternoon.

Riding up Barnsbury Road N1 doing my usual of overtaking lines of traffic at the lights, using lots of free space not getting in anyones way (not even jumping the lights this time). Then a little further up at the end of barnard park a Merc speeds up right beside me and moves right over into the cycle lane to cut me up. As I'm negotiating the narrowing gap I shout through the window "WTF are you doing" and the fat, red faced man shouts back "THE SAME AS YOU, YOU PRICK!".

Yeah ok mate... when I overtook, you were stationary sitting in your leather seat. I would say carving me up into parked cars while I'm cycling along (in the cycle lane) is actually quite a bit different.

Take care out there people.. watch out for red faced drivers!

Oh did I mention he then turned left across me without indicating.

Not a close call as a collision occurred but I ended up in the Canal this morning on the way to work,
body,bag and bike all went in. I don't have accidents with cars just other cyclists.
My phone is dead and the other guys front wheel is now in 4 pieces things could have been alot worse. The guy was a Exenger and was cool we pass each other every day.

Regents canal? I hope you've had your shots...

On a random note - an ex-colleague of mine once saw a safe being lifted out of there by police divers. Heist?

Moped rider, passed me real close on my left on Shoreditch High St. Beeped me as he passed and shouted. Not sure what point he was trying to make since I was minding my own business and riding in a straight line?!

grand union canal still pretty nasty, Im actually getting shots tomorrow after i discovered a couple more nasty looking cuts on my thighs this afternoon.

I've seen the police divers a few times halling out things from the canal.

Regents canal? I hope you've had your shots...

On a random note - an ex-colleague of mine once saw a safe being lifted out of there by police divers. Heist?

Not a close call as a collision occurred but I ended up in the Canal this morning on the way to work,
body,bag and bike all went in. I don't have accidents with cars just other cyclists.
My phone is dead and the other guys front wheel is now in 4 pieces things could have been alot worse. The guy was a Exenger and was cool we pass each other every day.

blarry cyclists :)

Just got this pic from a mate. More a crash than a close call. He is (white jersey) OK.

Taxi driver's fault (he locked himself in the car), did right turn in front of my mate and who hit him head on and smashed the windscreen with his head. Not a scratch... lucky!

Rear wheel is a write-off, major scratches to a STI lever and a slightly buckled front wheel.... but frame and drivetrain unharmed.

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mother f*cking b1tch in fiesta smoking her fag this morning..... goes to over take me, lorry parked opposite, car coming other way already over taking, she swerves into a block lined cycle lane, i slam on brake, nearly go over top.... dont know how i didnt come off... f*cking idiot, i them scream at her and she just ignores me.... so i cain it to catch up with her, and then she turns a lefty on me..... f*cking c*nting b1tch.....

god damn I want a kick-bag, im so angry..... need to run up and down work stairs, 10 times....

soz

GRRR

Heading east on Bayswater Rd this morning. In inside lane, nothing ahead of me, doing about 18mph. Cars in outside lane doing maybe 15mph. I notice mini-van in outside lane ahead of me is slowing down a bit. Junction coming up on left, alarm bells start ringing... sure enough I get to the junction to see a Merc is moving across to turn into the side road. I brake and swerve, a passing tourist lets out a "whoa-oooohh!" and I have just enough time to do a Roger Moore style eyebrow-raise to the Merc driver. Strangely quite satisfying .

I had a fantastic ride recently from London up to a friend's house in Suffolk. I followed the Dunwich Dynamo roue for most of the way, using an old route sheet - a great ride, zipping out through Epping Forest and into Essex, all pretty villages and wide open spaces, the rape flowering, blossom on the trees, a fresh breeze behind me, bees and lambs frolicking in the fields: all bucolic bliss. I was making great time, flying through fields towards friends, food and tequila at the other end.

Until a place called Sudbury, where I hit heavy traffic. I took th ecentre of my lane, waiting for an opening to move onto a busy roundabout, when suddenly something shoed me hard from behind. It felt like a violent attack, like someone was telling me to get out of the way, get onto the roundabout. Then I went down. Except I don't remember falling, or scrambling out form under a car. All I remember is being on my feet, rushing back towards the scene I must have been part of, shouting at a car, which had my bike wedged under it. "Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck are you doing?" I was incensed, but then I saw the driver - a girl with her hands round her face hyperventilating, having some kind of panic attack. She thought she'd just killed someone.

It took her much longer to calm down than me. She was such a mess, it was hard to stop treating her lik eth evictim, to get her to calm down and stop panicking. I remembered to pay attention to myself and work out if I was hurt. In fact I was fine - just bleeding from grazes and shaking a bit from fright and anger. The girl's boyfriend reversed the car off my bike and weirdly it was fine too - just the pedal and bar scrapped from the tarmac.

She was babbling: her dad was a cyclist, she could have killed me, she's such a bad person, where was I going, where had I come from. It didn't make sense to her that I was frm London and she burst into tears again, "you came all that way then I nearly killed you". Just an awful scene.

I made the rest of the journey and still enjoyed it, but I went over the experence again and again. I must have been right in the centre of her field of view, bang in fornt of her in broad daylight and she just drove over me. I can picture how and why it happened, but it's made me a bit fearful now. Maybe I had lost a bit of assertiveness, but a ciuple of weeks later a car cut straight across me on a roundabout at 40mph, narrowly missing me to take an exit. Again it felt like an attack. Had I pissed him off further back somehow? Or was he just oblivious like the girl had turned out to be? At the end of the day if someone nearly kills you, it doesn't matter if they're hapless or just insanely aggressive. Or maybe it does - I still haven't worked it out.

That last one had an ending like a TV movie! Every day's a school day.

I've often thought about mounting one of those little metal hammers like what they have in train carriages or passenger coaches on my handlebars. Little tap on the cunt's windscreen, wing mirror etc should see to it.

and also probably cause a huge accident.

I've often thought about having a huge red button like the one the president has on my handlebars (where the brake lever would be if I wasn't so rock solid) so if someone cuts me up I can press it and everyone's world ends rather than just mine.

And another one...

Heading along the A4 cycle path, east, this morning. Minding my own business when a squirrel darts straight across my path without even indicating. Could have been curtains for me. The government should fund an ad campaign alerting squirrels to this kind of dangerous behaviour - it's only a matter of time before a cyclist is seriously injured in this way.

And another one...

Heading along the A4 cycle path, east, this morning. Minding my own business when a squirrel darts straight across my path without even indicating. Could have been curtains for me. The government should fund an ad campaign alerting squirrels to this kind of dangerous behaviour - it's only a matter of time before a cyclist is seriously injured in this way.

+1

I've often thought about having a huge red button like the one the president has on my handlebars (where the brake lever would be if I wasn't so rock solid) so if someone cuts me up I can press it and everyone's world ends rather than just mine.

I have the Hammer of Dawn attached to my risers. [/Geek- www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLarI7BGj_U ]

Brilliant.

And another one...

Heading along the A4 cycle path, east, this morning. Minding my own business when a squirrel darts straight across my path without even indicating. Could have been curtains for me. The government should fund an ad campaign alerting squirrels to this kind of dangerous behaviour - it's only a matter of time before a cyclist is seriously injured in this way.

No way, I saw a squirrel do this exact thing to a car the other day, ran out without any indication, stopped dead in front of the wheel, as if daring the driver to run over the cute little squirrel, and then ran off. Fucking crazy, someones gonna get hurt if we don't have some sort of legislation soon!

(wrong squirrels I know)

And another one...

Heading along the A4 cycle path, east, this morning. Minding my own business when a squirrel darts straight across my path without even indicating. Could have been curtains for me. The government should fund an ad campaign alerting squirrels to this kind of dangerous behaviour - it's only a matter of time before a cyclist is seriously injured in this way.

Squirrel?

I've had kanga-fucking-roos do that. HTFU