I've been riding bicycles for a long time, and ridden, in the last 5 years, over 90,000km on the road.  I've seen a lot of weird things, and experienced a lot of funny, dangerous and irresponsible things - I've been egged, had beer bottles thrown at me, been slapped on the arse by a carload of teenage girls, had cold water sprayed on me on a hot day (thanks lads!), chased by dogs, swooped by magpies, dragged off by people on ratty old MTB's when on recovery tootles etc etc .... I'm sure anyone here who rides a lot has similar experiences.

But here's one I think is pretty unique :

The Blackburn velodrome is situated in a sporting field complex.  You can see it here.

In itself this is nothing too remarkable.

Yesterday, I'm sitting on my track bike, waiting to start a race, while teams are organised for a team sprint event.  Everyone's lined up on the fence around the track, sitting on our bikes, and holding the fence for balance.

smack!

I get a belt across the head!

WTF was THAT?!

Looking around, there's no-one within a meter or so of me.  It can't have been a friend stirring me up or anything, there's no-one near enough to have done it.

I look down, there's a cricket ball rolling down beside me into the middle of the track.  I look up, the cricket field next to us, everyone there is looking at me, the umpire calls out, rather loudly "Six!".

I suggest to the fielding side that they should stop giving England bowlers a run in their team.

No damage done, helmet isn't damaged in any way that I can see, but I'm mighty glad I was wearing it.  It hit just above the temple. If I wasn't wearing it, I reckon at least I'd have a pretty decent headache.