Captain Awesome, on Mar 17 2011, 09:00 PM, said:
Looks like you dodged a bullet... or a car, in this case.
Hehe, it's usually busses that I seem to end up getting hit by, presumably because I share the bus lane with them, though I have had my right arm clipped by cars a lot, one guy did it to me more than once so I snapped the wing mirror off as he passed, he was not pleased - that was about 3 years back, but nontheless, I still get terrible road rage.
Hank, on Mar 18 2011, 02:05 AM, said:

this made my day cheers mate

It kinda made my day, because I'm amazed that after more than 70 years of use in the countryside by the farmer that owned the thing before I got it, the only real problems were worn tyres, worn brake blocks and a cracked cone (aside from some minor things like worn out saddle and dirt in the gear hub). They don't make them like they used to.
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- Ramble warning!
The whole incident reminds me of one time in 2008, I was riding a 1950's BSA over the bridge (well, one of many bridges) into town, the chain I was using had a tendency to split under heavy load and it did so, the rear "drop-outs" for the wheel were meant to be straight but there was the issue of the mildly bent frame loosening the wheel nuts and the wheel coming loose, usually the chain pulled it in on the right and it would grind on the left side of frame, thus warning me to get the wrench out of my backpack. It was all a recepie for disaster.
But on this occasion it seems the load that snapped the chain was enough to loosen the wheel, it all seemed to happen really slowly, first I felt the chain give way and heard the sound of it scraping on the floor, second I felt the balance of the bike change (I was leaning forward to get up the bridge) and finally I noticed, as I hit the front brake and turned into the side of the road, that there was a wheel overtaking me - I stupidly yelled "Hey, where's that wheel from? That would fit on here." and thinking I'd got a new wheel for free, assuming someone threw it at me (people often throw things at me in the street, sometimes large objects like TV's or they just drive their cars at me) - finally I remember feeling the back of the bike hit the ground and hearing a terrible scraping noise, a bus swerved to avoid me and almost hit a car at the other side of the road and I fell off the bike just as it stopped.
To make matters worse, I had only being going for a ride, so I had no lock, it also transpired that I didn't bring the wrench on this one occasion and it was around 5PM on a Sunday. I had to walk into one of the few stores that was open - an electronics store of all places - with the bike and buy a wrench, the cheapest they had was £12 and I didn't bother buying a hammer and punch for the chain, I just used the wrench. Hmm, I forgot until now, Raleigh bought BSA in 1957, this bike also had the problem with it's front wheel cone (On the same side as the Raleigh I have) - this could be a problem with Raleigh's unique cone design, still, if it takes between 50 - 80 years to happen, I wouldn't worry about it.