First Proper Accident
I consider myself a reasonably defensive rider – as a driver I’d already paid attention to how those around me are driving to get a feel for their predictability and level of awareness (and treat with extra caution if needed). E.g. when cycling if I spot a car coming up to the junction on side roads I look for signs whether they’re going to fully stop and for eye contact from them and recognition they’ve seen me, otherwise I stay especially ready to brake/evade. When riding in cycle or bus lanes I always assume there’s a high chance drivers will not adequately check or give way appropriately before turning across them (this happens so often on the Botley road – the cycle lanes there are marked with right of way where they cross side roads but drivers still often just cut across them).
For my first two years back cycling I’d not had any close calls (granted, those cars turning left across bus lanes/cycle lanes could have easily taken me out if I’d not been mitigating the risk). The only minor accident I had was a slow speed short slide on my side on the Thames Path after one wheel caught a path edging stone in damp conditions and pitched me over sideways resulting in a grazed knee and elbow (no-one else involved).
But on the last day of January 2026 I got driven into while I was out for a ride on the Neon Two.
One of the routes I enjoy riding is taking the towpath along the Oxford canal up to the A44 and then cycling along the shared-use path (which is part of the NCR 5) towards Woodstock. On this day I fancied visiting a pub in Kiddlington for a half pint and rather than using a more direct route to Kiddlington I decided to take this more pleasant canal route up to the A44 and then cut across from Yarnton to Kiddlington. The ride there was pleasant and uneventful and I had a lovely half pint of beer at the pub while reading my Kindle before taking the same route back.
Most of the A44 from Oxford to Woodstock has a shared-use path along side it that is part of NCR 5 however there is one little stretch in Yarnton where the shared path has a break for a stretch of residential road that runs parallel to a dual-carriageway section (separated by a verge) so cyclists use that residential road. There’s a short one-way slip road from the A44 northbound for cars to get on to this two-way residential road and after that slip-road is a BP garage followed shortly by a cut-through junction in the verge to rejoin that northbound lane. I’m always careful to watch for drivers exiting the BP garage as most drivers exiting are wanting to use the cut-through to rejoin the dual carriageway and so their attention will start to split. If it doesn’t look like they’ve spotted me I’ll slow right down.
On this day I was cycling about 14-15mph southbound on the resident road and as I approached the cut-through there was nothing moving out of the garage. Unfortunately when I was about half way across the cut-through junction a car rapidly exited the garage and travelled diagonally across the road directly to the cut-through (rather than doing it as a two step “join road, turn to junction” manoeuvre) and hit me. I remember being aware of him just as he exited and thinking “his road position is rather close to me” and then my next memory is realising he was actually driving at me and that I although I was braking and starting to steer to try avoid him I had no chance of avoiding being hit. Then I found myself sitting on the ground with my ears ringing and everything sounding a bit quiet for a couple of minutes with a sore right leg. To give the driver a little credit he did at least stop, check on me, stay with me, and he apologised and admitted fault (he was looking at the dual carriageway and not treating this road as two-way) and then he gave me and my bicycle a lift home.
He’d hit my right leg and the right side of my bicycle with the front right of his car sending my bike sideways and me into a forward somersault landing on the adjacent verge (the BP garage had CCTV footage which a police officer viewed recorded on his phone a week or so later). Fortunately I didn’t sustain any fractures but my right leg was very bruised and sore (it swelled up noticeably) and had a 6cm full-thickness laceration on my inner thigh where the impact had driven my leg on to the nose of the saddle (which had to be sutured with both internal and external stitches). Walking was quite uncomfortable for a couple of weeks, I had nerve pain at nights for 3 weeks messing with my sleep, some tinnitus and and it was also about 3 weeks before I was able to tentatively start cycling again (albeit with some discomfort) using the Marin.
I initially thought the Neon Two was repairable (wheels only slightly out of true, rear derailleur hanger slightly bent, minor damage to some accessories) but on closer examination I realised the rear triangle of the frame was also bent out of alignment so the rear wheel is not pointing straight and since it’s an aluminium frame it cannot be economically realigned (and will have been weakened too). Since there’s no sign of cracking in the paint on the affected frame parts so my plan is to see if I can re-dish the rear wheel enough to make it rideable and then use it for local supermarket runs and rides into the city centre (as it won’t bother me if it got nicked), but the damage means it is weakened (so I’d avoid off-road riding or long distance), won’t ever ride as it should and I cannot sell it on or give it away (except for parts) as the frame is considered scrap.
Return to Drop Bar – Cannondale Topstone 0
During the year or so prior to the accident, due to watching a couple of bicycle maintenance videos on Youtube, the YouTube algorithm to start suggesting a few other bits of bicycle content to me. I had no interest in bike racing but occasionally it would suggest some content about bicycle accessories/upgrades which caught my eye and that eventually lead to me regularly watching The Wild Ones podcast from CADE Media. It’s a podcast I’ve come to really enjoy as the three main presenters – Francis, Jimmi and Emily – get on really well together, are enthusiastic, have a laugh and often get side-tracked on to non-cycling stuff too. They’re passionate about as many people enjoying cycling as possible in whatever form it takes (their focus is on road and gravel bikes rather than hybrid or mountain as that’s what they’re most familiar with). Their content about drop-bar bikes had started to get me thinking (even before the accident) about getting a drop-bar bicycle as a third bike as I’d been doing increasingly longer rides which a drop-bar bike might be better suited to than the hybrid.
My musings pre-accident were leaning more towards a road bike – I’d learned a bit about gravel bikes from the podcast but since they are a relatively recent and more niche style of bike they were rare on the local online marketplaces and the few that did come up were way over the budget I had in mind (especially as I wasn’t sure how well I’d get on with drop-bar after all these years). I figured that because I had the Neon Two for mixed-surface rides then having a road bike with skinny tyres would be fine as I’d only use it for long road-only rides. However after the accident knackered the Neon Two’s frame I now had the dilemma of whether to replace that with another hybrid (and then get a road bike at a later date) or replace it with a drop bar. I had the Marin MTB still for mixed-surface riding but it sucked for distance.
As luck would have it a secondhand gravel bike came up for sale locally in a frame size which ought to suit me and, while the price was a little higher than the budget I’d had in mind, it could of course handle mixed-surfaces at the same time as delivering me a drop-bar ride. I went and took a look at it, had a brief test ride and bought it!
It’s a 2021/2022 Cannondale Topstone 0 gravel bike in “Champagne Gold”. It has an alloy (aluminium) frame with a full carbon fork and at the time it was Cannondale’s highest specified alloy-based gravel bike (they did have a more expensive carbon frame-based variant too). You can read more about it here.
Adjusting to riding a drop-bar hasn’t been too bad. Getting the right saddle and handlebar positions is taking a little bit of trial and error but I think I’m getting close. I am loving riding it and am happy with the choice. Thanks to a spell of sunnier weather I clocked up 65 miles on it during my first week of ownership and went on to do 300 miles in total for the first full month of ownership and 350 miles total in the second month.
If I can’t get the Neon Two usable again I’m unsure if I’m going to replace that with another hybrid as this gravel bike can handle road and rough surfaces easily (better in fact), plus I’ve got the Marin to use for the city centre use an snowy/icy weather where I wouldn’t to risk this more valuable bike. Although if I suitably cheap hybrid in a similar style comes up locally I may get one as I have plenty of experience in bicycle maintenance now to be able to service/repair one.