Mechanical lucky escapes

[Cudzoziemiec]

Especially when they're engineered by people from countries with decent road maintenance.

Suddenly the economic claims of Brexit make sense. We're going to make Britain's fortune exporting cycle parts to the "developing world".

[Palinurus]

Once rode to work, no problems. Just as I was leaving work I applied some front brake and had none- hadn't done up the adjuster after cleaning the pads and rims at the weekend.

So I rode to work brakeless fixed without noticing. Not sure how often I use the front brake normally (I imagine a few times if only to get the pedals in the right place, but if I'm lucky with the very few traffic lights and junctions...) It was probably good I hadn't needed to stop in a hurry though.

[citoyen]

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

I was riding an unfamiliar bike for the first time, descending at speed on a wet road, when I was called on to make an emergency stop after a lorry started reversing out of a drive. It took a lot longer to come to a halt than I expected, and the back wheel locking up didn't help. Fortunately I was able to stop with centimetres to spare.

Before carrying on, I inspected the bike to see if I could work out what was the problem. It took me several minutes of head scratching before I realised that the brakes were set up European style - front/left, rear/right.

I'd already done at least 20 miles on the bike, and although I'd noticed the bike behaving slightly oddly under braking before that moment, I hadn't twigged why. That was perhaps not the best moment to find out.

[Greenbank]

Part of the free cycle training I did a few years ago was the ABCD check *before every ride*.

Air (check the tyre pressures)
Brakes (check that both work)
Chain (check it's not too gunky or rusty)
Dangly bits (make sure there are no rucksack or pannier straps that could stray into the wheel)

Having got into the routine of doing this before setting off on every ride I've managed to catch a few things before they could have escalated (mostly D - pannier shoulder straps not secured properly, but once it was B - the front V-brakes not reseated properly after fiddling with the wheel the night before).

A brake check (push bike, apply one brake, check wheel locks up, repeat with other), done properly, would have alerted you to the unexpected brake setup.