So, from day one I have been skeptical of riding a bicycle or motorcycle in London. Mostly because of the taxi drivers who drive like they are alone on the roads (just like in any other city). On that Sunday afternoon I was about to turn left on Regent Street just before Piccadilly a hundred meters short of my destination (MPC). With the left blinker on, at only a few mp/h I was lining up to turn left. Slowly rolling up towards the turn after the green light I got hit by a taxi driver from behind causing me to drop the bike.

Luckily neither of us was hurt.

He hit me at my right pannier. The impact force tilted it 45 degrees against the mounting position. I didn’t think that was even possible. It must have been quite a force but the good thing is that I didn’t feel much of the bump because of this buffer effect. Having panniers probably the closest thing you can get on a bike to haven some sort of crumple zone or bumper. Not only do they protect the rider but also the bike from more expensive damage.

I was coming from where the bus is with the cab driver right behind me kind of like in the picture below with the cyclist and the cab behind her.

The taxi driver claimed it was my fault for dropping the bike after him hitting me. I thought he was joking. He tried to convince me not to report it to my insurance because I would be held responsible for dropping the bike anyway – as a result of his mistake crashing into me.. He hadn’t thought this through despite trying to tell me the same thing fifteen times. Besides the broken right pannier and mount the left side of the bike is all scratched up. But luckily after contacting his insurance the next day they very quickly got back to me saying that they will pay for the repairs thus accepting the cab drivers obvious fault.

Looks like this was not the first time he had hit something either.

I also reported the accident to the police the next day (which I found out you have to do within 24 hours anyway). Interestingly my insurance and his insurance both offered me a hire bike free of charge for the time my bike will be at the mechanic. Initially my insurance wanted to pick up the bike and bring it to Birmingham for repairs since they have their headquarters there and their own mechanic. But they agreed to let me bring it to BMW in London to get it fixed which makes it a lot easier for me to keep track of things. After getting an estimate of the repair costs I’ll send them to the cab drivers insurance I hope everything will be sorted out quickly so I can still do my Spain trip.

All in all there wasn’t anything I could have done differently to prevent the crash which is a bit comforting at least. Most people I know who ride bikes/motorcycles in London all have had either a few close calls already or accidents so I guess I can only hope for the best in the future – and maybe try and avoid cabs as best as possible.

After having forgotten the time, spending two hours at the beach instead of 20 minutes I got back on the bike and set course for London.

Traffic was bad and we were slowly crawling up the hilly motorway, stopping countless times. As annoying as that was it made me understand something I had been wondering about for quite some time. The reason for filtering on a motorcycle. It’s probably not what you (or I) thought. What filtering really is all about is that you don’t have to stop. It’s not really about getting ahead. Being stuck in a traffic jam on a bike is very different from being stuck in a car. For one you can’t really drive with the clutch alone like with a car so you constantly have to rev (with your right hand) while squeezing the break leaver every other second while balancing the 150 kg motorcycle uphill. So you have all your muscles tensed up for as long as you are in the jam. This is annoying for 5 minutes let alone two hours. It gets exhausting fast. Especially when you have already been riding 800 miles in the past two days. So filtering is not all about speed but more about convenience or rather fatigue. The only problem is that with a bigger bike like mine with panniers you are not that narrow any more so it’s more difficult and often there just is no getting through.

It was getting dark and I was still stuck in traffic in Cornwall with a regular work day just hours away – in London.

While waiting – one driver had a megaphone out the window asking drivers to honk x amount of times for the correct answer number x to a question – I noticed that my bike was casting two shadows onto the car in front of me whose driver had just honked twice giving the correct answer to the question ‘Which is the capital of Norway?’. That’s when I realized what the yellow triangle warning light must have been about! My head light had to be out for me to see the shadows in front of me. After finally getting a chance to exit the motorway I checked the light at a petrol station that had already closed for the night and sure enough only the parking light was on. I didn’t have enough tools with me to get the bulb out or to check if it had just gotten loose so I adjusting the angle of the lights housing instead so I could switch on the high beam and would not blind anybody.

The tools on the F650GS are under the seat so it had to come off:

This high beam solution worked well and traffic was getting better at this late hour so I continued my journey safely and reached London at around 11pm.