what is your favorite riding story?

went past a car boot sale once, did a 3,000 mile off-road ride and came back past the same site – they were all still there but had started eating each other
😆

http://www.samaritans.org/talk_to_someone.aspx

I pulled this one from the archives. It’s alright.

Two weeks ago I was notching up 100 miles a day. Riding a chain gang from one end Britain to the other. Over 800 miles in fantastic weather and it was great. This week I’ve been sat at a desk dealing with numpties in an office which is averaging 28 degrees and it’s shit. Plus I’m not getting out much, a quick 50 odd miles at the weekend and then nothing. It’s been building up in me since Monday, the anger, the frustration, the sheer crapness of not riding is a bubbling volcano and tonight, it erupted.
Wife back from work at 21 hundred hours, “bye love” out I go, and it all comes out. The release to be out on a proper bike is immense, those first hard pedal strokes are like realising I’m going to get laid tonight. I’m a lucky bugger and within 300 yards my tyres are throwing up dust from a dry trail, I start with good intentions of building to a peak but then it just explodes. With completely unexpected ferocity I stand on the pedals and pound away. I accelerate until the bike is skipping along the path, back end drifting out under load on the corners, past a lady on her shopper bike and then a quick twist of the bars and I’m into the grass. Up a barely visible track with the long grass brushing my legs, over some abandoned doubles the local kids have forgotten about and then thunder up the hill with the feeling of raw power flooding through my body. I am fit, I am strong and I am riding with anger flooding to the surface. I feel like I am tapping the gut power of the earth to drive me forwards. The more I ride the more I feel I can put down, the more the last few days of stress reaches a climax and I drive like a charging Rhino across the wasteland. Down into a bombhole, float over the other side and then full load power down with the bike beginning to feel as one with me. There is no loss of traction, there is no drivetrain friction, every watt I produce is being placed on the hard sandy ground, we flicker across the surface, the bike and me and we surge forwards to the miles that await us.
Tarmac for 20 yards and then we’re back on dirt, it’s flat here and my legs become a blur. I still want to give more but I can pedal no faster and the front end is becoming unstable as all my energy goes into moving us forwards rather than piloting a precise course. Back onto tarmac now and we’re into the tough part of town. I see gangs, bored and looking for trouble, they are but a blur at this speed and they stand awestruck, that a man can, under his own steam, create such velocity. I pity any that try to confront me, I would drive right through them, like a supersonic bullet. Sensible, they avoid this powerhouse, fueled by antagonism and I leave them behind for the evening.
Through a gate and I’m up to the first proper offroad climb, my legs begin to say no but my heart is screaming yes and suddenly my legs follow suit, they want to give all they can and and jump upwards and pump and pump and pump. I fly through the woods, scattering small woodland creatures as I pass. I am burning inside and in the dark I need no lights, I see with floodlit eyes, my aura flowing through the trees, lighting the way. In seconds it seems, although the climb normally takes ten minutes, I am at the top, through the motocross trap without even dismounting and then my body, leaves my control, it stands back on the bike and powers me through the light suburban sprawl with me just a passenger. I do not stop at the road junction, I drive and drive and drive, I have entered a second place. There is no pain or lethargy, I become separated from the machine which pushes me forwards. I look with interest down on the biological device as I flow across the land. It seems to have no limit, it cannot be stopped.
Apparently moments later I am at the first downhill, this, a fairly straight but steep path is little used but is long and provides only horse shit as a technical reckoning. Little used means overgrown at this time of year and I begin to get whipped by the brambles and nettles. As my speed increases I enter a world of flagellation which tries to purge my soul of the evil that resides within, the stripes written across my arms by the thorns belong to someone else though, the tingling in my legs from the nettle poison is 16 feet away from my real body, I am but an observer to this, but I drive and drive, there is no respite from the turning of cranks, I must end this madness, or die trying.
Now I enter the technical arena. Here I must concentrate on my line as I pick my way along, still damp trails through the trees. Here I am a poet, the ground is my parchment and the tyres my scribe. I leave one flowing prose after another across the damp earth for others to read of my passing. The mud is thick here, and my memory of this place is intermittent. I appear to leap from one rock to another, with nothing more than a light brush of the wet ground to show my passing. Then the trail becomes slush and I find my power is my enemy here and I am merely driving my front wheel into the mire with every stroke. I flick away from the path and aim for the hard pack, here at least I can achieve speed which will flush my devils. As I accelerate my tyres release their grip on the captured mud and it sprays around me like a halo of my singlespeed purity, I pass a couple walking without slowing, I fear they received some of my halo.
Lights on and now I am riding urban, cars are everywhere, I race them between traffic lights I snarl and signal to them, I win, they peel back from my glow, I am king and all can see that I should not be challenged, and then I am near home, I am not satiated though, I have not released my demons, I still retain my anger, I have 2 miles to go and I rape the road, I put it all down, I give everything and with my knees hitting the bars for 3000 metres I desperately try to chase the pain from my heart, this must finish now, this must end or I have achieved nothing.
And then, as I am close enough to see my homestead, I finally achieve climax!
RAAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!! I roar like a Kalahari desert lion. The anger surges from my body in one huge thrust. My thighs bang hard against the bars as my back arches and then my whole body shudders in near orgasmic stutters as the pressure valve blows and my frustration is released in a near visible dark red stream in my wake. I am left exhausted and roll to a halt, the journey is over, I have beer to drink and I can sleep soundly tonight.