This thread is a totally honest and humble admission of fault from me. No stone throwing.
We have a brutally Darwinian past-time, and I've often wondered how things can go so wrong, so quickly. There have been numerous examples in the past few weeks of a person's misjudgement ending in a fatality (or several).
I've worked hard at making sure I'm capable on the bike, and I ride on the road with loads of capacity spare. I rode with Toto's crew today, thirty or so took the KB trashtalking onto the street and rode the Northland loop.
I have the attention span of a sugared 4 year old, one with ADD. Today's ride is one of the longest that I've done, and I think it was a contributing factor. After 7 hours on the bike, physical pain (buggered knee), dehydration, plain old fashioned fatigue (we rode some great roads, so the concentration level was huge) contributed to my bain fart.
I was riding through a winding valley with ZXRider a while north of Wellsford. The road was two laned, meaning a lane in both directions. As I cut through the valley - I felt like I was in another valley that I know really well in another country, but that other valley and two laned road is a one way stretch. It felt correct to be on the right hand side, as the other valley is actually in a country where people ride/drive on the right. Perhaps the passing lane sign contributed.
Whatever the reason, my brain fart put me onto the wrong side of the road, and as it was an entry to a right hand bend, the white 4wd ute coming towards me appeared at the worst moment, with very little warning.
Now, I want to be clear, it wasn't intentional, I wasn't cutting the line, the ute was perfectly in the right - I was completely in the wrong.
He swerved while I was still trying to work out what was wrong with this picture - his quick thinking spared my life and just about put him in a bank.
This is the first time in 20 odd years of being on the road in cars and on bikes that I've ever made any error close to this magnitude.
My point is that I've had an epiphany - I know understand how it's possible to make such a stupid and critically important error that costs someone their life. No amount of track time, training, reading, practice - prepared me for the fact that my brain could malfunction and put me in harms way.
I'm having a week long stand down from the bike.
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Originally Posted by madbikeboy
Relax Officer Pig, It was just a wheelie
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