dkohara

Have just read your post. Thanks for submitting it for comment. The reply seems to be assuming a single parked car, when in fact the parked cars were in a line 150-200 yards long, so my pull out was way back, and the car that knocked me off wasn't there then. No other cars overtook me whilst I was passing, he caught me up as we were approaching the junction ahead and squeezed me left into the parked cars. I had braked by this point (because I knew I wasn't going to get through the ever decreasing gap he was leaving), so was travelling relatively slowly, but it still hurts when you hit the road!

I've been talking via email with Steve, who tells me that my battery has been irreparably damaged by leaving it uncharged over the winter. There is nothing about this in the Wisper 905se City manual under 'Battery Care', other than to offer guidance for keeping it in 'top condition'. A new battery is £530.

OK, thanks David.

Hi, hope you don't mind me joining this thread, but I have a battery problem. It's the same high capacity battery for the Wisper 905 City, but have found that it will no longer charge with the supplied charger. The battery is completely flat, as I haven't run it over the winter. Was charging fine up until October last year. What I see is the charger dispalys an orange light, the fan flicks over, then the light turns green and no charging occurs. Is the fault with the battery, or the charger?

One of things i've learned over the years of posting on bulletin boards is that no matter how hard you try, and no matter how patient you are, you just can't educate Pork.

If you didn't want to talk about the original post, why didn't you start your own thread, rather than confusing things by starting another conversation about another topic on this thread?

Sounds like Total Nirvana.

Yes, anticipation always tends to work in your favour, and prime riding position is great, but when the guy commits himself to get past you by driving on the opposite side of the road, then moves back to squeeze your pips, there's not a lot of 'road command' you can do without making yourself even more vulnerable. Pushing him further onto the wrong side of the road would have just resulted in a more violent side swipe as he tried to avoid the oncoming car. I had slowed down anyway because I had a junction coming up behind a white van parked on my left, and I couldn't see beyond the van. I was braking to try to get him past me, but he decelerated at the same rate and moved across into me. Thankfully, speeds were low, but he could easily have run over my arm or something as I came off. Once I knew the collision was inevitable, reducing the speed of it was the only thing I could do.

Now there's an idea. What about a cycle helmet with a blue light on the top? onmebike seems to referring to a completely different set of circumstances to mine. Wasn't on a dual carriageway (never ever said I was), there was a car parked on the other side of the street (not that cars were parked in parallel on both sides of the street). Assumed i'd pulled out in front of someone (when i'd been on the same lateral for 200yds). Said I should give way to a faster outside lane (there wasn't one, up here in North East England we call it 'the other side of the road'). You say we should anticipate the hazard ahead. There wasn't a hazard ahead in my case, the hazard approached from the rear, then the side. Please ask in future onmebike, before assuming things and condemning without the full facts.

Yes, that's the very same road, although not at the point the accident happened. Houses on the right have drives, houses on the left mostly do not, so typically park in the street. I included the car to show how much of the road a parked car takes up, and also to give an indication of where a car overtaking me must have been relative to the rest of the road. In short, he'd be on the wrong side of the road. When a junction is 50 yards ahead, this is not a clever place to be, especially when he notices oncoming traffic, so he pulled over left, sandwiching me into an ever decreasing gap. He slowed as I slowed, so we stayed alongside one another, then he clipped me.

Err, I didn't. Read the rest of my posts. I was already overtaking cars and had 'stayed out' for these two. No pulling out in front of faster vehicles or anything like that.

Pic of the road Here's a view of a section of the lateral road repairs. They're deteriorated a lot over the winter since this Google Maps pic was taken. To cycle through here safely, you really need to be in the middle of the road!

Seems a slightly bruised thumb is the only real damage. I'll monitor my physical state for the next week or so to make sure I don't suffer anything untoward. I'm back on the road today.

That's maybe because I didn't report the full situation. Some people will still have a go at pitching blame though, even without the full facts. There were no dodgy manouevres by me, no pullouts without looking, or anything like that, just a driver who saw me from 200 yards away and incorrectly judged a gap and tried to squeeze through at my expense.

I agree about the 'nearness to home' thing. As a cyclist though I have to really concentrate on that road, although it's straight, the road surface is broken in places, and badly subsided patch-ups exist right on the riding line. Sometimes you can't take the exact line you want, for fear of being pitched off by the state of it. It's appalling really, a real wrist breaker. Maybe I can post some pictures later?

The two parked cars were just part of a long line I was overtaking at the time. The street on that side has parked cars all the way along. The decision and manoeuvre to overtake on my part was taken maybe 200 yards back. I never actually pulled back in from the previous set of parked cars. The Xsara Picasso wasn't there then, so I didn't actually pull out in front of anyone. He told me he'd seen me, knew I was there (I wear a dayglo orange jacket), but unfortunately faced with the choice of hitting the oncoming car or risking hitting me, he chose the latter. He misjudged his overtaking space and admitted he was distracted by his sister waving at him from the other side of the road. PS. I already have a copy of Cyclecraft.

I basically rattled a bit between the two cars, at lowish speed, so not too much damage. I know the guy who hit me, he used to pick me up and give a lift along that same stretch of road. His wife was his passenger, but they didn't know it was me he'd hit until after I got up. I think it was a momentary lack of concentration on his part. Thing is, i was a good 3ft from the parked cars to start with, but he shouldn't have overtaken me when i was already doing it. There was absolutely nothing i could do, other than to try to minimise the speed of the pending crash.

Was in my last 400 yds of my journey home. I was overtaking two parked cars, but was only going slow as there is a junction about 50 yards ahead on the left and the road surface is shocking. As i overtook the first car, a Xsara Picasso began to overtake me. There was a car parked on the opposite side, and an oncoming driver also tried to squeeze through the gap. My available space narrowed until the car that was overtaking me clipped my right handlebar with his wingmirror. I was going about 5mph max by this time, but the impact turned my front wheel, i hit the parked car inside me and came off. I wasn't hurt, apart from a jarred right wrist/thumb. The bike (Wisper 905se city) was ok apart from a displaced chain. The driver that hit me lives 4 doors up from me. He'd stopped to make sure I was ok, but realised he was in the wrong and was very sheepish. He also admitted he'd been distracted by his sister waving at him from across the road! I'll see what happens to the thumb/wrist before i decide whether to report anything tomorrow. Feeling a bit ropey now though.

I'm going to take the bike to my local bike shop tomorrow and ask him to replace the tube and fit some Schwalbes. At the moment I just don't have the time to do it myself, and i'll be supporting a local business. Doing the rear wheel thing out on the road is just not practical, so need tyres I can rely on.

Presumably I need to put it in it's lowest gear to help? I was going to put it into my local bike shop, but I might just do it myself. Is it easy? I might invest in some puncture resistant tyres as well whilst I'm on.

Got my first puncture after 4 months cycling to work and back (1,100 miles in total) this morning. It's a rear wheel one. I manged to get to work. I have never had the rear wheel off my bike before. Does it come off easily? What do I need to do?

After emailing the manufacturers yesterday, I received a phone call this morning from them. We talked about the problems I was having and the Bicygnals guy said he would mail me out a new set of lights (tested beforehand) and I should return the faulty ones when I was happy the replacements worked for me. Excellent service - they rang back when they said they would, replied to my emails and have done everything they can to resolve the situation and keep me happy. Nice people too.

I've talked to a few people locally and they all thing it's a great idea. My idea of commuting is not to arrive at my destination with my heart pounding out of my chest and me bathed in sweat. I like to ride comforatably with a certain degree of decorum, and get to where i'm going in reasonable time without having a coronary. My bike is fully insured against accidents (including third party liabilty) and theft. I obviously don't pay road tax, but then again I don't damage them (they're more likely to damage me). Within the fortnight i've been cycling on this bike, i've had one near miss (pedestrian running into the road without looking) and two examples of being cut up at traffic-calming obstacles by car drivers who reckon they can fit an 8ft wide car through a 6ft gap! Happy days.

I've contacted goeco on the email address further up the thread who say they think that it is Halfords responsibility to explain how to set these up properly, but i'm not sure it is. I'll contact the manufacturer and see what they say and report back.

Thanks for the help David. I got the off road switch fitted fine. Now all I need to do is try to sort out these Bicygnals lights I bought that I can't get working.