Alarm went off, I got out of bed later than I should have, and I got my trusty bike out of the dimly lit, slightly damp and heavily cobwebbed old coal bunker where it lives.
I set off on my usual jaunt to work but before I knew it I was sprawled on the road outside Shepherd's Bush Market tube station! Luckily I was in the bus lane and perhaps even luckier I wasn't being trailed by one of the big red beasts that roam London!!
It's pretty amazing how quickly your natural instinct for survival kicks in because I was up off the tarmac in a flash collecting bike parts that had dotted themselves over Uxbridge Road. A few people came to make sure I was all right but I was in a bit of a daze really so I can't really remember what they said to me. I could see that I had a few cuts and scrapes but I was just intent on trying to work out why I had took a dive!
My initial thought was that my seatpost had snapped but it was still in one piece and securely attached to the frame. It was sans saddle though so the blame had to lie somewhere pretty close.
So, I had the saddle, the brackets that secured it to the post and I also had short bolt that looked like it had sheared in two. That's exactly what had happened because one of the securing brackets still had a the the other half of the bolt screwed into it!
I'm still not sure how a heavy duty bolt can just snap but I needed to get it fixed so headed across the green to the new-ish W12 branch of Cycle Surgery.
Having unsuccessfully tried to secure the saddle with a new bolt (to the surprise of the staff it turns out that there isn't a standard thread on saddle brackets or bolts!) I had to get a new seatpost. More bike expense but it was up and running again and I was finally on my way to work.
As you can see the cuts and scrapes aren't too bad and I always wear a helmet so that saved my head from any bumps. A few bruises are still a bit sore but compared to what I could have ended up with, broken collarbone, broken wrist etc. I'm all OK. The solid Malcolm frame did a good job :)
One thing coming off the bike has made me think about is how wise it is for the Boris Bike scheme to run without providing helmets. I've not heard of any major incidents and the majority of hires seem to be for short hops in the rush-hour or at lunchtime so perhaps it's not worth adding another factor that will limit use of the scheme.
I had a little smile to myself on Friday morning as I rode past the spot of my downfall, hopefully I won't be re-acquainting myself with the tarmac any time soon!
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