Before I retired I used to drive 30 minutes up and back to my workplace on a mostly featureless main road with long stretches of open areas either side and no street lights or buildings. There were quite often cyclists riding along the road, and I assume they were riding to and from work, and this included well before sunrise in the winter months. One morning there were ambulance and police cars in a dark bit of road. I found out later that there had been a piece of timber lying sideways across the cycle path and the cyclist hit it in the dark, went over the handlebars and died at the scene from head injuries. As far as I remember the timber was not big in width but it was long and a colour which was hard to see in the dark.

So I was talking before about video-worthy stacks but in fact I think you were very lucky not to be more seriously injured.

Another noteworthy cycle stack I heard about on a TV medical emergency show was about a pre-teenage boy who went over the handlebars and instinctively tried to break his fall with his hands. He broke both wrists. The doctor told him he may need help wiping his own bum. The boy was not impressed.