Tripleshot Cycling

How about with this string we can offer personal examples (no names other than your own please) of incidents or even accidents that tought us something. Here, I’ll go first:

A few Tuesdays ago during our A2 ride of the boxes, I overlapped wheels with a “new to me” rider (sorry - honestly can’t remember his name but totally excellent Dude). Now to say we “overlapped” wheels is a bit of an understatement. WE RUBBED WHEELS and likely smeared tires and carbon rims on both sides of … His back wheel and my front wheel.

For those who haven’t heard it before, You’re not supposed to hit the wheel in FRONT of YOU!!

So - Full disclosure - this was entirely MY FAULT.

But the point of this post is not about laying blame - it honestly never should be from the proactive safety approach to take hold. The point of this post is to give credit not only to this amazing New to me Clubmate and Dude but also to give thanks to Shawn M and Andrew N for having given me the opportunity to “practice rubbing wheels” on grass a year ago when the Club offered kind of a beginner how to ride bikes in a group clinic to about 8 or 10 of us who met at like 6 or 7 pm one night a week for 2 or 3 consecutive weeks.

I got to practice this experience with Markus K. We took turns being the front or rear rider and it is my beilef that this contributed 100% to my not crashing - or even overreacting - when it just organically (unfortunately) happened to us as we climbed up Henderson to merge with Foul Bay Road. Yes we talked about it after when we finished at Beacon Hill Park but that was just Him and Me … sharing this here and now (albeit a bit tardy - sorry, but work sometimes gets in the way) gives it a bit of staying power and potential dissemination to the membership at large. … When was the last time You practiced rubbing wheels with the rider in front of You?

It can be done annually - more or less frequently - but if you’ve never experienced it yet - what a difference it makes to have actually experienced and “practiced” it. Again, like so many parts of “Safety” it’s not about perfection at all but rather about simply moving the needle in a positive direction and practicing this skill is one way to do that.

So hats off to TS Management and most specifically Shawn, Andrew and Awesome A2 Dude for helping save my bacon and at very least, a nasty case of road rash.

Thanks for sharing James, truly informative. Cheers, Gabe

Hey Gabe … a very important add on here (again these thoughts and realities don’t always come out until well after the event/incident/accident) … is that I have rubbed wheels on one other occasion. It was a TS Sunday social road ride with Joe B in front and Todd Hallett behind … and yes, again I was in the rear and 100% at fault.

But the results were entirely different.

On that occasion (prior to the clinic that allowed me to purposely practice rubbing wheels) I went down and had a very good case of road rash and came to a stop in the middle of the lane. A lane normally well travelled by vehicles much heavier and more damaging than a bicycle!

In Safety committed cultures and organizations, one common saying is: “Learn from the mistakes of others … you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself!”

Gabe the “knee-jerk reactions” that are 100% part of our normal and healthy bodies don’t always serve us in every situation. This is one of those occasions where the difference here is all about the practicing of a skill that essentially overrides our otherwise normal knee-jerk reaction! You have to do more than simply “talk about it” … it actually has to be practiced to be retained and available to us in the moment.