Like most cyclists, I would like to see the number of cars on the road reduced. And today I snapped. I took action. I tried to incapacitate a car by taking it off the road. I shunted it from behind with my bike.
I was in traffic and about to enter an equal priority junction where a left lane is fed from an adjoining road. Not wanting to be trapped between 2 cars I moved to the centre of my lane (the primary riding position) following a red Ford Mondeo. Looking ahead I could see the traffic moving fine and looked behind me to make sure that the car approaching from behind had seen me.
I turned back to find the Mondeo a hell of a lot closer than when I last had my eyes on it. I also noticed it was stationary. That presented a bit of a problem as I was doing about 25 mph. Time to brake. And time to break quite hard. My rear wheel was already about 6 inches above the tarmac when I hit the back of the car. The impact helped bring it up to about head height. I think the rear wheel would have come over the top of my head and landed in front of me if I hadn't had the presence of mind to arrest the forward motion of the back of my bike by using my head as a stop against the rear window of the car.
Looking back it was quite an endo. Had I managed to pull that off on my Mountain Bike without the aid of a car I'd have been very proud.
Anyway, with all the kinetic energy converted into sound (via my head and the rear windscreen) the rear wheel now fell victim to gravity and reacquainted itself with the tarmac. I dropped my shoes out the clips, planted myself on on road and let the last 2 seconds of my life sink in.
I was OK, I looked at the car and noticed that was undamaged, then I started breathing again.
The driver asked how I was, checked his car and said that he had no choice but to stop, he couldn't enter the box junction as his exit was blocked. He was absolutely right. I admitted fault and told him that I'd just looked back to see what was going on behind me when I found him stopped in front of me. I obviously hadn't read the flow of traffic very well.
We laughed and went our separate ways.
I hadn't the nerve to look at any of the other drivers as I just knew they'd have been wetting themselves with laughter. If I found it funny, I'd have found it bloody hysterical if I'd witnessed somebody else do it.
We live, we learn.
Keep Pedalin'
Gazza
P.S. If you recognise this story and were on the Birmingham Road in Great Barr today, say hi next time you see this very red faced cyclist.
