You are reading a single comment by @stormalx and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@stormalx
I hit a ped today, never done that before. There are two sides to every story but it was mainly his fault, I felt really bad though as he came off far worse than I did.
Basically a group of pedestrians had just crossed the road ahead of me, the light was flashing orange so I went through because it seemed clear, however as I did this a guy ran out right in front of me from behind a taxi. I braked hard but he was literally two feet away so it didn't help much. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have been going as fast as I was through a flashing amber light either.
He apologised, I said "You know you shouldn't have tried to cross the road then don't you?" and he apologised a lot more. I felt really bad though because I then saw he had a cut on his head and it had started to bleed - it wasn't terrible but it didn't look too pretty.
I asked him if he was definitely OK and asked if he wanted me to call an ambulance but he refused and said he was fine, I asked a couple times more but he said it was OK and walked away.
So I checked my bike over and rode off. Luckily the only damage was a nasty scrape on the drops, bit of a shock though! It's a strange thing when you slam, most of the time riding is a fluid and quite delicate (for want of a better word) experience. Suddenly one is abruptly reminded that riding also involves moving fairly fast relative to the world at large. When things become slightly less delicate, the world at large suddenly becomes remarkably hard and physical!