Worst ride ever?!!

[PH]

I seem to be blessed with a short cycling memory, however awful it seems at the time, the following day I can only remember the good bits and there are always some good bits.

[gbnz]

I seem to be blessed with a short cycling memory, however awful it seems at the time, the following day I can only remember the good bits and there are always some good bits.

+ 1. Honestly have little or no memory of bad rides, though today was unpleasant. Perhaps the only occasion I've recognized within 3 miles that I'd be turning back (Nb. Horrible winds, not at all pleasant, doing a direct circular back home via the butchers & bakers seemed a better choice!)

[Richard Fairhurst]

A week in Brittany in August 2007. So. Much. Rain. I just looked through my photos again and there are two days entirely missing, probably because I didn't dare get the camera out of the panniers.

Definitely the early stages of EV15 S to N in 2019... entirely because of the heat.

Oh yes! I was on the Loire at the same time. There was one place I arrived at 2pm in 40°C heat... only to find that the hotel I'd booked wouldn't open its doors until 6. I could have cried. Another day I pushed on for a final few miles into the heat, with a headwind blowing... it felt like cycling into a hairdryer.

[ossie]

Chagney to Digoin in 2015 when doing EV15 followed by EV6.

It had rained for days on end so I was packing away a wet tent every morning and it was just grim, my sleeping mat had a leak as well on a seam so not much sleep.

The night before I'd read about the tail end of some Caribbean hurricane hitting Europe but ignored it. I was heading SW into the teeth of a gale and boy did it hit big time. The middle of rural France and nowhere really to go other than cycle. I ran out of water part way and did the usual of finding a tap in a French Graveyard but I was making little progress.

When stopping in Digoin totally ball bagged the sky was black as hell. I popped into a bar who pointed out two options - the guest house over the road for 50 Euro or the camp site down the road. I chose the camp site, set the tent up before it was almost flattened by one of the most intense thunderstorms I'd ever seen that carried on through the night and most of the next day.

I recall the next day chasing a bit of blue sky in the rain before a thorn did one of my tyres.....

Great hobby this

[lbomaak2]

May 1986, going up the east coast of Skye, north of Portree, in what I take to be normal Skye weather. Rain battering down, blustery wind; except that I didn't appreciate that I was actually being sheltered from the westerly wind by the Trotternish ridge. It was only when I got close to the north end of the Trotternish peninsula that I experienced the full force of the wind, and it became simply impossible to move forward while mounted on the bicycle.

I got off and slowly walked on, and came across a mobile grocery van; I asked the mobile grocer if there were any B&B's nearby, he loaded me and the bike into the back of the van and took me to an elderly crofter who had a spare room.

[Mick F]

We moved to the West of Scotland in late 1982 and moved into married quarters in Helensburgh.
I cycled to work and back 7miles each way along the loch-side.

Moved there in late September and it started to rain. I was soaked to the skin going into work and put my cycling gear over a radiator to dry out. I was soaked to the skin getting home and put my cycling gear on a radiator to dry.

This situation repeated itself all winter and into the early spring. Every single blessed day.

[simonineaston]

Gosh... in the face of such tales of calamity and stout resolve, I think I'll maintain a discrete silence!

[Jdsk]

Definitely the early stages of EV15 S to N in 2019... entirely because of the heat.

Oh yes! I was on the Loire at the same time. There was one place I arrived at 2pm in 40°C heat... only to find that the hotel I'd booked wouldn't open its doors until 6. I could have cried. Another day I pushed on for a final few miles into the heat, with a headwind blowing... it felt like cycling into a hairdryer.

We had 36°C while putting the tent away at 0800 one morning. Vast quantities of fluid needed but available. Hunt for shade whenever we stopped. And a fair bit of that phase where cycling is cooler than resting.

My decision making was definitely impaired by the end of each day.

Awful ride through Basel traffic looking for the station.

We diverted back into Liechtenstein to find an air-conditioned hotel... strange place with no staff, in an industrial area, attached to a casino.

And one day on a boat on the Bodensee... fabric canopy over the seating deck and as it turned relative to the sun everyone raced to find the new bit of shade. Silent movie stuff.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

Gosh... in the face of such tales of calamity and stout resolve, I think I'll maintain a discrete silence!

I once asked Charlie Walker which was worse: heat or cold. He said definitely cold: mistakes were much more serious, and things went wrong much more quickly.. But he's playing in a different league:
https://www.cwexplore.com

Jonathan

[Pebble]

Not the worst ride by a long way, but may be the worst climb. It is about 3 mile and 700' ascent, very warm summers day (high 20s), slight tail wind. From the bottom to the top I was plagued by flies, the slight tail wind meant I could get away from them, and the steepness requires two hands on the bars so I couldn't waft them away, they were sticking in the sweat, going in my mouth, up my nose, buzzing round and round my head the whole way.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Helmet with a peak!
The occasional horsefly, but don't have trouble with any of the others, the peak deflects flies out of my eyes and over my head.
Okay so you might not wear anything on your head, but I have found that in very hot weather The helmet actually insulates your head certainly stops the sunburn.

If you fall into cold water like to see how long can you survive?
Not as long as severe heat for sure.

[rotavator]

I took an old style MTB with rim brakes and no suspension on an anticlockwise circuit from Fort William down to Kinlochleven then past Loch Eilde Mor, then turned west and back down Glen Nevis. It was a wet day and the gritty mud off the tracks stuck on the rims and in the brake pads, wore away the rims and both wheel collapsed half way round and I had to walk 16 miles back to FW. I don't recall being particularly miserable but time is a great healer! It certainly taught me the benefits of disc brakes for MTBs.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
The heat.........I am not sure, but not been to any place that hot.
I normally enjoy cycling in the extremes as many dont and it means quite.
I am advised to shield, so when I do venture out its late eve and sometimes I get home before 02:00, though normally before midnight.
But I have become used to of late seeing people out in the dark with no torches in the middle of nowhere.
I was cycling around devon coasts one day (246M), after the first century I stopped under a tree the path was black tarmac, could feel the furnace from the tarmac and feet boiling, probably one of the hottest days I have cycled in, only other was about 35C and I lost some 4 kgs on a 2.5 hour ride! Was on diuretics at the time, I admit I had to stop on the last 1.5 mile hill....for no reason other than I thought best to.
But on coming home from a 24hr cycle one morning I stopped several miles from home, I had cycled through the night in rain and wet from that and sweat, gloves filled with condensation from coat, I sheltered from the wind behind a station ticket machine.
Decided that I had to cycle hard to warm up which I did and then another uphill to home, glad to get home.
A few months ago on a 3.5 - 4 hr night ride temp was 3C, heart rate dropped off to 100 and was not fit enough to warm up, stopped several times and eventually feet hands legs arms and then chest chilled, normally I have no problem, I had to stop as my hands would not function and I thought I would fall off, funnily enough that If I stopped for about 20-30 seconds I recovered quickly, so I think its the meds that are stuffing my muscles.

Worst day worst night, 2019 Devon and Cornwall Coast and Borders tour, rubbish day several attempts to get food and I was declined twice, cafe open doors but not serving between 16:30 - 19:00...
Pub open but hosting wedding reception, I could drink but they would not offer me food.... Then earlier or could be later that day, organic farm shop open.....attendant could not speak english............make your own tea / coffee...I got some water from outside tap and cycled on, later food at service station (always a good bet).....midnight spied a bus shelter.........just got down and a drunk turned up blasting off, started to handle my bike and threatened damage
I kept cool and gathered my stuff walking off to repack down the road (reason not happy I could control my anger and did not want local bobby big boots arresting me and leaving my bike on the street.)
Started raining at about 01:00......I cycled down lanes full of puddles and dark gravely valley roads, then happened on a pub with garden Verandah, I was nervous to settle there so sat in the garden under a parasol out of direct rain but wet cold, two hours shivering.
Rain eased so set off again into a storm....................down last hill into Newquay.........thought about stopping and hiding under anything but nothing but fields and hedges............. started to shake uncontrollably...gritted teeth as bike wavered..............huh its times like these you wish that somehow you could be beamed up...thought for a moment that if I fall off that it might just end the nightmare

Made it to a roundabout and just took the best looking road....found a park shelter very large and dry although open sides one wall.
Stripped and got in bag and bivvy bag, 30 mins and warm, woke to sunshine

[Mike Sales]

I know I have crawled home in a pitiful state more than once, but a benevolent mental mechanism seems to ensure that I cannot remember any detail.
I have bonked twice and had to lie down in the road, but found that getting some food inside me enabled me to get back on and ride home, so that I don't think of those days as really horrible.

[thirdcrank]

I know I have crawled home in a pitiful state more than once, ....

Here's the relevant bit from an earlier post of mine

I once got home after an all day winter ride feeling very hungry. There was going to be a half hour wait for our Sunday Dinner (eaten at teatime in my long distance cycling days.) For some silly reason I guzzled a glass of wine without eating anything. There was a 'Pick of the Week' item on the radio about somebody who had had vasectomy without an anaesthetic.... The next minute I was on the floor and I really thought I was dying. I tapped feebly on the wall to attract attention and my wife just thought I was clowning about. I did survive of course, feeling very silly