01 CAt Man Do

...So today I was really wanting to get out to do a nice road ride. Temps were close to 75°F, bright sunshine, almost perfect except for some blasted heavy winds. I decided to wait till late to see if the winds died. Luckily, they did.

Started my ride around 10:00Pm. I have very good lights so no worries. Two very bright rear lamps, a good multi-mode 1200 lumen front lamp and a mult-LED flasher mounted to the front fork. Add wheel lights to that mix and I stand out like a sore thumb.

Basically I'm half way into my ride when a car is passing me while I'm just coming off an extended moderate level climb. As the car is approaching I hear some one from the car make a noise and then something hits the back of my bike.

At first I thought I had a bottle thrown at me. The car passed and I tried to ID the car but it was quite dark and I wasn't using my brights at the moment. After the initial "WTF" moment passed I realized that the car was approaching a stop light. It dawned on me that I might be able to catch him at the light. I was maybe two or three tenths of a mile away and decided to stand up and hit it. I'm near 60 yrs old and just finished climbing a long hill but it's amazing how adrenaline can pick you up when you're pissed. I got about 200ft. away before the little shiuts got the light and then made a turn.

I pulled off at a convenience store and called police. They arrived in moments but since I couldn't I.D. the car or tag ( just small white older car ) I wasn't much help.

Later when I got home I inspected my bike and realized that it couldn't have been a bottle that was thrown. That would of done way more damage. I also noticed a yellow gel-like substance on the back of my rear fender as well as some bright yellow gunk on the side of my wheels. This couldn't of been beer as I originally thought. It didn't smell like beer, it didn't look like beer and I heard no bottle falling to the ground. What the hell was it? That was when it dawned on me. Paint ball?...Looks like some one coughed up a major yellow loogi and spit it on back of my fender. I have no experience with paint balls but whatever it was rattled the back wheel. Other than that I see no damage.

In hind sight; No longer will I leave my more powerful Xeccon S-12 helmet lamp home when on the road. Usually I just mount a single cell XPG torch on the helmet for a little extra on the down hills. The S-12 on the other hand can throw quite a tight spot a good long ways. Good enough to get a couple numbers on a tag or to see the car better.

With all this in mind I came up with some pointers on "What to do when being threatened by yahoos" First, keep your cool. Try to I.D. the car or tag. Glance at your watch to remember "when it happened". If you think you might be able to catch the car at a light, TURN YOUR FRONT LIGHTS OUT. Don't let the bastard see you coming. Don't confront the person just try to get as much info on the car, driver or passengers as possible. If you have time to take a cell phone photo that would be great. Call the police as soon as possible. Give the best info you can but don't speculate on the type of car unless you really know for sure.. I hope this info helps others.

zymphad

I'm stunned. Someone shot your bike with a paintball gun?

01 CAt Man Do

At the moment this is my best guess.

EnsitMike

Did some paint balling in my day and the only thing that sounds odd about this is that they only hit you once. Most guns can shoot rather fast and I don't see why they would spare you another 5 rounds into you and your bike.

Did you rule out egg?

01 CAt Man Do

Just moments ago I was looking over my bike gear and noticed my shoes got a good bit on them. I found some hard white pieces on my shoes with some yellow on it. That's when I figured it was an egg. Don't know why I didn't think of that first. When I saw your post I smiled.

Yes, if someone had a paint ball gun they could of let off multiple rounds but that might be enough to make someone fall. This was just some young punks out for some stupid laughs. I've heard of people throwing eggs from cars before but usually it is because someone has done something stupid and the dopes are trying to pay them back. I was doing nothing but riding a bike down the road. Since it was a multi-lane road there is no way anyone could claim I was in their way, especially at that time of night. ( although the road had no shoulder )

There is one thing I am quite happy about. I'm sure that while the guy was waiting at the light that he must of been looking in his mirror and saw that I was closing in. I bet that had him worried. Then again people like this are so stupid that he might not of even considered that I might have caught up to him. Another 15-20 seconds and I'd of had him.

Machka 

I know it is annoying, but ...

You're not hurt ... your bicycle isn't hurt ... life is still good.

I suspect we've all had something thrown at us at one point or another. Thank goodness most people have really bad aim, especially from a moving vehicle.

What surprises me is that the police came out to where you were for that. Must have been a slow night.

Got pics?

Campag4life

My takeaway is...speeding up to try to catch them is wrong. Getting their plate number is fine as long as you can get away.
Reason? because if somebody did that there are two of them at least....maybe more. What are you going to do if 3 crazy guys jump out of a car and attack you?
If you aren't hurt, best to stay away unless you know for sure there is only one of them and you can fight. Even if you have experience fighting, if the guy has a club, knife or a gun and feels threatened, then he may use it.

Machka 

People throw eggs all the time. Just be glad that you didn't get "pumpkin-ed" like one my cars did a few years ago.

thump55

People can't afford paintball guns anymore, so many are carrying around loaded chickens instead. The reloading takes about a day, but with a good squeeze you can get more velocity than a paintball.

They must have had one with a scope on it to make such an accurate shot...trouble indeed.

StanSeven

It's best to just laugh something like that off. It's just an egg and probably kids having fun.

The only bad thing about eggs is they damage paint if left on too long

Weatherby

Surprised the police responded. I had a car run me off the road and then come back not once but twice to run me off again. I got the plate and stopped at the local PD a couple miles down the road. They laughed at me and did not even fill out a report or investigate. Nothing.

bt

so chickens were driving the car?

EnsitMike

+1

goenrdoug

And there you'll be, trying to fight in shoes with pedal clips on the bottom of them...

Probably drunk teenagers with a dozen eggs, driving around egging anything that strikes their fancy. Stupid, but mostly-harmless drunk kid fun..

danmc

Just thank God they didn't have a loaded cow with them. THAT can do some serious damage.

PatrickGSR94

So.... what exactly would you have done if you had caught up to the car?

01 CAt Man Do

I guess some people didn't read the entirety of my first post. The last paragraph should of made clear I was not advocating confrontation. I do believe however in giving someone their just due. Getting the tag number and proper Car I.D. would of made my day.

In the particular place this happened I was in the vicinity of a hospital and a college. Where I live this area has a big time police presence. It is also a bit of a "mini-hood". Generally I never think about stuff like this but since I also sometimes work in the area I am aware of the local demographic. I'll remember that the next time I do a late night bike ride.

Yep, I got off relatively unscathed. Took about 5 minutes to clean my bike off. Haven't done the shoes yet but they should be no problem. All things considered it could of been much worse.

cderalow

while i can appreciate this concept (after all I was at one point notorious for stupid drunk fun), hitting a person on a bike with a solid (or even semi solid in the case of an egg) object could be seriously harmful.

hitting proper areas could cause crash or worse.

indyfabz

You're not kidding. At the PA Farm Show a cow with its rear turned towards an aisle decided to projectile you know what in the direction of my then GF and I as we were walking by. The GFD took the brunt of the fir. The um, "juice" ended up running down her leg, soaking her sock and seeping into her sneaker. I suffered not much more than a graze wound to my right butt cheek. It was pretty much the grossest thing I have ever experienced.

indyfabz

IMO, you did the right thing by trying to get some identifying information. People who do such things need to be taught a lesson. I was once invloved in a sitaution where, through a little luck and sleuthing, I caught a person who had damaged my friend's car and left the scene the night before. It was most satisfying when the cops made the kid sort of fess up even though the kid lied and said he thought he had hit a light pole. He knew what he had done. But I like to think the incident at least made him a little more of a careful driver.

surgeonstone

Justin Bieber has just made a Bebliver out of you. Sucks, could have easily ended up worse.

surgeonstone

Really it's not. Something as seemingly stupid as that could easily have provoked a crash and injury.

01 CAt Man Do

I can laugh it off NOW but only because nothing bad happened. On the other hand, I will count myself as being lucky. If the egg hits me in the face I might have lost the ability to see for a couple seconds and that could have caused a serious accident. Eggs are quite slimy when broken. If a raw egg were to cover enough of a tire and the rider was going around a sharp turn, quite possible for the tire to slip out from lack of traction. I actually experienced that very thing as kid once although it was because I rode over a patch of oil on the road ( while going around a turn on a downhill.. ...ouch! ).

Anyway, I caulked it all up to a new learning experience. One of the things I've learned is that it is almost impossible to I.D. a car tag WHILE the car is passing ( even if you have the tag illuminated with a bright lamp ). Tonight I experimented with my riding torch and discovered that it actually works very well at illuminating a rear tag. The problem is that when the vehicle is over 50 feet away reading the tag is very, very hard to see ( and I was just looking at the tags of parked cars. ) Knowing this I might as well forget about trying to ID a tag on a moving vehicle UNLESS the car is stopped and I'm close enough to read it.

While pondering these things it brought to mind something that I experienced a couple weeks ago; I was sitting in my work vehicle at a 7-11 convenience store when a car pulled up next to me with strange devices mounted to both the hood and rear trunk. Being curious I asked the driver what the things were on his car. Turns out they were devices for reading vehicle VIN codes at a distance. ( Private contractor working for the DMV ). Anyway, this got me thinking; "Wouldn't it be nice to have something like that hooked up on your bike and linked up to your Smart Phone via Bluetooth"?

Now before someone says, "Not going to happen because the contractors have special permission to access the DMV network". True, but the average person wouldn't need the info that links the VIN to the DMV, you just need the VIN and a time stamp. If someone runs you off the road in a car you could relay the VIN information to the police ( with your visual I.D. of the car ) and let them do their thing. Hey, it could work! I don't know about anyone else but I'd be willing to pay a couple hundred bucks for a compact set-up that could mount on a bike and link with my phone. Money to be made by someone who markets it first ( That is if someone doesn't already sell something like this. )

Machka 

Let me introduce you to the Advocacy and Safety forum ... Advocacy & Safety

I think it might be your kind of place.

SSRI

it could have beem an old school stock pump gun, ( no e trigger or eye)