I have been a competitive cyclist for over two decades and am, as my teammates would no doubt testify, no stranger to falling off bikes at high speed. This was different. When you sign on at a road race, you acknowledge and accept the risks. Nobody wants to crash, but in bunch racing it is an inevitability that accidents will happen from time to time, and occasionally they can have serious consequences. When you are casually riding to work, wearing normal everyday clothes and simply trying to go about your everyday life, it seems quite unreasonable that you should have to embrace the same level of danger. Yet, as this event made me all too aware, that is the reality for anyone who dares to adopt anything other than the motor vehicle as their means of transport in South Yorkshire. Since the crash, I have constantly had in the back of my mind how the tiniest change in circumstances could have led to a completely different outcome. What if the car had been an SUV with a higher bonnet, or manoeuvred slightly differently? What if I did not have a bicycle with hydraulic disc brakes or failed to instinctively steer towards the front of the car?