"Oh Shit" moments...

One on the way home today:

I was overtaking a few parked cars, I just got past them and carried on cycling in the crown of the road and indicated right (as I was about to turn into my drive in about ten yards), did a shoulder-check because there was a car behind me, then moved out into the turn and the car shot around me on the right and I slammed on the brakes. The car left tyre marks on the grass verge because it had to swing out so wide to avoid me, and I did the 'hop-around-and-slowly-fall-over' routine.

I would call the police but I was coming back from the pub and I'm sure I'm over the limit.

I had a serious oh shit moment yesterday followed by a nasty spout of road rage, it was the first time I actually thought I was going to die. Not a nice feeling! I was coming home from the station and there is this nice bit of road just as I leave the village with a downhill sweeping left hander to which I normally get up to around 30 mph with relative ease, normally cars are pretty cool as its a 30 and there isn't a real overtaking point but clearly lorry drivers are different! I had a very large artic behind me with a long abnormal load, he decided to go for the overtake just after the corner and pulls into the other lane to which I wasn't really bothered as he was miles away. I then notice an oncoming car and it twigged that the lorry was overtaking, to my horror I look right to see the cab barely in front of me and moving back into the lane rather than braking. To my left was a large curb with a recently cut countryside hedge (plenty of spikes of tree etc poking out) so I couldn't go anywhere, the lorry came within a foot from me to which i decided to brake and pray. Locked up and slowed pretty fast moving my weight over the rear wheel and the lorry missed me by a slither! If I didn't move I would have definitely been crushed! Pumped full of adrenaline I sprint back up to the same speed as the lorry and give him plenty of nice friendly waves and kind words only to find out because of the length of the lorry it was being escorted by a large pickup. The driver of the pickup decided to come flying up behind me beeping so I moved to the left to which they came alongside me hurling abuse and telling me to get off the road and pay road tax etc and then they started moving towards me, double wammy! I called the woman driving a dirty whore and did some more hard braking to get out of the situation, I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or they saw what was going on but the driver behind the crazy pick up lady hung well back and gave me plenty of room until I turned off.

It's safe to say I shat a brick on two occasions but unfortunately due to the shock and disbelief towards what had happened I forgot the pickups number plate and the name of the haulage firm. It was the first time I hated being on my bike.

^ that's unbelievable. Perhaps the police will have a record of the vehicle since it was large enough to have an escort.

The driver who repeatedly cut me up in Yorkshire a few months ago got convicted of driving without due care, and three points on her licence - the system works, you just have to have a nice policeman witness it!

I might ask them, it was carrying a steam engine so I guess it would isn't a everyday load so they might know. I couldn't believe it my self if I'm honest.

You really, really need to report that.

This morning, Essex Road, in the rain. I'm going at a reasonable clip, oncoming car turns right across me; would have been ok had a cyclist on the pavement not decided to pootle across the side street at the same time. Car stops side-on blocking the lane completely. I managed to stop with about two inches to spare. If I hadn't had wet weather brake pads fitted I reckon I would have been through the side window (and I was convinced that was going to happen the whole way). Raised the heart rate a bit.

Cycling through a little village yesterday with my girlfriend, and there is a car up ahead with a line of parked cars on the other side of the road. The car in our lane has stopped to let a car pass, so we stop about ten feet behind it. Suddenly the car starts reversing rather quickly - my girlfriend is on a loop-framed bike so she jumps off and pulls her bike out of the way, but her front wheel gets clipped. I look behind me and see the driver behind me hurriedly reversing to give me some room - at this point my girlfriend is slapping the rear passenger window. I half fall off my bike and hit the rear window as hard as I can and the car stops moments before knocking me down.

I check my girlfriend is okay and notice that the driver of the passing car is staring at me - I presume he wants to check if I'm okay so I wander over to him. Instead he winds down his window and belts 'YOU HIT HER ON PURPOSE!' - I explained that I was about to get run over, and he replied 'You didn't need to scare her', to which I replied 'Who do you think was more scared?'. He called me a wanker and drove off. The driver of the car behind me leant out the window and asked if I was okay. The only injuries are my bruised knuckles, but it's astonishing how stupid people are - the guy clearly has his own brand of aggressively righteous bullshit and must've somehow equated 'person tries to stop themselves being injured' with 'young male punches defenceless woman'.

Oh Shit #1
I occasionally ride with my university's triathlon society and I finally managed to negotiate a spot in the fast group. I had the oldest bike by probably 20 years, a nice old 531. Everyone else rode carbon and had massive thighs, but I wanted to show I could keep up. About 15 seconds after setting off we started to descend a hill, and I was near the front of the group doing ~20mph. 100m before the first bend I tried to think about good cornering poise, but then managed to kick my crappy old Zefal pump off my seat tube and into the gap between my bottom bracket cluster and my chainset, where it lodged itself firmly. This still baffles me. I tried to pull it up out of the gap, but only succeeded in grabbing and extending the pump handle. I was weaving around at over 20mph, trying to inflate my chainset. Brilliant. I then had a bit of a wobble, tried to correct it one handed and I managed to stay upright. But I lost control and flew straight up a curb, over some grass and ploughed into a 2 foot high garden wall. The bike stopped dead and I somersaulted over the top, and collided with a parked car in some chap's front driveway. I was fine but the bike was trashed. I apologised to the chap in the driveway, accepted my shame and walked home.

Oh Shit #2
There are some lovely rolling hills near Meriden, Coventry. As I ascended a hill on a fairly busy B-road, I had cars overtaking me very regularly. No worries until I approach the top where the narrow road bends sharply to the left, forming the blindest of blind corners with tall thick trees on both sides.

So cue the inevitable. As I reach this blind corner the torrent of overtaking cars doesn't cease, and I have a grey saloon pulled up level with me on my right. We both crest and spot the oncoming Ocado van at the same time, creating a shared "Oh shit!" moment. This van was only a few seconds away from a head-on collision with the saloon at about 45mph. I was instilled with a sort of wide-eyed terror of impending death. The saloon at this point had no choice but to floor it and swerve across me back into lane. I leaned my body into the bushes on my left, gripped hard and prayed. I believed I'd soon be flying through the air to meet the tarmac. With much beeping of horns and whooshing of air, all three parties somehow emerged unscathed, except for some scratches on my left arm. I had no trouble for the next few hills, as I had a healthy dose of adrenaline.

oh shit 2... I don't have problem with drivers that get past in a quick manor, even if it means flooring it, at least they are (usually) in control of their car and realise being out on wrong side of road and overtaking a bike isn't a situation you want to be in for long unnecessary periods of time.
The ones I hate, are the drifters who come up behind, nearly run into you, then slowly meander into the other lane at a bad time, then see an oncoming car, fail to accelerate (because they are driving an underpowered box in a very high gear) and just pull back in on you, crushing you into the ditch, they then meander off down the road completely oblivious to the destruction and near death they have just caused. Those ones need to be have fire put on their faces.

A comedy one on my way home last night. I sometime ride through Finsbury Park on the way home.

As I was pulling off the road to go up the dropped kerb into the park I noticed that the fair was on. I pondered what route I'd have to take through the park to get round it and then looked down to discover that the dropped kerb had been moved and a signpost erected and I was very slowly riding into a high kerb at a very shallow angle with a signpost behind it. A slight bit of confusion with my clip-ins resulted in me slowly toppling to the ground whilst laughing loudly at my own fuck-wittedness.

Morning ride to the coffee shop.

Quite road.

Hear car coming up behind.

Coming closer.

Too close....

Looooooong screeching rubber on tarmac.

Oh Shit!

Brace for impact :|

Heart stops!

Screeching stops!

Heart restarts at eleventy million BPM.

Driver overtakes (very slowly), sheepish grin... mouths "sorry".

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!

Serious 'Oh shit' moment

seeing my three cans of san miguel overtaking me on the downhill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snzt0YBraXY

^ shows that the design works quite well - slowed the rider down so they weren't hurt, rather than just throwing them off at high speed.

Last year in August on Essex Rd, around 6pm after a busy day and I'm riding homewhen I lived in Norf Landan after calling clear in Angel.

Nice amount of speed, lots of traffic going my way so I'm on the middle white lines tucked in behind a bus moving out and in as I try to gage when to overtake the beast.

The road bending slightly as we all cross New North Rd and Northampton St on the left.

I'm right in behind the bus, its slowing for its stop at Northchurch Rd

Go to pull out bearing in mind I couldnt see what was coming, another bus is right there coming towards me about a foot away

Shit pants, pull in, crash into the now stopping bus

Passing bus blows horn as it draws level with my ear

Outcome, sore wrists, near heart attack, have to get off bike and sit down for a bit with beer and THANK GOD I@M STILL ALIVE

No journey is that important I'll ever be so stupid again. . .looking back now I feel like punching myself in the face at my own stupidness - what the fuck was I doing?

Thankfully I've not done this sort of thing since, it was one of those heat of the moment automatic 'I'm a twat' movements we've all done at some stage of our cycling lives.

Jesus, re-reading this I feel like I'm in some sort of confession box. . .how embarrasing

I've seen incidents like this on the Essex Road a lot. You have to slow down after the wide section (and at any rate currently can't ride very fast because the carriageway surface was destroyed by the trucks accessing the construction site where the Sainsbury's and Tesco's now are a few years ago). Glad you weren't hurt. When drafting buses, you have to allow for some way of seeing what's ahead, but you probably knew that even then.

Overtaking stationary traffic on Green Lanes, Newington Green the other morning, not too fast. From inbetween some of the queuing flies a loaf of Kingsmill Best of Both about six inches in front of my face. Medium sliced. At head height it would have definately knocked me off into the oncoming traffic lane if it had hit but it was so odd that I burst out laughing and rode on.
It was only when I got to work that I thought 'Oh shit' and that I really should have stopped and done some shouting.

Fuckin hell! Low flying bread definatley to be avoided you got lucky. . .

Reminds me of a couple more:

Coming up Tabernacle St flying round past the memorial into Paul St a pigeon flew directly into my face hitting my glasses into my left eye. I saw stars, was temporarily blinded for a few seconds and managed against all odds to stay on. Luckily the errant bird hit me chest on, I imagine at worst if the beak or feet were involved I'd have definatley lost my eye. The fucker just fluttered away, its always so eerie how they never squawk or make any 'real' bird noises innit? It felt like I'd taken a feathery football to the face.

The other, definatley more of an oh shit moment was before I was a courier and was heading from City Rd up to Angel to meet my then girlfriend for a beer. I'd rounded the southern half of City Rd roundabout and found myself on the inside lane overtaking slow traffic taking the entry into the northern seciton of City Rd. The 'no mans land' triangular-shaped area of loose debris on every junction was suddenly beneath my wheels and as I was cornering fast at a steep angle I felt my front start to slide out, then the back went too. For a few seconds I was a t the mercy of the gravel, glass, and litter and looked ahead - there was a bus heading south and I was headed directly under it unless the skid / slip could be controlled.

Luckily I found solid ground and the bus and me passed with a gnats pube's width of air between us.

I cant remember, but I must have nearly shit my pants at that point.

Another lesson learned, less haste keeps you alive.

I was heading home last thursday night, road was wet, it was quite dark but wasn't really worried about anything bar my soggy trousers. Was turning right off High Holborn onto Red Lion St, this is right at the end of my ride so my mid was very much on other things. As I turned in I noticed a pedestrian had was half way across my lane so tightened my turn... Right over a 3wide manhole cover. Front tire went out from under me. I braced for impact but somehow the bike stayed upright (i'm secretly a cycling ninja?) except I was then traveling forward with the front wheel at a 90 degree angle shuddering like a mofo. Managed to get it straight and cycled off like a boss* leaving awed pedestrians in my wake**

• Note: May have not done any of the above 'like a boss' due to look of terror on my face and scream of "shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit" throughout.
  ** One of them definately said "bloody hell" as i wobbled off.
  

Good work dude. Sounds like quite a recovery!

first time I've seen this thread but, on the way in today:

classic car-turning-right-in-traffic scenario on the CS8, Millbank. Dude in front of me sees car turning between two stationary vehicles with <0.5s reaction time: swerves, clips his back wheel on front bumper and swerves back to correct.

Like a boss.

Another cherished memory:

Cycling westbound from Finsbury Sq (before it was full of hippies camping out. . .) along Chiswell St I left the crossroads alongside three cabs. The two in front pulled ahead but the third stayed alongside me to my right, and as we drew level with Finsbury St he suddenly swung left forcing me to jump onto the pavement. He had clearly thought this attempted murder through as his exit was clear. I remember eye contact with an emotionless scary set of brown eyes as he accelerated away into the end of the street turning back towards Moorgate crossroads.

I was shaking with fear and anger, and was left screaming after him something about 'If I had a gun' which freaked out all the office workers walking around at the time - I think they had to be in my shoes to appreciate my venomous outburst.

Anyway, I'm very mindful now to not be alongside any vehicles where there is a left turn, and if I am to make sure I know what the vehicle's occupants are likely to do - a sad state of affairs but one that can potentially save my life every time.

note to the above - hippys are cool and often can provide you with those 'funny cigarettes' you hear so much about, although the ones in the Square at time of writing would probably also provide you with information telling you what you already know about the fucked state of affairs this countries banks have put us all in.