Its been raining on and off all day, roads still quite slick. on the way home from dropping mates off from the pub, pass along a mile or two stretch of a-road. Follow a guy on a scooter onto it from an island, keep my distance, seems its a derestricted 50cc as he gets up to speed quickly, but tops out around 45 in a few moments. Clear road, easy overtaking manoeuver, leave plenty of room and carry on at 65. He then catches up and follows fairly close at that speed (so, ok, it's a 125 then, and he's farting around).... not to worry as i'm turning off in a minute. Do so. He follows - and flips main beam on, and it's only a bloody HID upgrade. Not happy with this. Cane it as much as the tray can. He keeps pace.
Now down this particular, narrower, unlit minor road (still 60 limit) is a not particularly friendly corner thats been in the paper recently for being an accident blackspot, already was planning to take it slower than i'm going, and matey is blinding me so i'll have to go slower still - so i brake. Not particularly hard, like.
He brakes alright for a second or two (keeping a constant "distance"), then, while i'm still coming down to a civilised cornering speed, he loses it on the wet surface. Not even in time to react, the light zooms closer and he smacks off the rear window.
Of course, I stop as quick as i can after that. This sh*t wasn't part of the game plan.
Back up a bit, open door... check he's alright and try to find out what kind of game he's playing. All limbs seem in order, as do his lungs. Bike goes upright, wheels turn, engine starts, lights come on, or at least the sidelight does. As it's an isolated country road in the middle of redneck nowhere, and I'm alone with someone who may very well be one of the notoriously abusive travellers who have been causing trouble roundabouts, in what seems like fully working order and with fair reason to stick me one in the heat of the moment, I don't feel like getting out or giving him my contact details. If he wants, he can go to the police station and give them my reg - I'm sure he's got it printed large enough on his mind.
I have reported it to the police myself (after getting home - naturally, as there's no visible injury, no more so than if he'd come right off on that corner as he would have anyway at that speed, they didn't give a tinkers toss apart from telling me to tell the insurers and come in to pick up a self reporting form) and am now looking for my insurer's notification phone number... Wonder if there's a three strikes rule for no-fault non-claims where they brand you a jinx? (two different smacks to the polo while it was parked, and now this).
Don't know what's really going to come of this, i'm hoping that matey takes his lumps and accepts it as a lesson to not ride ten yards off someone's bumper in excess of the limit, in the wet, on something with smaller tyre contact patches than the average mountain bike...... then again, he might have got my plate and go great guns. Checked the car out ... it's made of stern stuff. Not a scratch, not a dent. All that seems to have happened is he clocked the number plate light on the way down and so that's now shining off in completely the wrong direction (internally)... got a glowing bumper but an invisible plate (or, it was already busted, and he never got my number at all?).
Hopefully it's less an indication of strong construction and more one of very low impact energy. Given how hard i was braking and how far away he was, it couldn't be too much. I've had similar tumbles on my ATB when younger at all of about 15mph (appropriately, slipstreaming a car in the rain, and having the front wheel lock trying to outbrake them - same as what he said happened).
Wondering if i did a bad thing there by driving off (after checking he was ok, and could still get home, at least!) vs sticking behind, swapping details etc.
All to do, is to call 'em up, then get this form, and see what happened. Lady on the phone was right cheesed at me not having got his details, but hey... i wasnt going to leave myself exposed in that place... he wants em, he can ask for em. I did tell her where it happened. Maybe they'll go see if anyone's dead and collapsed there. There's already a few units in the area for another monster accident that's closed a road.
As if there wasn't enough stuff to deal with already
**edited by josh**
