Lethargic Man (anag.)

Bah, got knocked off my bike again this morning. I'd been trying out a new route the last couple of weeks, which was slightly shorter and involved a more main road, but it had a cycle carriageway so I thought it'd be safer. It wasn't. There were gaps in the kerb between the cycle carriageway and the motorists' one every time there was a drive, and one of them had a lorry parked right up to the gap, so the car turning left across the cycle carriageway couldn't see if there was anything coming, and I went into him at full tilt.

Bastard wouldn't accept it was his fault, either; said it was "an accident". He said, "you're all right" when it had become clear I had suffered no worse than cuts and bruises, "but look at the mess you've made of my number plate." Screw your number plate; I'm a human being! I made two mistakes then: first, I lost my cool and started shouting at him (and he started shouting back), and secondly I cycled off (my bike apparently being undamaged) without getting contact details of the pedestrians who'd observed it was definitely his fault, so if I'd wanted to contact the police, it would have been my word against his.

I hope I'm back to normal in time for my coast-to-coast ride in two and a half weeks. After spending an hour this morning transferring an ice pack between my various bruises, they're not too bad, but breathing with my ribs (as opposed to my diaphragm) is a bit painful. It would probably be best for me to go a little while without cycling, but I need to get to Tesco on Thursday to buy fish for the Shabbos lunch I'm hosting this week. I'll (probably) see this evening if I'm capable of cycling home; if I'm not, I'll probably become aware of it quite rapidly, and can turn back and take the Tube.

I'm a bit concerned that I seem to be coming off my bike so much; I don't get the impression from other cyclists that they have so many accidents. Some of them are of course my fault (such as when I failed to realise the noise from my bike was the front mudguard about to fall onto the wheel and stop it dead), and some bad luck (such as when I slipped on black ice when stopping to help another cyclist who'd come off on the ice, when the temperature was 2° above zero and there was no ice anywhere else on my route to work), but still.

I see other people cycling with a child on their bike, but no way if I ever have children would I take that risk. If I have children, I'm getting myself a car.