Commute home tonight and punctured-big blow out at the front. Stuck in my spare tube and started riding again only to see the bead wasn’t seated and tube was bulging out quite a lot. Couldn’t be bothered to stop and somehow nursed it 4 miles home. Just as I pulled into my road it finally gave up and tube wrapped itself up in disc. Tell me your (hopefully more) impressive tales of limping home.

Ah, sorry – thought this was a chat-up lines thread

We can turn it into a chat up lines thread if you want-might be more interesting🤪

I was doing a solo offroad ride out on the North Pennines from Edmundbyers & had got to the top of the 1st climb, which is just a basic steady & enjoyable one. I got about 4-5 miles from the car when the freehub gave up completely (Shimano one). Seeing as I was at the top (ish) I managed to ‘scooter’ most of the way back.

Not very impressive but It’s the best I’ve got.

Clutch cable snapped on an old nova once, managed to get it 30 miles home in third gear before stalling it to stop on the drive.

Drove from Essex to Cheshire once with a front brake disk cracked from the hub to the rim. RAC were adamant my subscription had expired and wouldn’t rescue me, the bastards.

Combination of engine braking, downshifting and plenty of space meant I only had to touch them about 3 times.

A riding pal nursed a snapped chainstay on an old GT Timberline back to Sheffield. From the top of Potato Alley…

driving wise – left house in Edinburgh late on a Friday, an old (but not decrepit) Golf GTI (MkII). Heading to visit my folks (180 miles north in Elgin – up A9 and country roads). Within a mile, thought ‘that’s funny, no brakes’. Turns out the brake hose to rear calliper had corroded and blown, no brake fluid left very soon.

“Sod it, I’m on my way anyway”. As above, judicious use of handbrake, engine braking and decent awareness of the road, got me home. RAC next day took me to local garage – “it’s goosed, you’ll need a new calliper” they said.

“Nonsense” said Dan Tomson, poshest mechanic in Edinburgh, when took the car his establishment the next week. Redrill hole in calliper, new hoses, and it was all good to go (and stop).

Had a tyre bead tear away from the carcass on the tandem about 8 inches long. Begged and borrowed tyre boots from folk I was with, added a load of gaffer tape. completed the ride slowly

Blew a marzocchi tyre coming back into Ambleside finally popped 100m from the car.
Transit lost the gear linkage coming off the m65, made it over the tops to Whitworth using 3rd and 4th

Broke my front brake lever in a crash on the 3rd corner of the mega avalanche. Rode the whole thing with just a back brake. Flipping nightmare!

Polaris challenge many years ago in Salisbury, I suffered a big slash in the tyre. I had a normal puncture repair kit, but no tyre boot or anything that would fix the hole. The only option I could think of was using part of my rucksack, except I had nothing to cut it up with. Luckily, I’d studied archaeology at university and we were in an area with lots of flint, so I had a rudimentary idea how to make a stone blade. A bit of flint knapping later, rucksack webbing could be cut off to create a makeshift tyre boot. It worked so well I managed to ride all the second day too.

Managed to fix a cut in my tubeless road tyre at the roadside using a victorynox pen knife and a piece or rubber sole sliced from my work shoes which were in the pannier at the time. It’s still working.

Not home but I did manage the 3.5 miles from Slindon Pits to my granny’s with a broken elbow. Tricky when your arm doesn’t work and you don’t know why

XRi starter motor went. I was skint, so removed it, sent it to be fixed and simply bump started it. Had a couple of near misses stalling it in places like the elevated section of the M4 however it worked a couple of weeks until payday. But one evening in the rain I was trying to bump start it on a very slight uphill. An AA van came by and saw me struggling and drove over, parked and got out jump leads. The look on his face when he peered under the bonnet and told me that ‘some bastard has nicked your starter motor’ still makes warms my soul. At least 30 years ago.

Crashed and snapped my front brake lever half way down DH Man in Finale. Rode the rest of it with just a back brake. Living on the edge what? 🙂

I borrowed my mates turbo kenevo, ran the battery out a mile or so from the car. Nearly didn’t make it…

… on the tandem about 8 inches long…

What a tiny bike, it must surely be the smallest tandem in the world 😉🚲

Bridleway, long way from the road, let alone hone, 10pm, pouring rain.
Spare tube was 20”. Went into 29” tyre, & inflated, briefly. The bang was incredible.
You’d be amazed how much undergrowth you need to pack inside a 29” tyre to get it rideable.

totally tacoed a wheel in a crash, including splitting it at the join so it had frayed ends.

I straightened it over a rock sufficiently to be able to get it to turn through the forks (thankfully discs) and reinforced the join with copious gaffer tape to hold it together. I then set off to push it back to the car park, while a buddy rode back to collect his car and then meet me back part of the way (this was deepest Surrey, so not exactly wilderness)

It was going very well until I had to cross a big open playing field of multiple sports pitches and I don’t know what came over me but I thought with it being perfectly flat and relatively smooth, I could try riding it as long as I sat as upright as I could to minimise the weight on the front.

I couldn’t. I injured myself more in the slow speed wheel folding OTB onto grass than I did stacking it into a tree in the first place. And then the wheel was properly **** so I end up having to carry the bike instead of wheeling it, with a partially separated collarbone.

Saddle slipped into 45 degree upwards and locked on my fixed road bike with 13 miles to go. Reach is interesting when you are bolt upright on a drop bar bike and can just touch the cross bars. Of course I’d left my multitool at home that night so no fix. No numbness, but slow is not the word!

Was on a road ride from Kendal aiming for Tan Hill, on a poor day in winter. On the road from Thwaite to Keld my free hub (remember them) gave up the ghost and the pawls wouldn’t bite. Much discussion then we took the cable from front mech and wound that through the spokes and sprockets. This meant I was stuck in the little ring and with a fixie on the back!
My mates rode off back to Kendal leaving me to plod along and hope they would come back in a car. Not nice those hilly roads on a fixie!
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the road over Birkdale Common I stopped for a breather and a farmer in a pickup saw me. He stopped, and as he was going to Kendal we threw the bike in the back and he gave me a lift. Never saw my mates but they were somewhat surprised that I was sat on the doorstep when they turned up.

(Sorry, bit long this)
Had to swallow my pride and get a lift home yesterday, with my bike shoved in a colleague’s boot.
Punctured on the way in about 2-3 miles from work…. Tubeless. Every previous puncture (only about 2 or 3) has sealed and a few pumps have got me going again… but yesterday, the split was too big to seal.
So, I’m stranded on the grass verge (no pavements on this part of the route). A-ha! thinks I, I’ve packed my shiny tubeless plugger tool… pull it out of my bag, jam it into the tyre. Sorted.
Start pumping… pump gets stiffer, stiffer, can’t. pull. the. stupid. damn. thing. urgh. Pump is broken. Flat back tyre, can’t ride on the road. To my left, off the verge, is a slope and a clear track running parallel to the road. So I ride along this, slipping and sliding in the wet, for about 2 miles, until it runs out. Then I walk the remaining bit to work along a rock filled ploughed field (incidentally, the same one I fell in when I had my “strange episode”).
Met in the office by my boss, who didn’t get my text that I was going to be late, but who wasn’t bothered, thankfully.
So lunchtime, I’ll stick a tube in. Schwalbe Tubeless Easy tyres arf! so the usual fight to get that off, valve nut completely seized, manage to borrow some pliers, luckily. Tube in, now, getting the tyre back on will be a fight, I’m prepared, careful not to pinch the tube… I pinch the tube. No air will go in. So, choice is, fight the bastard Schwalbe off and on again, or… give up and beg a lift.
Thank **** it only happens once every few years now. Type of thing used to be a regular occurrence in the days before tubeless.

 Never saw my mates but they were somewhat surprised that I was sat on the doorstep when they turned up.

Did you admit to the lift or do they still think you’re a fixie spinning god?

As Land Rover virgins we made the mistake of buying a rusty 2.25 litre petrol 90. Soon after we got it the carburettor started flooding drastically because the return pipe to the tank was blocking up. I was out with a pal and managed to get the engine running by flooring the throttle while petrol fumes filled the car, drove it all the way home screaming at full revs with black fumes blasting out of the exhaust, slipping the clutch to control the speed. I wish the car had burst into flames as we’d have got more off the insurance than we got selling it.

Chain stay snapped on my old Transition. Some creative zip tie action and some very tentative riding with the front heavily weighted got me back to the car. Only a few miles and luckily all down hill and mostly on the road, phew!

Many moons ago in the mid 90’s when I was 16, on my beloved Diamondback apex. I had cycled about 27 miles on road to enter an xc race in the Peak district, raced and did quite well (cant remember position) started cycling home post race and about a mile in, my non drive side crank arm fell off.
couldn’t find the bolt and couldn’t fix it, so popped it in my water bottle and cycled the remaining 26 miles home with one leg and the spare leg stood on the chainstay.
Went well and was almost entertaining until I got home, stepped off the bike and my hardworking leg just gave way under me. Resulting in me falling head first into the corner of a brick wall and splitting my head open!

After going over the bars I landed on my head and broke my neck. After a bit of a breather I decided to cut the ride short, got back on the bike and rode the 5 miles back home… Via a rocky trail… And even gained a top 10 on a Strava segment…

It turns out that a broken neck doesn’t always feel as obvious as you might expect… Spent the next 3 months in a halo brace.

Fell 5 metres into a crevasse on the Bossons Glacier, broke my ankle, fractured skull and my ice axe landed on my face (missed my eye by mm’s) – I had all the rope in my Sack. Clambered out and my mate dragged me to the chair lift leaking blood from at least twop laces on my head arriving seconds before it closed for lunch. Made it to the car and thereafter Chamonix Hospital….

I once drove a Freelander from London to Sheffield without being able to disengage the clutch as the hydraulics had gone. Biggest mistake was pulling in at services and having to bump it backwards in reverse on the starter motor.
I probably knocked a few teeth off the gears on the way home but I was only delivering it back to the dealership…

Done my right ankle on the Cold Side descent towards Greenlands farm.
Still managed to get back to Hollins Cross and up the Mam Tor side. At that point in time decided against further ride as right leg started to get stiff and completely nonoperational.

Pedaling with one leg only returned to Edale station, took train to Sheffield and again pedaling with one leg only – bloody, bastard all the way uphill – ended up in A&E in Sheffield.

Been told nothing broken and can get back home.

Here’s the trick. In that time I was living in Coventry and didn’t have a car. So trip to the Peaks was all train affair. Getting back as well. In the end made it back home, still pedaling with one leg only.
Next day seen me howling with pain. Coventry A&E visit, full leg pot and 3 months out of the bike.

That was fun…

Cheers!
I.

Fell 5 metres into a crevasse on the Bossons Glacier

Ha! Come on, I had a puncture! On the B2177!

Did you admit to the lift or do they still think you’re a fixie spinning god?

Well i didn’t admit to it, but they sussed me out when the guy at the end of the road told them!!!

A few years ago, riding out to Ladybower Res with a mate to watch the Dambusters flypast (it was when the Canadian Lanc was over so a special occasion!)

We took the CX bikes over from Hayfield, down Roych Clough and I came off, breaking my right collarbone in the process. Lay there for a bit, eventually picked myself up and walked to the bottom, pushing the bike left handed. My mate was waiting down there, he assumed I’d got a puncture or something.

Anyway, we debated what to do and eventually ended up riding & walking/pushing out to Rushup Edge and then road riding the rest of the way out to Ladybower with me sort of riding one handed when I could. Pushed / carried up the hill above the dam, watched the flypast. And then my mate said “right, I need to go and pick up the kids from school, you alright getting home?”
Err…OK.

I walked the descent then rode to Penny Pot Cafe by Edale station, had lunch and got the train home. Showered and changed (cos ! knew if I went to hospital they’d cut my Rapha jacket off me and I wasn’t having that!) **** me, it was painful getting my jersey off and putting a T-shirt on!

Got the bus to hospital. Thy asked when I’d done it (6hrs ago) and what painkillers I’d taken (none, was hoping they’d give me Tramadol) and they seemed very surprised when I told them!

One bike related one – I set off on a road ride and down the first descent the rear wheel was making a really ominous noise under braking. Examined the wheel, the rim was paper thin so I let the tyre down as much as possible, rode very carefully back up the hill to home. The rim exploded when I was about 50m from the front door, wrecking the tyre and tube in the process. Was SO lucky that it didn’t go on the descent or when I was miles from home!

got blown over in the wind while airbourne at a bmx track. Noticed my body was not straight. Cycled home for lunch without a care. Finally thought I better get checked out and went to A and E. Turns out I’d cracked the main bone in my shoulder. An operation was arranged that day for the following day. Did not feel a thing. It impressed the hospital staff. I was reading Dirt on my bed while the consultant came to see me post op.He saw the mag. He said no more mountain biking! It’s dangerous sport.

Still he did an amazing repair so it’s not all bad. He thought id be upset about a huge scar on my back. I wasn’t. He kept saying it looks like a 7 to make me feel better lol.