See what you did there.....
This does sound like someone who doesn’t ride a bike a lot, and has never ridden a bike far enough to bonk.
Or lives in the southern half of the UK.
This makes me think I should stick some Puritabs in my trail toolkit just in case I need to purify some dubious water source.
This does sound like someone who doesn’t ride a bike a lot, and has never ridden a bike far enough to bonk.
Or lives in the southern half of the UK.
Not necessarily. People above have already described problems finding food in Essex and Wiltshire, and I could add Shropshire, Devon and significant parts of south Wales to that. Sure, if you plan your rides around cafe stops or stick to A roads near cities then it's not too difficult, but bearing in mind that this is, in theory at least, an off-road community it doesn't take too much thought to realise why riders may run out of fuel.
Did a duathlon at Llandegla, my mate was a much faster runner than me so I went crazy on the bike bit in the middle stupidly didn't take any calories on the bike and bonked, ended up finding old gel wrappers in the mud and squeezing the last bits of gel out of them, wasn't enough suffered on the last run like I've never suffered before or after. Got to finish and he was changed as he'd crashed out of the bike leg early on. Never eaten a bowl of pasta and 2 brownies quicker at the cafe.
We had a similar situation riding over the dams in Holland on the way to Amsterdam.
We were riding into a reasonable headwind which sapped everyone's energy. Must have been a Sunday because every shop we passed was closed - by the time we finally found somewhere open we'd eaten everyone's 'emergency gel' and were all running on fumes.
It is amazing in Western Europe how far you can go between open shops/facilities these days.
Never eaten a bowl of pasta and 2 brownies quicker at the cafe.
I remember my brother slapping £20 on the counter at the burger van, after an event years ago, and saying, 'Just feed me until that runs out'.
😀
On a ride ou****ching the tour of Britain a few years ago, 2011 I think it was. I ended up going much further Thais planned for, I took water and no food for a 30 mile round trip to stone, ended up tagging along with a group to Gun Hill about an 80 mile round trip.
I was on my arse on the way home, pre everyone having Garmins and smart phones I was following road signs in an unfamiliar area when suddenthere were energy bars all over the road, BINGPOT! I’d accidentally ridden through the feed zone for the tour. Stopped and pocketed a load of un-squashed bars, then spotted a leopard trek musette in a hedge. Ham sandwich, Half a frangipane, couple of bars and gels and a bottle of drink. Happy days.
Ate like a king, grovelled home into the wind, then grovelled again for going out all day when I said I was only going to Stone 😣
The bars bottles and gels I picked up lasted months, bagged a few more bottles too, still have the bag in the shed.
I remember my brother slapping £20 on the counter at the burger van, after an event years ago, and saying, ‘Just feed me until that runs out’.
I remember finishing a lap at one of the Mountain Mayhem races one year, handing over to my teammate and then staggering off to the food marquee. It was near deserted in there, probably about 2am and I ordered a burger and Coke then just collapsed in front of the table waiting for the food. So tired, so blown.
The girl serving wound up one of those clockwork radios then went off to get my order. On the radio came the song Things Can Only Get Better and you know what, it actually worked!
Bit of D:Ream on the radio, a load of sugar and fat and I was ready for another lap! 😂
