We were out on one of our usual, country road bike rides the other day and a rather amusing accident happened to me.
I heard a car behind me on a narrow lane. Rather than merely dismounting so as to facilitate the passage of said car (which turned out to be a van), I decided to remain seated, slow the bike to a stop and extend my left leg out as far as it could go. Now I have my seat adjusted such that my leg is almost fully extended at the nadir of the downstroke, meaning it's almost impossible to touch the ground while seated, necessitating a classic (leg-over) or semi-classic dismount (the latter risking the possibility of damage to the crown jewels, being the manner in which ladies tend to dismount from bikes lacking a crossbar).
I came to a near halt and my left leg started extending, with my toes pointed downward, in an attempt to feel the ground. There was none and I could feel the bike starting to topple over in slow motion. Momentum and Newton's laws of motion took control and I rolled into the ditch alongside the road with the bike on top of me - right into a patch of nettles and brambles. Luckily the ditch was dry.
That's not me in the image below, by the way. It's just there for illustrative purposes and names have been changed to protect the innocent.
That's not me in the image below, by the way. It's just there for illustrative purposes and names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Hay, by this time, was well ahead of me and totally oblivious to my predicament. Obviously this saved me some embarrassment, although the driver of the van, when looking in his wing mirror, must have had a good old chuckle.
I managed to extricate myself from the ditch and pedalled furiously after Hay, coming alongside her nonchalantly as if nothing had happened. She immediately noticed some vegetation clinging to my cap and enquired where I'd managed to pick it up. I had to confess, which was fortuitous, as the nettle stings were irritating my legs something horrible and Hay fortuitously had some cortisone cream in her rucksack.
This, apparently, is the new way in which puncture repair outfits are sold.
8 patches and a piece of sandpaper. Time was when you had a tin that was virtually impossible to lose and always turned up when you were looking for something else - this thing can be lost in your spare change. That said, repairs are much easier and I spent half an hour yesterday repairing 3 inner tubes that have been sat in the garage for a couple of years - one was for the mower. Most of that half hour was spent looking for the kit after having put it down somewhere between repairs. While looking for it, I came across my old puncture repair kit in a tin - 3 times.
8 patches and a piece of sandpaper. Time was when you had a tin that was virtually impossible to lose and always turned up when you were looking for something else - this thing can be lost in your spare change. That said, repairs are much easier and I spent half an hour yesterday repairing 3 inner tubes that have been sat in the garage for a couple of years - one was for the mower. Most of that half hour was spent looking for the kit after having put it down somewhere between repairs. While looking for it, I came across my old puncture repair kit in a tin - 3 times.
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