This Ordinary Life

Well, although I spend a lot of my time signing the praises of cycling as the best form of transportation, there are times where it definitely isn’t the safest.

Example in point, are the two crashes that I have had in the last 7 days. The first involved a large, double decker bus deciding it was necessary to pull out in front of me causing me to have to slow down to avoid being pushed into oncoming traffic. Then when I swerved to pass the bus on the inside (you see, I was going faster than the bus in the first place and actually had the right to be in the lane it tried to push me out of) there was a stationary Suzuki Vitara blocking my path. Luckily, I have great reflexes (not always the most focused) and jammed on the brakes. This enable me to execute a Vin Diesel like maneuver where the bike flipped up and I pushed it to the grounds stopping the bike, but a miscalculation on my own forward momentum meant that I still straddled the back of the Vitara. Both me and the driver were startled (she perhaps from seeing me in Lycra up close?), I made it out unscathed and the bicycle suffer the loss of a reflector on the front handlebars.

General danger factor on this one was 3 out of 10 due to the low speed of both me and the surrounding traffic. Lesson learned: Buses are big and an environmentally friendly menace to society.

The second injury was a bit more severe and the result of something that causes innumerable car accidents in all major cities with stop-start traffic, stopped cars choosing to wait a bit after traffic starts to flow again before moving. In London there is always congestion, which on a bicycle is a dream to fly through except when you need to change lanes. In this case, traffic has started to move and I had my eyes on the moving traffic ahead, but missed the big, black taxi van stationery in the lane I needed to move into. However, this time I was moving at more speed and there was a lot of traffic around me. I managed to escape this one by falling to the ground and incurring a couple of scratches and bruises, the bike only had the brake cable jumped out.

General danger factor on this one was 5 out of 10 due to the traffic and extent of my injuries.

I since have tried to figure out why I was suddenly having so many accidents, beyond the obvious statistical likelihood after not having had an accident in my 3 years of riding in the UK. All that I can correlate them to is the fact that I didn’t cycle with my Ipod for the last week. I assume the Ipod helps focus the other parts of my brain that aren’t used for cycling and keeps these from engaging the parts that are.

Hence, in my case, cycling with an Ipod actually helps me be more aware of my surroundings and ride safer. To all you Cycling Anti-Ipod Activists, put that in your pipe and smoke it.