Originally Posted by brokenrobot

This reminds me of another one. It's not really a commuter story, though... I was riding home late one night - fast - and one of a group of teenagers walking down the sidewalk on my right decided to try to scare (or maybe mug?) me. He jumped into the street immediately in front of me, swung his fist, and screamed - but I happened to have a U-lock in my hand, and brought it up purely instinctively to ward him off. He wound up punching the lock - and probably breaking his hand - instead of knocking me off my bike as intended. Very satisfying.