"Oh Shit" moments...

Hang on, does that mean that my Garmin cadence metre gets it wrong when it clocks me at 200rpm descending on my geared bike?

What kind of descent would you need to do 200rpm on if you were on gears?
It's the sort of figure sprinters hit when doing specific training, sprints at that cadence will last no more than 10 seconds or so.

Highly unlikely, inefficient and pretty unnecessary for most roadies to be doing it.

I'm only going on the "max cadence" figure from hilly rides so maybe that is based on highest over a couple of seconds or more likely, me freewheeling and magnet on crank passing sensor backwards and forewards a few times without going through full revolution!

Maybe I should go and bomb it down Blackheath hill again this time with a decent cadence meter.

Or take your chain off and do it on a turbo trainer. or do a Rollapaluza? spinnign down a steep hill won't give you a very good test basis.

I had a cadence meter on a PRO computer, did revouts on a turbo on gears and hit 240 then it "blew up" never worked again. I think the magnetic contacts get very wafty at those kind of cadences. Best way is like I said, top speed and know your gearing.

more likely, me freewheeling and magnet on crank passing sensor backwards and forewards a few times without going through full revolution!

We have a winner!

I regularly analyse rider's Garmin data, the peak cadence is almost always unbelievable for the riders in question.

Cheers for the heads up and explanation RPM.

But thanks a freaking bundle for bursting my bubble.

The garmin cadence can have little blips but these can be caused by things like car wheels etc.

Look at the overall cadence graph from a ride for a better idea of what you achieve.

I once read about a guy who could not understand why his garmin said he had been pedalling furiously about two hours after he had got off his bike. He had put the bike next to his washing machine which had tricked the cadence sensor.

The garmin cadence can have little blips but these can be caused by things like car wheels etc.

Wow, I've got a well-used Echowell Echo F2 cyclocomputer and its cadence meter has always worked fine, always showing very plausible numbers. E.g. when I hit 144rpm down a hill on my fixed during a recent ride, it was showing something just above 50kmh. Yes, I was proud. And yes, I bought it used for 9PLN which translates to like, the price of a pint of lager.
I was close, but not dangerously close, to losing control, so technically, not an "oh shit moment", which makes my post off-topic. :'-(

Me and my two better bozom buddies having a wedding avoiding pootle round the Essex lanes this morning. On the main drag from Epping back into Leyton, we were single filing up the hill and two cockwads in cars decided to overtake traffic coming in the opposite direction. They must have seen us and elected not to care for our fragile little lives. We were doing about 18 they were doing about 90. Had one of us swung round a pot hole or elected to overtake each other we'd have been killed outright in horrific fashion. We all agreed that it was seriously terrifying. Didn't ruin what was a very pleasant few hours in the saddle but it sure made us think.

had another oh shit moment today but this time not on the bike, in the car. was going from one town to another to pick my mum up and theres a large set of roadworks with temporary traffic lights at a junction which is quite large with 4 different routes feeding into it. so anyway the route I was on was taking along time to go anywhere but I hadnt noticed or thought about it as i knew there was temporary lights. it was my turn at the front of the queue I pulled up and looked at the lights which were red. I thought the car in front of me did that old trick of running the light on the tail of the car in front when it was blatantly red, so i stop. the bloke in the silver toyota land cruiser goes completely librarian poo at me. screaming out the window at me, throwing his arms about and hanging out the window and calling me all the names under the sun. so im like what? confused. i look at the junction and decide its cos all the lights are broken and on red and this oaf just wants me to keep going. all the while hes revving his engine and almost bumping my car forward. (not actually touching) so i decide its safe to go. no one else on the junction going anywhere so I pull forward and turn left thinking thats that. this twat then comes alongsie screaming all kinds of abuse at me through his wifes passenger window saying hes going to smash my head in..., actually using his car to practically run me off the road. jerky unpredictable motions with his car so i slow down and im totally confused what I had done. so i keep going. the next set of lights are red...brown trousers time, i slow down and leave enough of a gap in front to pull into the next lane, im looking for an escape route if i need it. he stops an inch behind me and gets out. so i wait for him to get a few yards and floor it, into the next lane and luckily the lights go green. he gets back in his car then doesnt make any move to chase me, phew i think. so i nip back into the lane i need, follow the one way system, hes about 8 cars behind and after a couple of nips in and out of traffic i think im ok. go around a bed and im on the hill up to my mums...check the mirror, shit...hes now acclerating behind me. two turns to my mums...do i go there and try and get in the front door or do i keep going and risk getting caught at a set of lights? he tails me an inch from my bumper all the way to my mums road when i turn down it he stops at the entrance to the road and gets out again. so i get a bit of distance and pull in and dive into my mums house. looked out the winow and he had gone from the entrance. as soon as i thought it was safe (almost immediately) I came home and wont be taking my car round mums for a while, we will go in the gfs car. was shaking for an hour afterwards, even now typing this up im actually feeling sick again. first seriously fucked up road rage ive seen. this dude was massive and to get so angry and violent so quickly was the thing that i think has scared me the most. I have been over it again and again and still cannot think what I did that prompted the level of reaction. maybe i ran over his fluffy kitten by accident....

proper brown trousers...

sorry for the long one. had to tell someone...

Psycho knows where your mum lives.

yeah i worried about that too when deciding whether to keep on going or not but he stopped at the end of my parents road and thats a good 200 yards to my mums house so i could have gone into any of three or even four houses because I basically dumped the car and ran. also the car wasnt parked outside her house so if he did roll past before i left it wouldnt be directly outside her house.

sounds like a right failure of a person, he's probably got an inverted penis, hence the ott anger*

*also was he short in stature? For years I've had a theory that short men (anything under 5'6) just have too much anger/ blow it very easily.

Sounds like he was just annoyed at you for you not taking the same sort of risk at a junction that he was prepared to take. I've had plenty of those, generally from little tools in little cars (again often short angry men) getting annoyed at how I am getting to work quicker than they are. Its like yes, I've overtaken/ cornered/ used a junction in a quicker & more efficient way, and thus doing so, angers them intently, then they come up behind you offering physical violence from behind the wheel of their 3cylindered 1.0l of 1990's corsa, generally I just lol and leave them with their own anger.

yeah total tool. thing is i dont think i would have been as scared on my cycle. i could have just bumped the kerb and been off and away through a car park or something. the fact that if there was cars in front of me i wouldnt be able to go anywhere or get away.i only drive a small peugeot (doing my bit for the planet innit) and his was an oversized toyota landcruiser. he used his car to deliberately try and force me off the road. oh well just shows i should ride my bike more, due to the level of traffic i would have been through that junction at least 15 mins before that prick even got to it

short angry man with an even short temper driving a landcruiser? Defenatly inverted penis syndrome.

as a country boy I used to find driving in UK cities pretty stressful and often coming into conflict with people like that, but now I'm older and wiser (mid twenties) and have driven in some of the worst cities in the world, I find almost anything in the UK a breeze*.

*if you find yourself down town in some random south american/ indian/ asian city apart from the fact people are coming at you every angle, they are very easy to understand, all they want to do is more the front corner of their car forwards, nothing else matters. But more importantly what I've noticed is almost everyone drives like that, and NOBODY gets angry, even when there is the occasional bumper scrape, they just get on with it, because its normal fayre for them.
You go somewhere like a sleepy mid Canadian town or remote Scandinavian town and they give way to each other, occasionally have a little a chat alongside whilst waiting at the lights.

But here in the Uk the only thing that makes it sometimes difficult to drive is you have this dangerous mix of laid back don't care/ laid back can't drive/ plain old cannot drive/ I can drive inverted penis 4x4 short men/ plain old angry drivers/ plain old normal drivers/ damn cyclists (has to be said)/ and oaps and inexperienced drivers also wanting their part of the action.

What you end up with is a bankrupt rock in the north atlantic full of angry and inexperienced drivers all getting even more angry at each other for no forward gain.

so when out and about in traffic I just throw some music on and ignore everyone else, they can get angry at themselves, meanwhile I'm virtually horizontal with some Quantic.

remote Scandinavian town and they give way to each other, occasionally have a little a chat alongside whilst waiting at the lights.

I'm always amazed at how well-mannered the drivers are in places like Sweden, Denmark, Holland, give way, stick to the speed limits, always stop at pedestrian crossings, that's just like some utopia or sth. I was driven by an Afghan taxi driver in Sweden who turned out to be a much calmer and more courteous driver than many of my friends, who otherwise are nice people. Whenever I'm there and get back to my country, it's hard to get over how many road users assume this pointless angry attitude, sometimes you can almost feel someone's breath, steam coming from their ears and shit...

Just going flat out down a gentle hill in light rain and I notice the rear wheel start to drift. Then I'm full-on skidding, but I'm not touching the brakes and I have a freewheel. I hold it for a few seconds, but eventually hit the deck. This was a minute from leaving the house, and the computer says 27.4mph max, which is probably what I was doing.

No injuries though. Lucky. Guess I'd managed to slow down a lot.

Bungee cord had somehow got tangled in rear hub and yanked it to an elasticated-skid. D'oh.

What you end up with is a bankrupt rock in the north atlantic full of angry and inexperienced drivers all getting even more angry at each other for no forward gain.

so when out and about in traffic I just throw some music on and ignore everyone else, they can get angry at themselves, meanwhile I'm virtually horizontal with some Quantic.

Repped for being right.

This mornings Oh Shit...

I was heading from London Brigde down Mile End/Bow Road on the last leg my daily commute, by which time I am usually warmed up and have reached a decent pace.
I was alone on the road as I approach the corner of Bow Rd and Fairfield Rd and the green light is mine.
I pick up pace to make sure I make it in ample time, a pedestrian steps out and take my attention for a moment then I look up and there is a fucking great big bendy red thing beginning to turn right across me.
Thought process goes;
"He's seen me.
He'll stop.
He must have seen me.
He's not fucking seen me!
He's not fucking stopping."

To brake would've briought me to a dead stop right in the path of the bus so I had no choice but to power down and make the mother of all swerves.
Swerved big and left and felt the bumper graze my right calf. Looked the dozey fucking driver in the eye and saw nothing. He was either brain dead, asleep or had two glass eyes.

Strangely I didn't speak/shout/utter a sound.

I had a similar situation a few weeks ago.

To give a little background, Im not really scared of falling, crashing, tipping over and so. Its part of the learning curve. This one incident scared the crap out of me for the first time ive that been riding.

I left a mates place late at night turning right off Jamaica Road onto London Bridge. (I learnt after this from him that this is technically illegal and i should have gone forward and turned back on myself. I didnt know)

I waited for all the traffic as i was in a calm relaxed mode, I hadnt been drinking, I wasnt tired and i certainly was concentrating but i wasnt going to take the slightest of chances and i knew that there would be silly drivers on a Friday night... 2 or 3 cars turned across my path and finally a bus got to me as the light went amber.

The bus pulled wide so as not to hit the traffic light which forced me to roll forward out of his way. I didnt think much of it as the light was amber but as i pulled forward i saw the lights of a 5 series... SHIT!!! I heard the engine overclocking, revving thru the roof. I could feel he had put his foot down to get passed the bus and through the light before it turned red... I could see in my minds eye in an instant that this was a head on collision <<>>

I put everything into my legs, every ounce of strength i had.

That moment I could hear that he had seen me cause his ABS had kicked in. At this point my minds eyes felt i had avoided the head on but i KNEW i was going to have my tyre clipped and i was going to be flipped straight into the tarmac.

Before i could think straight, in a moments notice, the 5 series had just missed me, had just missed my back wheel. FFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.... And in that same moment, he put his foot down again and sped off carrying the whaft of burnt rubber.

I have never been that certain of me being in serious trouble and I am just very grateful that i was already rolling when i saw his lights come round the bus.

The adrenaline kicked in a few seconds later, And the rest of the way home, I was a little stunned...

To give a little background, Im not really scared of falling, crashing, tipping over and so. Its part of the learning curve.

See, this is the problem! You should be. You can learn without crashing!

Iain for future notice you can also turn right onto boss street just before the lights do a left and there's a cyclists only cut through at the lights onto tower bridge.

map:
http://goo.gl/maps/aCqt

cut-through:
http://goo.gl/maps/XrrG

OH SHIT

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