I had just about the scariest moment I’ve ever had on the roadie on Sunday.   This is saying something, since earlier in the ride I was plunging down from the top of Tortilla Flat at 48mph.   The week before coming back from the same ride, a catering van — oblivious to me in my hot pink shirt and cruising along in the bike lane at almost the same speed as him — started pulling in front of me while making   a right turn.     And practically every time I commute to work I have to avoid some jackass on their cell phone not paying attention to the bike lane or making a left turn without seeing me.

The thing about most near-miss roadie incidents is that they are not really near-misses at all.   Yeah if you just rode along and obeyed the laws and expected everyone else to do the same, you’d be dead 20 times over.   But I make a point of riding paranoid, expecting to be invisible, eyeballing every car that comes near me, with much more peripheral vision and stopping ability than a car.   Relying on myself only, most of the time I feel pretty safe.

On a mountain bike, most of what can go wrong is pretty much in your control, and due to bad riding or risky decisions on hard terrain.     Its also true on the road bike with regard to the terrain itself, and a few bumps in the road or slick spots aside, generally much safer than the mtb.   I fall all the time on the Heckler, but its cause I’m riding gnar.     DUH!   I’ve only had one really scary near-wreck on my road bike when things were just between me and the road.   I was sailing down Power Road towards the river in the high 30’s and picked up a nail.   At the first indication of tire wobble, I thought maybe my fear of speed was playing tricks on me.   When I realized it was getting worse and I had a genuine problem, panic didn’t have time to creep in.   I reacted by staying as centered on the bike as I could while squeezing the front brake only and praying the tire would hold long enough to slow down.     Only when I came to a stop did I feel nauseous.

The really close calls I’ve had on the road are almost always about someone else.     During the Laveen Country Challenge in ’06 – the day before G was born – someone put their front wheel on my rear in a turn , and when I fought to hold my bike upright that dude crashed behind me and caused a pile-up.   I almost got hit a lot when I commuted to Georgetown, and once in Tempe I flipped over someone’s trunk on my MTB when they were stuck in a backup and pulled into a driveway right in   front of me in the bike lane.   Those times I didn’t properly respect that slow drivers in heavy traffic are the most dangerous to a bike;   they think since they are not moving there is no risk and don’t bother to look around.     You could call my insufficient vigilance around gridlocked cars, or choosing to ride in a race, a decision to put myself in a riskier situation.   And from the point of view of wanting to live, taking that responsibility on myself at all times is the right mindset.

I ride my roadie maybe 50 hrs a year, maybe another 100 commuting and around-towning.   I know odds are if you ride long enough you will have a bad crash, and based on my own experiences of how I hit or nearly-hit the pavement, I can control most of the situations I put myself in.     But there are bound to be some that I don’t anticipate or are completely out of my control.   Like most people who ride, like most people in cars, you just don’t really think it will happen to you.

I was in the flats coming south out of the mountains and into Apache Junction, with very little road traffic, several miles beyond the “dangerous” section of Tortilla Flat full of blind s-curves and impatient boat traffic.   I heard a siren behind me, and moved over as far as I could.   The road had about 1.5 feet of shoulder.   Normally, even with no shoulder on this road, you are so visible that the cars are forced to pass safely.   I heard a high pitched whine that I knew to be a motorcycle, but I’ve never seen a moto cop on this road.   It blew past me with a rider and passenger, going probably 60.   The siren kept coming, and before I knew it the wall of wind pushed me further sideways as a sheriff in a big SUV screamed past in pursuit of the motorcycle.   About 20 seconds later, the shoulder completely fell away leaving only the narrow 2 lanes of blacktop.

The Sheriff had passed me a few minutes earlier going the other way.   Was he close to me?   Did he see me?   Would he have avoided me if he had?   Surely he regularly patrolled that road and was used to cyclists.   Was I just being paranoid?   At least it would not have been a hit and run, and Beckie could have sued some deep pockets, which is better than what happens to most cyclists when they get creamed.