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 some credit he did at least stop, check on me and stay with me. He also apologised and admitted fault (he was looking at the dual carriageway and not treating this road as two-way) and then 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 and back pain at nights for 3 weeks messing with my sleep, I had some tinnitus (which has persisted) and it was about 3 weeks before I was able to tentatively start cycling again using the Marin (with some discomfort around my knee and the healing laceration during rides for a number of weeks after that). As of writing I still have mild tinnitus, some numbness in the skin around my knee/shin, scarring, pain with pressure on the knee when kneeling and the knee joint is still not 100% back to normal.
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 will have been weakened by the deformation and realignment attempts would weaken it further. Since the amount of deformation was relatively small and there was no sign of cracks I had toyed with the idea, if the driver’s insurer didn’t want the damaged bike, of trying re-dishing the rear wheel enough to make it rideable to then potentially use for just riding into the the city centre (as it would be no great loss if it got nicked), but heat-treated aluminium alloys that get weakened through deformation are then at risk of failing under load without warning so it wouldn’t be safe.
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 wasn’t too bad. Getting the right saddle and handlebar positions took a little bit of trial and error but I got it fairly comfortable. I am loving riding it and have been veryhappy 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 and then again in the third month.
More Drop Bar – Trek Domane AL 2
I’m still reluctant to leave the Cannondale locked in Oxford city centre despite having a decent lock (Litelok X1) and it being insured – there’s still the risk parts might go walkies or someone careless scratches or dents it locking their bike up next to it – so I’ve been using the old Marin for visits into the city centre. The downside of just having the Marin for those duties though is that it’s too heavy and slow if I wanted to go for a longer ride where I include the city centre as a stop-off. Also looking ahead to winter there will likely be a few weeks of lingering road salt where I’ll still want to do long rides but don’t fancy the tedium of cleaning the Cannondale frequently.
To that end I started contemplating buying another bike for city centre/depths-of-winter duties for occasions where the Marin wasn’t suitable – one that was a more entry-level (i.e. cheaper) bike. Ideally not too pristine looking, not too showy, so less attractive to thieves (and with my experience of working on my bikes myself the past couple of years I’m more confident buying one that needs servicing/attention as long as the frame is good).
The first decision was whether to get a hybrid to directly replace the written-off Pinnacle or to look at getting a second drop-bar bike. The Cannondale is fulfilling the go-anywhere role the Pinnacle was (in fact doing so more capably), I also don’t ride properly off-road that often, and I find myself preferring drop-bars for any ride that starts to get near 10 miles or more – so getting a second drop-bar bike made most sense. I would be unlikely to get a second gravel bike for the budget I had in mind so that left road bikes really as the option. I find the Cannondale’s riding position is still a little stretched for me so I didn’t want a road bike with a sporty/aggressive geometry, so I would be looking at endurance road bikes (an added plus of endurance-oriented road bikes is they often have pannier rack mount points where sportier ones don’t).
After watching the local marketplace adverts for a couple of weeks seeing a lot of bikes that were too sporty, too pricey, the wrong size eventually a couple of potentially suitable options came up. A Boardman SLR 8.6 in medium size that was in almost new condition (immaculate paintwork) and a more well-used Trek Domane AL 2 (with some minor paint chips/scuffs) in large size. Both rim-brake, alloy frames, carbon forks and the Claris 2×8 chainset/shifters. On the face of it the Boardman was better value as it wouldn’t need any servicing/parts (and I’m not fussed about brand), however looking at the geometry of both the Boardman would be more aggressive than my Cannondale and the Trek a little more relaxed. I went to see the Trek first and although it would need some attention due to lack of servicing, the lack of chain/chainring wear suggested it actually hadn’t done big miles (the seller was a student who’d taken it on a bike packing trip and I suspect that’s where it had picked up many of the cosmetic chips/scuffs). The riding position felt good, so I bought it.
It’s a 2021 Trek Domane AL 2 Rim in “Gloss Mulsanne Blue/Matte Trek Black”. It has an alloy frame with an alloy steerer mated to a carbon fork – it’s Trek’s entry-level endurance road bike. My initial plan was to add a pannier-rack and mudguards, touring-style like my other bikes. But I’ve decided to further differentiate it from my gravel bike by keeping it light – the base weight of both bikes is similar from the factory, but the wider tyres, sturdy pannier rack, dropper post and mudguards all add a bit more to the Cannondale. I figure I can get away without a pannier rack on the Trek if I don’t use it for rides where I want to take my camera, instead I can just use a saddle bag big enough to take my Kindle, phone and repair kit. I will still get a set of mudguards for when the roads are damp but I’m looking at the Crud Roadracer Mk3 set which are very light and really easy to take on/off (and require minimal clearance as I want to run 28mm tyres).
After spending a few hours putting attention on the most important things that needed sorting I started taking it for a few rides over the following days (with flat pedals/trainers), including a 16 mile ride, and was happy with my choice of bike. The Claris 2×8 gearing is the same as I had on the Pinnacle so I’m used to it and although the smaller jumps on the 11 speed cassette on the Cannondale are nice, I don’t find the slightly bigger jumps an issue. Climbs over 7% will be a struggle though if they’re anything more than brief – the lowest ratio on the Trek is 1.06 vs 0.88 on the Cannondale and on the brief climb I’ve tried at 8%/9% I started to run out of steam. Although I could swap the 11-32T cassette for an 11-34T cassette to help a little (which I’ll weigh up doing when the chain needs replacing as it’ll need a couple more links).