I was reminded yesterday of the importance of signalling your intent when
riding in a bunch.....I was riding along the Yarra Trail with my 8 y.o. son
and 6 y.o. daughter. I had only recently been able to convince my daughter
that she didn't need training wheels and this was pretty well our first ride
together with all three of us on two wheels only. We were cruising along
and my daughter was doing really well, even ringing her bell at any walkers
and other riders that we saw. Anyway, she was in front, I was about 5m to
8m or so behind her and my son was another 5m or so behind me. We were
cruising along on a slight downhill at no great speed (less than 10km/h) and
as I decided to have a drink, my son asked me something. I turned my head
for a second or two to see what he was on about and when I looked back to
the front, my daughter had stopped dead in front of me and I was about to
hit her. I only had my left hand on the bars and I locked up the rear tyre
but still managed to scone the back of her head with my right bar-end
(fortunately she had a helmet on). We got tangled up and I fell away from
her to the left....I had already taken my right foot out as we crashed but
didn't get the left one out in time.....was all in slow motion as I toppled
over and landed on the ground and my daughter also came over on top of me
and my bike. I half managed to prop her up as she fell and then had to
untangle both her and myself from the bikes. I lost a bit of skin off my
elbow and my daughter had a couple of scratches on her legs where she got
tangled in the bikes but the worst part I think was the shock of the whole
thing to her. She was really upset and it took a good 5 minutes of cuddling
and coaxing before I convinced her to get back on the bike with strict
instructions to say "Daddy I'm Stopping" very clearly prior to her hitting
the anchors. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and she stopped at
least 10 more times without forgetting to give the signal first......gotta
teach them young.
I guess it was a good reminder that kids are unpredictable and in hindsight
I should have been further back so that I had more time to react....either
that or I should have been looking where I was going!!! I have taken that
lesson on board and will make sure that it doesn't happen again.
We rode about 6km all up which I think is a good start for her. At least
she is keen to go again pretty soon!!!
There were quite a few other bikes out and about and I was pretty
disappointed that only one person sounded their bell as they approached us
from behind. This is pretty slack!!! I make a point of signalling everyone
that I am going to pass that I am coming, especially parents with young kids
so that they have time to pass the warning on. A couple of times guys flew
past and didn't miss my kids by much......strangely enough I didn't get any
replies when I suggested that they provide some sort of warning in the
future.
Might have to ride the mountain bike out past Warrandyte in the morning just
for something to do.......6km at barely running pace is just not enough!!!!
Gags