Horrible experience on the bike today….

Not a traffic related one. Went out for a road ride with a chap I’ve ridden with in a group before. Just two of us, my route plan was for about 30-40 miles, nice and steady pace. I’ve done 100k sportive before and thought i was ok fitness wise, but done nothing the last two weeks due to other commitments.

Anyway we set off and the pace was brutal. I managed about 10 miles before i had to stop. Got off the bike and began to struggle to catch my breath, began to go light headed and could feel myself going to pass out, so had to have a lie down, raise the old legs and get some blood back up to the brain.

Back on the bike and managed to finish the ride, but felt knackered afterwards. Really didn’t think i was that unfit.

So what’s your worst “bonk”…or make me feel better just by taking the wee wee. 🤣

Hmm, might be worth going to the docs – you shouldn’t be flaking out like that after first 10 miles

I had a pretty bad one a few weeks ago. I’d ridden up to Hamsterley Forest to go around the black route before heading back down to where we were staying.

It was dehydration from the weather being hotter than anticipated and me not drinking enough.

It was so unpleasant, and I must have looked so unwell that a German walker asked me if I needed any help.

Lesson learned. Plenty to eat and drink.

Yeah sorry but that sounds like ‘book a GP appointment’ asap to me.

Had the same on a night ride with a group I’d not been out with before from a shop ride. They absolutely blitz through the first 3miles or so of flat single track, no warm up or gentle into it – just flat out sprinting. When we got to the first climb I was absolutely done in….

Do you monitor your heart rate at all?
It’s very important to know when you’re giving it too much welly!

I once bonked so badly I had to stop at a supermarket, buy food and sit on a bench for half an hour before I could get home. I was less than 2 miles from my door 😀

What you describe is similar to something that happens to me regularly if head out in cold weather in the morning and ride straight up a big hill without a warm up first. I get dizzy and nauseous and see stars and have to stop and sit down for a while. Remember it happening since I was a teenager when I first started doing heavy exercise. All is fine if I start off slow and take my time building up intensity. Is that normal? Could it be that?

You don’t bonk after 10 miles. You went off for 10 miles at threshold. Your partner was at tempo. Seen it myself on a TT. Had numb fingers once when I went too hard, with light headedness and all the oxygen deficit symptoms. Time for some Zone 2. Lots of it. You’re that unfit 😉

you shouldn’t be flaking out like that after first 10 miles

if you’ve essentially done a 10 mile TT at your max pace with zero warm-up then yeah I could definitely see you feeling like that tbh! Sounds like the other bloke was a bit of a nob if he didn’t check to see whether the pace was ok or not, would’ve been obvious if you were blowing out your arse the whole time while he was just cruising!

Could it simply be you were riding at or above your power/heart threshold, trying to keep up with the other cyclist?

Don’t monitor my heart rate really. The guy i was riding with is a GP, and he didn’t seem concerned. Just said I’d gone a bit grey. 🤣🫣

Do you monitor your heart rate at all?
It’s very important to know when you’re giving it too much welly!

On this occasion RPE would have been as good as anything else – “the pace was brutal” should have been a big clue.

If you’re worried about it by all means get checked out by a GP (good luck with that BTW!) but getting light headed after a brutal 10 miles doesn’t sound like much to get too concerned about. Dial it down next time.

And I might be being a bit unfair here but your riding mate sounds like a bit of a dick not to pay attention to how you were doing.

The guy i was riding with is a GP, and he didn’t seem concerned

What a git!

Was matey just a bit fitter and/or trying to rip you legs off?

I’ve been in both positions, being the fitter rider and being one struggling before.

Groups of 4 or more seem to moderate their pace or rotate the role of riding at the back with the less fit riders so it’s not such a chore and those going slower don’t feel to demoralised.

Riding in a pair can just be trickier if there’s a bigger gap in fitness than either of you realised or competitiveness/ego come into play.

I find the suggestions to book a GP appointment slightly odd. Have the people suggesting this never redlined themselves? The description sounds like you just over cooked it so unless you’re experiencing other issues, I’d just chalk it up to experience and either don’t go out with that guy again or get training.

You don’t bonk after 10 miles. You went off for 10 miles at threshold. Your partner was at tempo.

This.

The guy i was riding with is a GP

Was he trying to break you?

As above, that’s not bonk, you can go hard for over an hour on energy stored in the muscles and liver.

What’s worrying is that backing off wasn’t enough and you were struggling for breath and light headed even after stopping. I’d see a GP and ask for referal to a cardiologist to do an effort test. And do you suffer from asthma?

And yes I’ve redlined myself enough over the last few kms of the X-C ski on a Winter triathlon to have the horizon moving around and strange things going on in my head – and finish 1st vet and 5th scratch in the national champs. Thing is that a few minutes of descent was all it took to feel quite normal again.

sounds like you need to find someone else more appropriate / considerate to ride with and go at more your own pace than someone else’s…

Sometimes just have tired days. But then i have issues with staying hydrated, celiac desease, and general digestive problems meaning I have to really plan my food ahead of time.

I dont take any risks with food anymore or I’ll end up on the loo for hours.

The guy i was riding with is a GP

Was it DrP?  I went for a ride with him once.  The trick is to surrender early 😁

So what’s your worst “bonk”…

I have never experienced a bonk like yours. For me it means just having nothing left so that even the slightest small hill becomes too much, TBH I find bonking comical and I will typically end up giggling at my inability to manage anything that isn’t level or downhill.

I certainly don’t feel that I’m about to pass out – not from being on an empty tank. I would have thought that other things have come into play. Such as dehydration and or overheating, as Kramer suggests.

Edit: Or a medical issue. I would definitely have it investigated if happens again and you can rule out dehydration/overheating.

Thing is that a few minutes of descent was all it took to feel quite normal again.

That’s probably because you were in decent shape. It’s a different story for someone who isn’t.

Chasing someone up a hill and it started getting dark from the outer edges of my eyes. Not sure what that was but it was definitely time to back off.

If you’re a bit tired, not as well prepared as you might be and set off , no warm up at something above threshold you can get it in a big mess in not many minutes. Not a classical bonk , but still unpleasant, and it’ll be with you the rest of the ride no matter what you do later in the ridde.

How’d you feel today?

+1 for a bonkers here

Been a long time since I ‘bonked’ – I can usually feel them coming on – I get like a flashing ‘target’ shape in my eyes before it happens. Only bad ones have been racing during my ‘early days’ but tend to get fueling right for long rides. I’ve ‘blown up’ from going to fast – went training with a lub mate for two up time trials – I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold his wheel when I was at 205 bpm on the ticker.

I’ve had the odd ride where I’ve felt terrible – usually followed by getting flu after !

It wasn’t a bonk, but I passed out on the bike a couple of years ago. I wrote a lengthy post about it on here *before* I figured out that’s what had happened because I just couldn’t work things out. One second I was riding, the next I was sat in the tail with a gashed chin pissing blood. I had sensations in between if twatting my chin and tumbling, like I was asleep as it happened. Anyway, it was the hottest day of the year in 2022, just hoofed up a big climb and had turned to descend a rocky single track.

Yes, yesterday on a Zwift race. I think I’ve got some low level virus that I’m not factoring in to my exercise routine.

I love a hard ride but I wouldn’t kill myself trying to keep up.

Bonked when mountain biking in winter and then got stuck in a gully thing that was covered in sheet ice so had to drag myself and my bike up the side and into a farmers field…then got repeatedly shocked when I got stuck in the electric fence trying to climb over it into said field.

Couldn’t even wimp out and get the train home as they were all cancelled so had to ride for another 2hrs to get home. 2/10 would not reccommend

So checked my Garmin heart rate Data. Max heart rate today was around 178 yet i know i can push into 190 and sustain that no problem. Just wondering if it was a big effort without much of a warm up too soon.

Think i will book a GP health check over the next few weeks anyway, just to double check.

My hay fever has been bad these last few weeks too, so wondering if that “might” not have helped.

This convinces me that my poddle on at my own pace in m.y own little world suits me down to the ground 👍

If you have easy access to one, take a Covid test.

Not likely the same thing but docs put me on statins a few weeks back. All sorts of muscle weakness ensued, and after a moderate effort on the bike, felt like I was passing out and was wondering how I was going to get back to the car. I’ve knocked them off, will be trying another type soon.

So what’s your worst “bonk”

Her name was Louise……

If you’re that destroyed you might not be able to get your heart rate up to max as your legs will fail first.  Thats the problem with effectively no warmup and straight into something above your threshold.

I assume the other guy rode to your house to warm up? Thanks mate!

Do I have the terminology right, “bonking” is basically when you completely empty the tank, rather than when you go too hard and need to temporarily stop?

If so I’ve literally done it once, but it was in an EWS race, 2nd day and I started out dead then utterly died at the bottom of the second stage. Got to the point I was pushing up to the next one but had to stop literally every 20 feet or so to recover. Got to the top after a thousand years, just inside my time slot, realised there was no point even starting because I just couldn’t ride safely, took a tactical time penalty to die in a hedge for a while and ram jelly babies down my face, then finally had to basically roll down the stage to the end. Mandatory drop 3/4s of the way down, I just rolled off it without even really seeing it, luckily I was already too brain dead to feel it when I landed on my head. Got back on, couldn’t tell which way the trail went, some spectators had to point me down the stage. Reached end, died for the 4th time or so, the end marshall was pretty close to calling me an ambulance because I couldn’t get the mile or so back to the event village.

Good times!

Worst one for me was back in 2021 just after I’d started having heart palpitations (which I now know were premature ventricular contractions – PCVs – benign).

Went out on the gravel bike hard one morning for an hour.. probably a bit dehydrated.About 5 miles out from home I started to feel weaker and weaker, then about half a mile from the house I did not feel well at all, nearly fainting when I tried to make any forward progress – even crawling along.

Got home, collapsed in the doorway then phoned 999 and the ambulance carted me off to A&E.

Never did work out what it was. After a *lot* of heart checks and an ablation to correct the PCVs I’m back to being pretty much as fit as I ever have been.

 30-40 miles, nice and steady pace.. I’ve done 100k sportive before and thought i was ok fitness wise, but done nothing the last two weeks due to other commitments.

Anyway we set off and the pace was brutal.

So which was it?

Havent seen him about here for ages but there was a long time poster called Montgomery Wick based in the lakes.  I wasnt exactly unfit on a bike at the time (Often met with other riders from all over the country and was either fitter or similar to all but the racing whippets) but we had arranged a meet up to do a 20-30 miles off rode jaunt.

Considering i had been quite friendly in picking him up in my car, happy for him to decide the route etc i was not prepared for what followed.  I knew he was capable of 100 mile days in the saddle and toured all over the world cycling but i figured over 20-30 miles i could at least reasonably keep up with someone and have a good time.

I have no idea how far we rode but it was a few hours.  It basically revolved around him telling me a point about 5-10 miles away and then him disappearing into the sunset at a rate of knots i couldn’t live with and zero **** given for how far behind i was.  He would wait at the checkpoints and as soon as i got there he would saddle up and off he went.  No conversation. Nothing.  The highlight was him finishing his lunch just as i pulled up and off he went.

By the end of the ride i could hardly walk but i didnt give in and i didnt make a show of it.  I drove him home and never felt inclined to revisit the experience.  That was quite a humbling ride.

Some people just have a different mindset about riding.

Also bear in mind that some people may well be neurodivergent and not even be aware that it’s not a pleasant thing to do, especially if no one has ever told them.