Those immortal words.

Zooming through Docklands this morning with the wind at my back, I decided to be a bit more mature than usual and not engage in the hell-for-leather commuter races along the cycleway. As a trio of us pedalled sedately past the driveway of one of the big Harbour Esplanade apartment blocks, a motorist ignored a stop sign painted red and errected just for him, drove out right in front of us and stopped across our path.

I was able to stop in time, but the bloke in front of me hit the bonnet square-on at about 25km/h. Still attached to the bike, he did the most magnificent of slow-motion somersaults across the front of the car, coming to rest on the ground in front. We all stood agape as the driver leapt from his vehicle and uttered those immortal words:

"Sorry, mate, I didn't see you."

It's the ending you can always see coming, brought to you by the folk who don't see you coming. As a piece of performance art it was a bit cliched, but what can one expect from amateur street theatre on a blustery spring morning in Melbourne?

The most remarkable thing about the whole incident was that the rider was apparently unhurt and his trusty vintage steel-framed 10-speed appeared entirely undamaged. Not a mark on him and he didn't hit his head. The car came off far worse, with some lovely panel damage. Try that one one of those fancy carbon fibre bikes.

They say you should count on having one decent prang a year. I'm well overdue.

Huffy Radio Bike at top left found on Dave's Vintage Bicycles.