[Closed] Long bike rides far from home. What do you do if something goes wrong ?

Bodge it

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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/30189432@N00/4737724883/in/photostream ]My Flickr[/url]

you see the george berwick thread graham ..... THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY !

the only time i got a lift home from a passing bus was when my roadie tube ruptured into 2 ends and i had only patches and a pump with me .... and knots didnt work

so now i carry a spare tube 😀

I've got a lift once, in New Zealand. Just got too tired to ride, 20 miles from nowhere, a nice person passing saw me and offered me a lift to the nearest town. I bought rejuvanating pizza, got some riding tips, and continued with the ride. It was fine.

Only thing that comes close to stopping you riding back home is a broken frame, or a tyre completely exploding. I carry spare tubes, a chain tool and a spoke key, and with that, and impromptu tyre boots made out of whatever is handy, you can usually get yourself home if something goes wrong that isn't the frame breaking.

Oh, and I did have a really bad sprain up on Box Hill somewhere, had to limp / ride back a couple of miles to the train station one footed, catch the train home, then called friends to get someone to meet me at the station at the other end.

Then tell me you're not trolling?

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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/8805115@N04/4407885343/ ]Broken pedals[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/8805115@N04/ ]Vegan Graham[/url], on Flickr

I can scoot home from work or coast down a hill with one pedal, but if I was 20 miles and a couple of hills away from home late in the day, I'd be looking for an easy way out.

TJ, thanks, £1 a mile would be acceptable as an emergency measure.
Is that one way, even if it's out of their normal area with little chance of a return passenger ?
What if I'm soaked with wet mud ?

All the "You can bodge most things" posts are very helpful, until it comes to something that's not covered by "most".

^^^^^^^^^ Make sure your kit's up to the job in the first place, buy some sturdier pedals, or at least service and check it before leaving home.

Several times in the past I've caught the late train to Plymouth and ridden back to Taunton overnight across Dartmoor and Exmoor. One year I got to the Barbican (about a mile from the start) and my wheel rim exploded (good old rim brakes 😡 ) I hailed a taxi back to the railway station and was home in time for breakfast. 😳

i pity the fool that runs egg beaters .......

Since you aren't going very remote, can you not just arrange with someone to pick you up should anything happen?

I went hiking once up in the trossachs, got lost trying hike over from aberfoyle to rowardennen in a maze of forest gaps(well not really, turns out i knew exactly where i was, but the maps I had at the time we're crap though, which ment I'd taken a number of wrong turns lengthening the walk). But I decided buck it, it was getting dark and I'd over estimated how much I could trek i a day. So i turned back, walked to loch ard and phoned my wee brother to come and pick me up as there was no public transport on a Sunday, 100 mile round trip for him... It's not exactly rocket science. Mind you in his words that was my one and only rescue phone call used up! God bless him, pretty sure he'd do it again and go further if necessesary!

seems to me you are getting concerned over nothing considering you could probably walk to a train station within 5 miles.

Yes, no amount of servicing and pre ride checks will stop Egg Beaters snapping.
I'm using Ward Industries titanium spindles now, so that's one potential ride ender avoided.

The phone a friend option sounds best, except that I'm a miserable unsociable old git and I spend so much time on the internet that I haven't got any friends in real life.

A mate had snapped crank 30 miles from home and we took turns to push him up the hills, arm round the back one on each side worked pretty well. So take mates with you!!

bs3eggs - ive had that experiance with a mates failed alfine also - yer arm gets sore after a bit 😀

Cope.

yeah and your legs with an extra person to push,

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This one grounded me last week causing a 2 hour walk home. Before anyone suggests singlespeeding it, the bike is full sus so the chain kept slipping off whenever I went over any bump. 😥

Is that the hollow shear bolt sheared ?
I used to carry a spare when I rode derailleurs.
I now carry an 8mm spanner so I can shift gears on the Rohloff manually.

I overtook someone at Erlestoke 12 pushing his bike. He's lost a chainring bolt and folded the chainring under load.
After the event, I found the creaking on my bike, which I had put down to a cracked frame, was one of my chainring bolts missing.

Had that happen last summer on the Camino de Santiago ^^
Couple of strong zipties to attach the mech to the frame, wedging in various size sticks even gave me a few gears.

Thusly (using a peg from my camping stuff)

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I've never considered that there would be any other option than walking home..

Great work with the fix above. Thanks. I hope I never have to try it.

In this order.
Fix it
Bodge it
Scoot home
Walk home

Do your maintenance before you leave home is probably the best thing you can do but there's always a risk you'll have an insurmountable problem. Very rare though. Take a credit card and phone for emergencies.

Furthest for me is 15 miles I think, had about 6 or 7 punctures in two miles. Ended up with no good tubes and ran out of patches. Pushed it home the 15 miles. It's character building. I've cycled home further than that with one crank though, also character building. 😉

hugor,

I would have deflated the rear shock, then single-speeded it home, albeit slowly.
Better than a walk.

I rode over thirty miles in the highlands last weekend with a bodged up 2" gash through my tyre side wall. I'm confident in my bodging skills. Happy to solo ride in the Scottish mountains.

Bodge it. Too many punctures too few patches and spare tubes. Cut the tube at the latest puncture and tied it off. Uncomfortable lump every wheel revolution and needed inflating every 10 mins,but got us back.

Where there's a wheel there's a way. Sorry, that was terrible but I couldn't resist it.
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