Tell me about…the kindness of strangers

The mystic being that handed you a bar of chocolate before disappearing into the trees. The rider that appeared in the middle of nowhere in the foulest of weather and had just the spare you needed to get out of there. The stranger that gave you a lift when everything had gone wrong.

Let’s have your ‘Kindness of Strangers’ tales from the trail, for a future issue of the magazine.

As usual, don’t post them here – email me hannah@singletrackworld.com

Thanks!

There have been plenty of fine examples on this very forum :-)

Oh, we are writing the mag again, are we? ?

Only if you’ve sent something to Hannah, have you?

Oh, we are writing the mag again, are we? ?

What a depressingly negative response to something asking for tales of kindness. Hope about focusing the positives?

Used to ride my bike 20 something miles to work on a Sunday (normally with a dreadful hangover) and get the train back home. I was on the train back, ticket inspector comes past, yeah I’ll have a ticket, I’ll just get my wallet…oh shit, it’s on my desk at home. A couple opposite from me on the way back from a festival paid for my ticket. Still need to repay that one….

Over the winter we did a trip up to Triscombe, about a 4hr drive on a good run for me. 3 runs in and the ebike died. On the walk of shame back to the top car park I got chatting to a couple of locals who were pedalling up. When I got back to the car park one of the chaps promptly handed me his canyon spectral, saying they were done for the day and he lived a junction down the M5 so just to drop it in on the way home! Couldn’t believe it. Had to practically force him to take my ebike for a bit of peace of mind that I wouldn’t steal his bike! Got him some beers and headed to his, not only did he save my ride but when we exchanged bikes I realised he had washed my bike for me. What a legend. Hopefully karma is repaid in spades for him.

Just emailed you Hannah, with a story that undermines my username.

Missed the crucial line at the bottom of your post Hannah! Apologies!

I have a few tales to tell.  Im away camping right now but ill send some once i am home again

Would you like a Kindness of Stranger followed by Incompetence of Stranger story too?

@marty Yes! For my own amusement at least, even if it doesn’t make the final cut!

What a depressingly negative response to something asking for tales of kindness. Hope about focusing the positives?

Well, the positive will be that I’ll be a bit better off this year because I’m cancelling my sub. Articles like this are one of the reasons – I’m not interested in reading forum content in a print mag.

I wrote an article titled exactly this for the magazine after a trip to Morocco…  There were strangers, they were kind, we stayed for a night then they weren’t strangers.

In another story I saw a man with a wheelie suitcase in La Punt Chaumes last week. He was walking to the source of the river Inn and was following it through Austria into Switzerland from the Danube. It was getting dark. I stopped the car, picked him up and drove him the 11 kilometress to St Moritz. He was very smelly after being on the road for ages and his wheelie suitcase weighed about 60kg, full of books….

I dropped him off in St Moritz town centre where he wanted to be. I bet he was a multimillionaire eccentric and was going to check into a suite at the Klum or Kempinski for a week…. anyway, I thought it was kind to pick him up.

Well, the positive will be that I’ll be a bit better off this year because I’m cancelling my sub. Articles like this are one of the reasons – I’m not interested in reading forum content in a print mag.

Someone buy @IdleJon a STW sub as an ‘act of kindness’ just to smite his grumpy attitude!

My first proper off-road adventure was almost ruined by a newly-installed tubeless tyre that wouldn’t stay inflated. I was on the SDW and having miserable time as I had to keep pumping up the rear tyre every 20 minutes. And also because I was stupidly trying to do it on an endurance road bike, while cursing myself for failing to bring an inner tube.

I pulled over to work out my options for abandoning the ride, and the next person to come by was an MTBer called James who had recently returned from the Tour Divide. He offered to help and had a complete repair kit with him. After some minutes of ruling stuff out he diagnosed the issue as a dodgy valve core. He put in a spare one and soon after I was good to go and enjoy the rest of the day.

Maybe a small gesture for him, but for me it was an inspirational moment in terms of wanting to learn about bike maintenance, and carrying tools and spares to be self-sufficient and help others.