Re: From the article
I was minding my own business cycling one dark night, when a badger broke my wrist. The hospital refuse to remove the big titanium implant and screws they used to repair it with, despite titanium causing problems. On a motorbike at speed, I'd probably be dead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXdrFfpn3Is
Fortunately I was only travelling at 12mph on my 2006 Dahon Helios P8 (250W Bafang BBS01B mid-drive) ebike conversion, unfortunately I was carrying 8 heavy pumpkins in my very large rucksack, plus another four in pannier bags. The jawguarded helmet saved my teeth, but my left wrist felt crunchy. Eventually one of the many passing cars stopped (I wasn't trying to flag any down, was considering calling a large cab [my bike folds]), and two witches returning from a seance (I'm not joking) drove myself, my bike and my pumpkins 13 miles home, then another 8 miles to hospital. After a 12 hour wait in A&E, they tried unsuccessfully to put my wrist back into place by forceful manipulation, using nitrous oxide to dull the pain of yanking and twisting; X-raying to see if it worked. It didn't. Three times, and each time the nurse doing the twisting was switched for a burlier one... the third time, my arm was being stretched by a nurse of truly gigantic proprtions bracing himself against the bed with his legs. The nitrous was very effective - I would have been laughing if my wrist was being sawn off. It was determined the fractures and breaks were too bad, and what approximates to a ball joint was too damaged for a solution so simple, hence this troublesome titanium. The surgeon was a keen cyclist, and had difficulty believing what had happened, until I showed him the video. He said he'd be more careful cycling in the woods near his home, where he's seen badgers.
I couldn't find the badger, wasn't in any shape to search. I can't imagine it would have lived for long, as the combined momentum of myself, bike and cargo was substantial. The badger was quite large and stocky, looks smaller in the viideo because of the wide angle lens and poor sensor, which like all of the current crop of action cameras, is useless at night. It actually screamed like a small child, a moment before my front wheel hit it, which wasn't picked up by the action camera microphone. Unavoidable - it leapt out from a hole in the roadside hedge directly under my front wheel. I have been unable to find statitics about bicycle badger collisions.
BTW These settings work well at night for GoPro Hero Black 7 or newer, to record vehicle number plates, for fun and litigation. Kudos to GoPro for including a good set of DSLR-like manual settings:
https://vimeo.com/791920458
... flickering of LED streetlamps is revealed at 1/480th shutter speed, which is even better at capturing clear number plates (when they're not deliberately kept obscured with grime, to thwart speed cameras), but colour information is reduced:
https://vimeo.com/795755447
The good news is, action camera sensors and lenses are only going to improve.
A bit too cold for cycling at the mo, but I have to run down the battery to a safe voltage for storage. I really should make make larger resistors to do the job.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
