Last night - but nobody saw....
Riding home in the rain at 11:30 - poorly light road and the bike-path
a good 10 metres away from it into the bargain - read "dark as the
inside of a cow".
Now add to the equation that my batteries in my headlight are flat and
that as a consequence it had switched to "moon-glow" survival mode or
some such other nonsense described in detail in the literature.
I had/have new batteries in my backpack - but hey me stop in the rain
and change them - not me.
The final part of the equation leading up to the "moment" is that there
were quite a few cars coming from the opposite direction, their
headlights glinting off the rain on my glasses (which are like coke
bottle bottoms anyway) meant that every time a car came along from the
opposite direction I had to slow to a virtual crawl.
Result, one wet, [censored]-off and tired bicycle rider wending his weary
way home.
At last, within sight of the turnoff to home there were no more cars,
and I knew from long practice that the bike-path is as straight as a
dye from that point on to the the next intersection about 500m away.
Time to crank up the pace.
By the dim glow of the only streetlight I saw that I was maintaining a
80 cadence which translates to 34kph. Then at the darkest section of
that straight bit of track I plowed into a Coles shopping trolley left
in the middle of the track.
15kg of strongly built 20 year old MTB and 100kg of me drop-kicked that
trolley a surprising distance, and after I picked myself up the bike is
only a little bit bent - I rode it home.
Even more surprising, the wet path seems to have inflicted little if
any injury on me - in short I've got away scott free.
would have been embarrassing if anyone had seen though :-)
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