Close encounters of the cycling kind

I had a close shave on my cycle in to work this morning. Unusually it wasn't caused by a motor vehicle. Another cyclist was turning right from a side road, didn't look to his right, and cycled right into my path. I was going quite fast down the hill. I managed to shout out a warning while braking; my rear wheel locked up slightly; and, wobbling and swerving, I managed to miss him. While I was trying desperately not to run into him he (fortunately) kept going, said, "Oh s**t", and then I was gone. All over in a fraction of a second.

If it had been a car I think I would have been shaken up, but, as it was, I thought no more of it.

Until my cycle home after work.

I have made up a law of overtaking. It's the inverse law of size. The bigger a vehicle overtaking a bicycle, the less the room the driver gives you. This evening a car came up behind me as I was on the unlit twisty narrowish country lane part of my route, dropped to my speed, and waited ages before picking up the courage to overtake. When it did so, it gave me plenty of room. Excellent. It was a small hatchback. When a large van overtakes me, it often seems to behave as if I weren't there at all, squeezing past even if there is oncoming traffic. In-between-sized vehicles give me in-between amounts of room.


Back to boating. Neil of Herbie is presenting his annual Herbie Awards, the latest being one for the "best village moorings". As he admits, it's an impossible job to choose one place over another, but he's plumped for (the almost impossible to pronounce on first encounter) Alrewas. One shortlisted candidate was Cropredy, so here's the Red Lion last month.