Hi, Guest
07-13-2005, 12:05 PM
holy smokes I ever scare the sweet lovin' bejeesus out of me today...
thought I'd take the bayview extension to pottery road, and for those that don't know it, it's a windy, long hill... .it's easy to hit 50+km/h on a mountain bike... which is exactly what I was doing when, as usual, I observed the traffic getting jammed up in the lefthand turn lane to go onto pottery road. THinking I was going as fast as traffic at that point, so why not do the proper etiquette thing and get in the lefthand turn lane myself?
so I check behind me, coast is clear, when I look forward, and notice that some guy cut on an angle from the inside lane to the turning lane, but not all the way into the turning lane... traffic to my left, the nice open space leading from the middle lane I was currently in to the turning lane (blocking my planned exit strategy if traffic wouldn' let me merge)...
and sure enough traffic wouldn't let me merge.... so now I had to cut back out to the right hand lane and shoulder to miss this freakin car that seemed only a car length's away at 50kph... so I panicked, grabbed a handful of front brake, but also caught too much back brake as I started my swerve back out...
now at 40kph and sliding sideways on my freakin' mountainbike towards the back end of a car... then an old voice I haven't heard in a while told me to get my hand off the rear brake, and start looking somewhere other than the bumper I was headed towards... the back, now free to roll, snapped back to the right just as I tucked my hips to the right, and I swear I just barely missed the sheet metal of the car... and in the next 30 meters, I was somehow able to get the squirrley bike under control, and 'drift' through the intersection...
I don't even know how I did it because a part of my brain was telling my body what to do, and the other part of my brain was figuring out just how much this was gonna hurt.... I haven't been that scared on my moutainbike in a long time... think I'll find a bit more safer route down that way next time.
thought I'd take the bayview extension to pottery road, and for those that don't know it, it's a windy, long hill... .it's easy to hit 50+km/h on a mountain bike... which is exactly what I was doing when, as usual, I observed the traffic getting jammed up in the lefthand turn lane to go onto pottery road. THinking I was going as fast as traffic at that point, so why not do the proper etiquette thing and get in the lefthand turn lane myself?
so I check behind me, coast is clear, when I look forward, and notice that some guy cut on an angle from the inside lane to the turning lane, but not all the way into the turning lane... traffic to my left, the nice open space leading from the middle lane I was currently in to the turning lane (blocking my planned exit strategy if traffic wouldn' let me merge)...
and sure enough traffic wouldn't let me merge.... so now I had to cut back out to the right hand lane and shoulder to miss this freakin car that seemed only a car length's away at 50kph... so I panicked, grabbed a handful of front brake, but also caught too much back brake as I started my swerve back out...
now at 40kph and sliding sideways on my freakin' mountainbike towards the back end of a car... then an old voice I haven't heard in a while told me to get my hand off the rear brake, and start looking somewhere other than the bumper I was headed towards... the back, now free to roll, snapped back to the right just as I tucked my hips to the right, and I swear I just barely missed the sheet metal of the car... and in the next 30 meters, I was somehow able to get the squirrley bike under control, and 'drift' through the intersection...
I don't even know how I did it because a part of my brain was telling my body what to do, and the other part of my brain was figuring out just how much this was gonna hurt.... I haven't been that scared on my moutainbike in a long time... think I'll find a bit more safer route down that way next time.
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