Mentioning avoiding sand reminded me...
I tend to ride pretty frequently like it's a training exercise. Part of that practice involves wobbling around on the road some,
partly because I have some fear of becoming too stiff and immobile in my track, if I need to react flexibly. One of the things I am mindful of is road junk, or other problem debris that might come up fast because it's stopped and I'm moving. What I would do if I had to dramatically change my line when negociating a swooping curved and steeply inclined freeway ramp, especially since the chest high walls mean you can't see very far ahead of you.
On two different occasions, I swear, I was already thinking about practicing evasion maneuvers in one of these curved ramps, when a real hazard appeared, each time pretty unique. Both times I was on a down ramp, bike gaining speed if I let it. One risky time it was a freakin' chair in the way, something vaguely more like an armchair than a folding chair or a dining room chair, it was pretty big, right in my path, close to the left side of a long sweeping left turn, I was already thinking what I would do if I had to dodge something, and darned if it didn't seem pretty normal doing a 5ft zig to the right while already into a pretty deep lean in the curve. It might have startled me, and made me feel like I had limited options, if I hadn't already been more or less mentally practicing the maneuver.
The other amazingly similar incident was in exactly the same kind of freeway ramp, also a sharp left downhill sweeping concrete ditch, I was riding a bit higher and closer to the right edge than usual, it was the week after an ice storm, the hazard I engountered was a strip of sand about a foot wide and 4 inches deep, about thirty feet long not far off the car traffic's right wheel tracks. That time too, it seemed real casual doing a three foot zig to the left to get well clear of the sandy strip while already into a 45 degree lean, but I had already been wobbling around seeing how easy it was to accomplish something just like this same maneuver.
