New shorts, please!

[Tourist Tony]

Riding into Crawley this morning in the rain, I saw WVM to my right, waiting to pull out and turn to his right. As I came up to him, out he came, as I had half expected.
He had the good grace to sit in the opposite lane till he had passed me, which was nice, and then pulled in front of me and braked hard for a left turn. Which I had also half expected, and was thus able to brake for. That was not the problem...
The problem was the length of rope hanging off the back of his van.
With a towed car at the other end of it.
Best (only) sideways bunny hop onto a footpath I have ever managed.

[Charlotte]

Ninja bike skillz there, Tony 

[Jacomus]

Holy crap!

Glad your Cycle-Fu was in full working order.

[teethgrinder]

Sounds like yet another case of, "It's only a bike, it's not moving."
I've had people pull out from the right when I've been riding along at 30mph. I overtook one once.
It was funny watching them look in all their mirrors with a puzzled look on their face, trying to work out the vanishing cyclist trick. Almost as funny as the, "How the f**k did he get there?" look on their faces when they saw said cyclist in front of them and getting away.
But, my usual trick, if the road is clear, as it often is in these situations because they don't usualy pull out if a car is around, is to ride alongside them on the outside and watch them try and see where I got to as we both trundle along at 25-30 mph. They never know what to do next.
Haven't done that for a while though. (cos I'm getting slow)

[Pete]

Take care Tony!  Tow-ropes can be very scary!

I recall when I was a kid, on holiday in Italy with my parents.  Our car broke down and the truck sent out from the garage attached our car to it with a long tow-rope.  Just as the truck was starting off, a priest in long gown chose to cross the road between the two vehicles, he didn't notice the rope lying slack on the road, until it tightened beneath him and threw him to the ground.  Very nasty looking.  But he wasn't badly hurt, thankfully.

[Jasper the surreal cyclist]

Last year we were out at an RTC (road traffic collision). After we had got the guy out we set about pulling the car out of the ditch. We used the winch on the front of the rescue tender for this. The traffic had been stopped but an erstwhile member of my club (on his bike) thought he could get through, but being an old bloke with failing eyesight (almost a requirement for club membership), he did not suss the cable. Straight over the bars......and because we were responsible for the scene I get to do the accident investigation, I of course piled all the blame onto poor old Trevor. Mind you, he was very good natured about it all.

[fuzzy]

Tony,

I'm glad you were alert and in Ninja mode

Brings to mind a story imparted to me about a CoL Police cyle patrol. The Inspector was leading the return to the Station. There was a queue of traffic outside the garage entrance which they needed to turn right to get into. The Inspector was the only Officer that did not sport the fact that the front vehicle adjacent to the garage was towing the vehicle behind it.

I will leave the rest to you imagination

[tonyh]

Well done sir!

And thanks for the story. I'm hoping reading it (and others) does help the building of the right kind of wise alertness.

another Tony