I recently decided to buy a new road bike and bought myself a nice Malvern Star Oppy A5 (Alu frame, carbon forks, full 105 group and Mavic Aksium wheels). The Carbon ones would have been nice, but there is always a bit nicer bike going for a bit more money... I absolutely love it. I've registered for the Bicycle NSW commuter challenge (2000km goal by end of march), and for the ride2work day next Wednesday. All looking good.
Then on Tuesday I had a nice ride along the Parra Valley cycleway. Without going into too many specifics, I overtook one group of riders by slowing down and going past. I don't usually call out as I'm not sure what I can say to a recreational rider that wont make them do something silly. Anyway, there was another small group of riders just up ahead that were obviously related to the first. They were on the left side, so I aimed for the right of the track and accelerated to get around them. Fatal mistake :doh:. A person behind called out a warning to the group in front and one of them turned 90 degrees across the track and stopped - obviously mistaking the warning for a hail or something similar.
This left me with nowhere to go, and no time to stop. I wasn't going very quick as I had slowed down so much a few meters back, but I was on the power, so stopping wasn't as effective as I would like. Anyway, I T-boned the poor guys wheel and went up an over the bars, landing on my left wrist and hip. He managed to brace himself so didn't go down. One neat side effect of cleat shoes is that when you go over your handle bars, the bike follows... Cheapie CELL bike gloves saved my hands beautifully, but didn't stop me spraining my wrist or brusing/grazing my hip. Had X-rays on the wrist and it's all ok, just hurts like hell though getting better.
I picked myself up and everyone checked if all was ok. My bike was scratched on the head tube, but the forks and wheels appeared unscathed. I'll be going over the carbon forks pretty closely but the look fine at the moment. Utterly stunned that the front wheel was still perfectly true, which makes me think it didn't bear the brunt of the crunch.
So, the long of it is that I'm wondering what others do on cycleways. Do you call something out when overtaking, or just slow down to a crawl every time? Overtaking commuters/more serious cyclists isn't really a problem but recreational riders are less predictable and as I learnt my fears about calling something out and it being misunderstood are well founded. I have decided that school holidays (only realised it was on the way back to work :doh: ) are a great time to not be on some cycleways, but other than that not sure what to do in the situation. Maybe just calling 'Overtaking' is clear enough for at least the adults to understand. I've no problems with overtaking kids at a crawl for safety of all concerned though.
Anyway, hope to be back on the bike soon. Fingers crossed the wrist is good enough for the ride2work next week :2tsup:
Cheers,
Dave