Older, but no wiser

Cycling home today I had a little incident. The front forks broke.

I'd noticed something amiss - it felt like the brakes were sticking or I had a semi-flat tyre. I stopped to check, found nothing obviously wrong, so pedalled off again (not too strenuously - at 35degC today is the hottest day of the year). Within a few yards, the front wheel locked solid, spitting me off the bike - and as my feet were clipped into the pedals I ended up laying sideways in the road, still attached to the bike.

I fell to the left. If I'd fallen to the right, my head would probably have gone under the car that was passing.

I'd just pulled away so was only doing a few mph. Most of the time on that route I'm doing about 20mph and at that speed an instantly-locked front wheel would have sent me flying straight over the handlebars.

I ended up with just grazes and bruises. It could so easily have been a trip to casualty, or worse. So although I had an hours walk, half pushing, half carrying the bike to the nearest station to catch a train for the rest of the way, I counted myself lucky. Or something.