Charlie sounds like he almost lost one of his nine lives today.  Obviously riding on a ‘fixed’ wheel, and with what must have become a rather slack chain he has a very lucky escape from serious harm.  Riding a fixed gear in winter was very popular in my club riding days with many discussions about the size of the gear.  Somewhere in the low sixties (inches) was very popular I recall.

Many years ago, riding downhill immediately behind two friends I suddenly found out the source of the clicking from the front wheel – it was the front wheel hub disintegrating.  The first I knew about it was the hub collapsing, and I was catapulted over the handlebars at 20 miles per hour, and landed face down on my chest.  I was so winded I couldn’t get my breath for at least 10 minutes.

Carrying my bike the two miles to Clitheroe railway station accompanied by my highly amused friends was embarrassment enough, but easily topped by the railway porter on the station platform, who paused long enough to look at the remnants of the wheel, still tightly held between the forks, glanced at me and on turning away declared “Its the weight what dunnit”.