Crashing

Slightly subdued today, partly because of a late night as "plus one" to my high-flying executive wife, partly because I've seen two nasty bike accidents close-up in the past few days.

The first was on the gravel pedestrian/bike path which runs around Richmond Park.  

I'm not a huge fan or user of bike paths -- I prefer to take my chances on the road most of the time, but I have noticed a strange phenomenon.  Too many cyclists seem bemused as to which side of the path they should ride on.   In my simple way, I always assume that I should be riding on the left, like on the road (international readers may care to reverse this), and if people coming in the other direction do the same, we'll all be happy and safe.  But more than half of the cyclists I meet on my occasional bike-path forays seem to prefer the right hand side and refuse to move from their chosen line.

That's what happened the other day in the Park;  although I, thankfully, was on the adjoining stretch of road.  Two cyclists approaching each other at speed -- one on the left hand side, the other on the right.  One headed further left to avoid a collision, the other... headed right, and they smashed head on.  When I arrived, they were still in a dazed, dusty and slightly bloody heap.  One of the riders, an old fellow who turned out to be 77, had come off worse -- but mainly superficial.  The other, a young guy who appeared to speak very little English -- was just shaken up.   I dished out anti-septic wipes from my saddle-pack and listened while the older rider, who was on a mountain bike but dressed in full roadie kit, bemoaned the fact that no-one seemed to ride on the left any more.

The second, potentially more serious, came on a club run at the weekend.  Beautiful weather, riding with a slower group than usual.  It was also less experienced, and a bit twitchy on the brakes -- and the roads seemed busier and faster than normal.  I'd already been roundly (and rightly) told off for a bit of dangerous overtaking by one of the "ride captains", a fearsomely fast former Olympic track rider.  I was coasting at the back when some of the younger riders decided to sprint off the front.  Bad move.  One of the hundreds of potholes we'd passed that day (will the local authorities ever get round to fixing them?) connected with a carbon front wheel and the rider went cartwheeling off on a busy road, narrowly missing an oncoming, speeding car.

Again, not as bad as it could have been -- shock, and a badly gashed arm -- but a reminder of quite how difficult it can be to ride in a big group on Southern Britain's packed roads.

Not a bad ride, though, at a reasonable pace -- although my Cateye claimed afterwards that my maximum speed was nearly 78kph. Unlikely, unless someone had stolen my bike and dropped it off a cliff.