Not what you expect as you approach the final few miles of a serene bicycle ride, but the following abrasions are what I have as a legacy of my last ever interaction with Public Transport (I hope). I also found a weakness in the palms of Fox Sidewinder gloves!

there's more but they're private!

And below, a reconstruction of the crime scene. Right knee hit shelter, right shoulder hit shelter, right hand hit shelter. Front brake (Hayes HFX-9 DH with dirty great 205mm rotor) hit shelter and was applied immediately, firing me straight over the top. This is the worst accident I've ever had (my car was written off in September 2003 in a high speed double-shunt, airbags, black smoke, trauma, the lot but it wasn't as scary as this). Say "Aahh".

Although I was famous for my hatred of Public Transport long before this baffling event, I had no beef with this particular bus stop. It's just that with the Election looming someone had to take a stand. I just didn't expect it to be a bus stand. Anyway, as the piccies show, I must have had some sort of mental aberration to seriously think I could get through that gap.

Everything stopped immediately on contact - me, the bike, my breathing - only the blood kept pumping... out. I was lying on the letter "B" above when I saw the sky and felt the pain - didn't travel far considering my speed at the point of impact. A week later I'm amazed that Jason's forcing me to ride again this Sunday. I've got loads of black, blue, yellow, purple and red bits from head to toe and they hurt some. The headaches are amazing, nay, mind-blowing. Ladies, I sympathise.

If anything good comes of this it'll be conquering my fear of drop-offs bigger than 3 feet high. They won't hurt as much as this if they go wrong.

The fabulous Kona Bear was completely undamaged, no real surprise after the three years of abuse it's already had. My 661 jersey has a hole in the sleeve, unsurprisingly, but more sadly my trusty Fox Sidewinder glove has no palm where it walloped the kerb. Luckily I was wearing a steel-reinforced wrist support which saved further hurt.

This was one of those rare occasions where a mobile phone proved useful to me. I had to call out SuperWife to rescue us and get John home in time. We'd gone a hundred metres in the car when Jason quipped "Are we doing Glentress on Sunday?". Pass the tablets.