Commuting - Any funny story about coming off bike?

Not long after getting back on the saddle and commuting to work on my 10 year old beast, I was approximately 100 yards from home cycling alongside a river bank on one side if the path and nettles on the other.

To my delight a squirrel jumped out from the nettles (they are considered cure in the UK), he dived back in the nettles once he caught glimpse of the beast, but what he did was start a chain of events that ended in disaster. By jumping back in the nettles he obviously startled his mate, who jumped out and started to run alongside my front wheel, I'm thinking awww, how cute. The squirrel thought oh ****, how do I cross the path. He made a dart towards my tyre, I swerved to miss the little cuddly creature, but the damp path from the river and my feet in toe clips, ultimately had me sliding horizontal on the path and down towards the river. I did stop in time from hitting the water, but with a 3" gash in my shin, grazed elbows and damaged ego.

People were walking close by and seen me fall but couldn't see the reason why, I heard them laughing.

I picked myself up and hobbled home to hang my head in shame and tell the wife about my ordeal, who also laughed by the way.

I hate squirrels now and do not deviate from my path now regardless if the furry little rodents decide to jump out.

My next problem is ducks that are on the wrong side of the path when I turn up, and are determined to get back to the safety of the water.

I'm thinking ducks taste nicer than squirrels though.

I sorry to hear of your unfortunate encounter with a @#$% squirrel, here in the US in Georgia they are referred to as tree rats and treated accordingly.
Regards
Bill

Don't worry, after a few weeks, you'll get back to caring about animals again. It's just your nature!

You're a good guy, Puff! :thumb:

At least that was a squirrel not a deer ;)

braised squirrel is delicious.

So is duck! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

oh dang this just reminded me of a couple of squirrels I saw yesterday evening at the park. Saw one crossing the road up ahead of me, just slowly moseying on across, which is weird because normally you always see them "bounding" along quickly. He bounded as I got close. :p Then later crossing a wooden bridge across a creek, a squirrel jumped out of the brush alongside the bridge, right next to me, and then darted on across the bridge ahead of me.

" Any funny story about coming off bike? "

None what so ever.

Back in April my boss sent me to NJ for training. Rather than giving up cycling for the week I went to one of the big box stores and bought a cheap (<$100) mountain bike. Just outside the store, after I removed the crap, ads, etc from the bike and thought I was prepared I mounted. The handlebars which hadn't given any sign of being loose went one way, I went the other, rolled over and got back up.

Nothing hurt except my pride. Went back in the store borrowed some tools from the shelf fixed it and rode off. BTW, pedal broke off after 26 miles and returned the bike to the same store. You get what you pay for.

I used to ride with a friend early in the mornings. We'd go out real early and come back on the bike path. One day, we're riding side by side chatting back heading back and we get to where she sometimes turns off. "See you tomorrow!" she says, and a split second later I remember she normally turns left. I'm to her left and slightly behind. She turns and her rear wheel takes out my front wheel and I go down like a sack of potatoes. We were going slow so other than a minor scrape I was fine. Just a case of 2 cyclists being dumb.

I also fell the first time I used clipless pedals many years ago. Was doing fine, came to a set of lights (with a car stopped to my left). I of course lean left, and forget to unclip. As I slowly start tipping over I'm frantically trying to unclip. Ended up going down, helmet to right front car bumber. The driver, totally freaked out bounds out of his car. Apparently, he thought I was having a seizure because I fell over twitching violently (the twitching being me trying to unclip my left foot). Once he found out I was fine we both had a good laugh.

I've also had not funny crashes but those two were funny with no damage apart to pride/ego.