Well, I had an interesting Friday evening. I was on my way to the lovely railway station of Bristol Temple Meads on my trusty city bike, looking forward to a fine weekend with friends. The journey from work to the station is mostly downhill, and includes the rather large hill of Park Street. For those of you unfamiliar with the topology of Bristol, here's a little MSPaint to help:
This is the trendy area of Bristol, where the beautiful people gather to shop and chat and look lovely and fashionable. However, this is not important right now. As I began the descent there was a stretch of clear road in front of me for about 200 metres so I applied pressure to the pedals, which turned the main cog attached to the crank. This applied a force to the chain, which by a convenient placing passed over a similar cog-like structure on the rear wheel, therefore propelling me forward. As I was coming down the street, I see a child walking out a few feet in front of me. This is not particularly unusual in Bristol, as the general pedestrian public seem to have the same awareness of traffic as the French have awareness of hygiene. Normally the offending pedestrian looks and notes the cyclist coming down the road, but this kid was the exception to the rule. His eyes were firmly locked in a downward trajectory, possibly transfixed by his own feet or maybe a phone or something, I'm not sure.
I tried in vain to steer to the right of the child, but he just kept on going, intent on placing himself in my path. Braking from this distance did nothing to slow me, and merely made my back wheel stop turning and emit a kind of skidding sound. That may be attributed to the fact that it was skidding, I'm not sure though. My attention was focussed on the rapidly approaching soon-to-be-teenager. And then it happened.
My memory of the impact is kind of fuzzy. I can recall small single-frame snapshots of it, one of being in the air, another when my hands hit the floor, and the next is sitting up and thinking "OMG WTF?” Luckily, instead of my face hitting the hard, unforgiving asphalt, the soft, squashy child conveniently got in the way, preventing severe grating of my visage.
Several people who were shopping for beautiful expensive clothes or on their way to the bus came to help me, reaffirming my faith in humanity at the same time. I can remember a couple of lovely girls helping me out of the road and onto the pavement, someone getting me some water and hearing the damn kid screaming his head off. Looking at my front wheel was somewhat traumatic, as the previously straight and true structure was now somewhat bent, almost reaching the 90° nirvana of wheel failures. Which is a shame, as they were nice Mavic rims. Ah well.
Soon after a paramedic estate car turned up, and completely ignored me and focussed their attention on the kid who'd been taken into a coffee shop. I was somewhat bitter about the ignoration* of me, but decided that it must have been because I looked too normal for someone who'd impacted with child at 20mph. A bit later they asked me if I was OK and made sure I knew where I was, what the day was and so on. Initially I thought I'd be OK and didn't need to go to the hospital, but when a police car came along and I saw the new lumps on my temple in the rear-view mirror I thought it'd be a Good Idea™ to get my noggin checked for signs of vegetablism. So off to the BRI I went, with the lovely Hannah (who I didn't know at all) keeping me company, along with two helpful Police officers. A couple of hours and head X-rays later, I'm given the OK and say goodbye to the amazing good samaritan Hannah, who's evening I must have royally screwed up, and hobbled my way home, where I sat down and felt funny for the rest of the night.
My knee is now swollen and I can't bend it too far, the right side of my face feels like it's sticking out an inch and I'm discovering new grazes and lumps all the time. Fun, fun, fun! There are two morals to this long story, just like any good 80's cartoon:
Cyclists: Wear your bloody helmets. You may look a bit silly, you may feel you're a '1337' cyclist who'll never crash, but it will happen if you cycle enough. I didn't wear one, and I could have ended up a vegetable capable only of dribbling and using one of those head-pointy keyboard things. So just wear one, OK?
Pedestrians: Particularly kids, look when crossing the road. Cyclists don't make as much noise as a car, but we can still hurt you. So look next time, and don't get complacent. Just because everyone else is crossing the road doesn't mean it's safe...
If you were in Bristol, and were near Park Street at 5:30 yesterday, then I apologise for slowing traffic down so badly. It won't happen again.
* I just made up this word.
This is the trendy area of Bristol, where the beautiful people gather to shop and chat and look lovely and fashionable. However, this is not important right now. As I began the descent there was a stretch of clear road in front of me for about 200 metres so I applied pressure to the pedals, which turned the main cog attached to the crank. This applied a force to the chain, which by a convenient placing passed over a similar cog-like structure on the rear wheel, therefore propelling me forward. As I was coming down the street, I see a child walking out a few feet in front of me. This is not particularly unusual in Bristol, as the general pedestrian public seem to have the same awareness of traffic as the French have awareness of hygiene. Normally the offending pedestrian looks and notes the cyclist coming down the road, but this kid was the exception to the rule. His eyes were firmly locked in a downward trajectory, possibly transfixed by his own feet or maybe a phone or something, I'm not sure.
I tried in vain to steer to the right of the child, but he just kept on going, intent on placing himself in my path. Braking from this distance did nothing to slow me, and merely made my back wheel stop turning and emit a kind of skidding sound. That may be attributed to the fact that it was skidding, I'm not sure though. My attention was focussed on the rapidly approaching soon-to-be-teenager. And then it happened.
My memory of the impact is kind of fuzzy. I can recall small single-frame snapshots of it, one of being in the air, another when my hands hit the floor, and the next is sitting up and thinking "OMG WTF?” Luckily, instead of my face hitting the hard, unforgiving asphalt, the soft, squashy child conveniently got in the way, preventing severe grating of my visage.
Several people who were shopping for beautiful expensive clothes or on their way to the bus came to help me, reaffirming my faith in humanity at the same time. I can remember a couple of lovely girls helping me out of the road and onto the pavement, someone getting me some water and hearing the damn kid screaming his head off. Looking at my front wheel was somewhat traumatic, as the previously straight and true structure was now somewhat bent, almost reaching the 90° nirvana of wheel failures. Which is a shame, as they were nice Mavic rims. Ah well.
Soon after a paramedic estate car turned up, and completely ignored me and focussed their attention on the kid who'd been taken into a coffee shop. I was somewhat bitter about the ignoration* of me, but decided that it must have been because I looked too normal for someone who'd impacted with child at 20mph. A bit later they asked me if I was OK and made sure I knew where I was, what the day was and so on. Initially I thought I'd be OK and didn't need to go to the hospital, but when a police car came along and I saw the new lumps on my temple in the rear-view mirror I thought it'd be a Good Idea™ to get my noggin checked for signs of vegetablism. So off to the BRI I went, with the lovely Hannah (who I didn't know at all) keeping me company, along with two helpful Police officers. A couple of hours and head X-rays later, I'm given the OK and say goodbye to the amazing good samaritan Hannah, who's evening I must have royally screwed up, and hobbled my way home, where I sat down and felt funny for the rest of the night.
My knee is now swollen and I can't bend it too far, the right side of my face feels like it's sticking out an inch and I'm discovering new grazes and lumps all the time. Fun, fun, fun! There are two morals to this long story, just like any good 80's cartoon:
Cyclists: Wear your bloody helmets. You may look a bit silly, you may feel you're a '1337' cyclist who'll never crash, but it will happen if you cycle enough. I didn't wear one, and I could have ended up a vegetable capable only of dribbling and using one of those head-pointy keyboard things. So just wear one, OK?
Pedestrians: Particularly kids, look when crossing the road. Cyclists don't make as much noise as a car, but we can still hurt you. So look next time, and don't get complacent. Just because everyone else is crossing the road doesn't mean it's safe...
If you were in Bristol, and were near Park Street at 5:30 yesterday, then I apologise for slowing traffic down so badly. It won't happen again.
* I just made up this word.
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