Combining Motorbiking and Camping

[MG1]

Congrats on passing your bike test Chris!

My biking days appear to be behind me, but in a rather mad few years I covered a pretty respectable mileage and some bike touring.  Awesome fun.  If I ever got a bike again it would be for bike touring rather than the Portaferry TT... well, that would be the plan anyway

I actually really fancy trying some cycle touring ever since I watched the Mark Beaumont docu!  That said I've never particularly enjoyed cycling on the road thanks to some crazy road users, and watching James Cracknell's Race Across America didn't inspire further confidence!

I seen some crazy cyclists during lap the lough. One lady had a horrible crash, guy cut in front of her clipped her front wheel, she came off her bike and head first into an on coming car. Last i heard she was in a wheel chair paralysed from the waist down.

[twentyclicks]

Jees - that's nasty both to happen & witness! 

<musing>
I'm always a bit wary riding close to other people - you can only really do it if you are similar levels of ability and are on the same page... people forget the wheels stick out the front and back and can easily overlap. Some people also seem to stop dead at any small rise - they just back off immediately and you near go right into the back of them. Only time I'd wear a helmet is group riding or if I was to enter a race (not likely  ) as you commit to a situation where you would have no time or space to react and are likely to tip on your noggin.

With cars you need to position yourself really well... I reckon there is a huge percentage difference in people who would risk knocking you off and 'pretending it didn't happen or you rode into the side of them and knocked yourself off', to those who would actually run you clean down in front of them. They may get frustrated and annoyed, but it forces them to overtake properly. You are only in danger of gestures or a quick ignorant rant. If you give them an opportunity to do something stupid or squeeze past they will without thinking.
The Cracknell thing perhaps falls into this - he was trying to get across country quickly so probably on a main highway and sitting right at the side to allow the fast traffic past - fair enough, but an inattentive big rig clipped him (we've all seen 'The World's Wildest Police Videos'  ). James probably had nowhere to go, or exhausted himself, didn't realise what was happening around him until in the ditch/hospital. It's a mix of unideal factors due to the particular circumstances he signed up for... his campaign for everyone to wear helmets is a bit of a crusade (I find it interesting to wonder if psychologically it is a reactionary cover up for misgivings over his part in the incident - attention, or being there in the first place; or even just shock at being confronted with his own mortality?). With reference to World's Wildest Police Videos again; it's not hard to imagine that helmet or not, he could have been mincemeat. An unlucky situation with a lucky outcome. <end musing>