I travel on that section of
I travel on that section of the canal a lot and the to-ing and fro-ing in the tunnels can be a bit fraught. More so since the sun has come out and every man, his dog and sainted wife have taken to walking on it at rush hour.
I have often wondered if other cyclists have been assaulted on that stretch purely because at rush hour people do not realise what a commuter artery it is for cyclists. When it is cold, gloomy or wet the place is a perfect place to cycle. Bring out the sun and it becomes a battleground for cyclists and pedestrians. I think the sunshine at Easter (when a lot of people took a week off made that all worse)….and I don’t know what to do about that, except be wary, considerate, polite and defensive.
The one other thing I would suggest is a bell. Letting people know you are coming into, and out of the tunnel will allow them to react accordingly…..but to put your situation in perspective a) if that’s the worse that could happen you have survived it and how bad was it really? (Unpleasant, but no hospital trips and hopefully no serious loss); and b) it is an anomaly because thousands of cyclists do that route every single day and you never really hear of it happening. So unlucky in some ways, but the chances of it happening to you again are very remote (unless you decide to piss of pedestrians – I think in the case you mention it may have been another cyclist or cyclists as a collective that had annoyed him).