I was out with @molgrips the other night for a very long ride through the lanes around Cardiff and Newport, when we got talk about our worst experiences. I got thinking about the time when I was out with my brother on my CX in the woods somewhere new Cwmbran (don’t remember the exact location). We had been out for hours already, and he led us down some forest track that had been churned up by forestry vehicles before drying out and hardening.

We got a bit confused because the track didn’t seem to join to anything, and because it was going to be almost impossible to get back up, we decided to shoulder our bikes through the woods to what looked like another road below.

By the time we reached the “road” below we were both cut up from thorns, and then we saw that the “road” seemed to have been long since cut off from any other road. Now we were caught between the churned up track we had come down, but which would have required another trek through the scrub together with a near-impossible climb, and another push through some woods to a farmer’s property surrounded by barbed wire, a sprint across his land, only to arrive a dual carriageway on the other side.

Now the sun was rapidly going down, I was starting to get very, very cold, and my back was hurting terribly. So we decided to go for the dual carriageway. We got a large fallen tree to push the barbed wire down, climbed over it, sprinted across the field covered now in scratches and cuts, hit the carriageway, and pedalled in desperation to get home before the sun was completely down and/or I succumbed to hypothermia.

It was awful, nerve-wracking, painful… you name it.

So tell us about the worst ride you’ve ever had. Only criteria is, if it involves an accident or injury, that should only be part of the story. Otherwise we’ll just have a string of accident tales, and I’ll simply recount my crash from last year.

I’d probably go with a ride between Christmas and New Year about, ooh, ten years ago? It was a bit of a STW Cotswold Massiv (when that was still a thing) ride, with, I believe, even Binners tagging along as he was in the area.

The ride itself started fine, there was banter, there was flapjack and sausage rolls, there were probably hipflasks, all was good. It was really, really cold though and really, really muddy. I bet the route was about twenty miles and at about halfway I just had nothing left. Dunno why, I’d eaten, I had a decent level of fitness, pace hadn’t been mental in the slightest, but I was just cooked. I spent a really miserable lowest-gear-granny-ring spinning couple of hours trudging back to the start, with the help of a couple of caffeine gels someone kindly gave me (Cheezybeanz off of here I believe).

Worst ride ever that matches the criteria:

Me and one of my riding mates were planning to do a good “tried and tested” route on a Saturday afternoon when he bailed at the last minute giving a crap excuse. I lost my rag and started sending some angry texts and lost my best riding mate ever since, he blocked me off everything… Previous to this: Not only did we arrange lots of rides but he also used to give me a lift to everywhere, he used to fix my bike for me and show me how to do the repairs/maintenance. Since he fired me off, there’s been too many days I’ve been left to go solo or not ride at all, and it sucks…
Later on that day I decided to do a ride on my own on a new route I’d not done before and it was absolutely appalling. It was incredibly muddy with some horrible hike a bikes, “not worth it” descents and plenty of gates, fences, barbed wire and styles to lift over. Not to mention busy road sections with lots of cars. Then I dropped my Garmin and Mobile phone, in the same ride, smashing the screen on both, to great cost.

Actual worst ride ever was when I injured myself in Morzine.

Took a ‘short cut’ on a Dartmoor route and ended up stuck half way up a mile long hill covered in head-height brambles. They were so thick I had to throw my bike over my head a couple of feet, beat my way to it and then throw it again. Too far in to back track, just hoping it let up before my shoulders did.
Turbo s##t.

worst ever ride …..

that would be the 10 or so days between nelson and hamilton with Giardia

worst ever was a ride from Dufton, over cross fell and back via high cup nick.
it is a tough route and can take a while.
we were late setting off, at about 11am. we got over crossfell and down to garigill by about 2pm.
and I was fubar for some reason. it took a fair while to get down and round cow green and I was running on empty.
from cow green up to maize beck took forever, I had to walk most of the way. it was raining and the path seemed to be made of wet grass. it was dark by the time we reached the top of high cup. and out of the 3 of us we had forgot to take lights.
we had to walk most of the descent until we reached the gate and tarmac half way down.
we arrived back at the car at 7pm. I was totally spent. one of the only times I have ever been hit by the famous Bonk.

worst ever ride …..that would be the 10 or so days between nelson and hamilton with Giardia

She’s got a lovely name, though.

Glenlivet SES a few years ago.

A 13 mile transition to stage 1 which was a 1 minute straight line through a flat heather moor. The rest was on the abysmally boring trail centre. The weather was miserable too.

Far too many tales of shit trails and being cold and wet in darkness late at night to recount here. That’s the price you pay for exploring. I’m usually pretty well prepared for it though so it tends not to be disastrous as long as I can keep my head. It’s hard to think of a ride that was universally bad.

I mean there was my first ride in Helsinki, mid March – I had no idea where I was going, and I was trying to ride on old snow using 1.7″ mud tyres – got home incredibly late and bonked terribly. But that was my first ride in ages so it got me at least into the woods that I had been desperate to explore.

Recently, I tried to explore a cheeky bit of footpath only to discover the trail didn’t exist and I ended up in fields full of calves stampeding towards me, that I discovered also contained a bull. Had to head for the nearest fence and throw my bike over, into an overgrown thicket of brambles etc. But the rest of the ride was ok and it was kind of cool to be away from trails exploring some corners of landscape you don’t normally see.

Probably some rides where I was miserable, and annoyed or upset my riding buddies would be the worst.

Decided to go for an early evening summer ride and on the way to some local woods my chain slipped and got caught between the small cog and frame. This caught me by surprise and I came off the bike and landed on all fours in front of an oncoming car….luckily it stopped – about 18 inches from my head. Undaunted I carried on and decided to explore a nearby small reservoir. I regretted my choice as the trail around the lake was unridable and I ended up pushing and shoving through the bushes until I came to a clearing at the side of the lake. And was confronted by a very angry group of anglers. They were all in their sixties, visibly angry and very hostile. Demanded to know what I was doing on their property and seriously worried me by their mob mentality and twitchy behaviour. Insisted I leave their property by the same route and refused to let me use the much closer and accessible laneway to the main road which I did anyway despite their pitchfork mob antics.

Successfully escaping the angry anglers I finally made it to the woods and enjoyed the climb to the top and then the rather fun descent. Near the bottom I followed a trail and emerged through a gap in bushes and skidded to a halt. Right in front of me was a semi naked couple enjoying the late summer sun as they humped against a tree. They froze and looked at me, I kinda nodded and then rode off home. Presumably they carried on.

I’m going to get in first before someone else does:

Louise.

/runs.

They froze and looked at me, I kinda nodded and then rode off home. Presumably they carried on.

At least someone had a good ride that day

Ahh, easy. I can pinpoint this particular ride exactly and it’s lead me to stop riding.

Back in 2016, just after the referendum, a group of us headed out to Belgium and the Netherlands on a pilgrimage to ride some of the Classic routes.

Packed, we headed off from Stratford station into deepest Essex and Harwich for the ferry. It’s an overnight crossing so we headed to the bar.. conversation went “right, no head down chain gangs riiiight??” & “were all agreed Brexit is shit, so no chats about that till we get back” & “look chaps, we’re loaded with bike packing gear so let’s take it easy and enjoy it”

…

And the ferry docked, we met up with a Dutch club rider we know and he said “follow me…”

And we tried…

The whole **** week turned into 30k clicks and through and offs, no seeing the countryside nor enjoying the hospitality…

Despite the moratorium on “no flat out riding” & “Brexit is shit” talks the whole **** week ended up riding flat chat and every **** conversation included the **** Brexit fiasco.

I caught the ferry back thinking “this maybe the last time I ride this bike” and true enough I got to Harwich train station and caught the train home… with my mates saying “let’s ride back” I told em’ to do one and one of my mates joined me on the train…

I’m still great friends with him, the others I’ve not spoken to in 3.5yrs.

And the only riding I’ve done is take my nephews along a disused railway line to Ripley Castle from Harrogate…

It’s not like I’ve had shit rides before, I’ve done plenty of the classics with other mates, plenty of eastern dolomites climbing and I’ve been very happy to tap it all out. I’ve enjoyed CX racing and long distance gravel rides all over this little land.

But that ride was **** shite, and it’s put me off completely.

🤷‍♂️🤹‍♂️🥴

I’ve been pretty lucky over the years and not really been caught out much. One ride I do remember though was when we had the Beast from the East fairly recently, it was either just before it’s arrival or just after, can’t really remember. I live in the south so no big hills or mountains, but this particular day it was raining /sleety quite hard and a blimmin cold biting wind. I’d underestimated the amount of rain falling and the temperature drop due to the wind and set out not wearing enough warm clothing and not realising how unprepared I was. About an hour or so in of muddy cross country I was starting to feel the bite and the lightweight waterproof I’d put on just wasn’t cutting it and was I starting to get wet inside. I pressed on and after 20 or so miles and a nip over two hours I was like, I need to head home, I am getting really cold, this is bad. During the last four or so miles home I really started flagging badly, my jacket felt like I was wrapped in an ice pack, I had no feeling in my feet or hands and every muscle in my body was so hard to move it was like I was going to seize up completely. Going over the last bridge just a few hundred yards from home I couldn’t even press the shifter to change gear and I didn’t even know if I was squeezing the brakes or not on the way down the slope. When I got home I went to pull my gloves off but couldn’t do it, I put the fingertips in my mouth and tried to pull, only to realise I was biting the ends of my fingers! Once I’d got those off I could hardly unzip my jacket and it must’ve taken about 15min to get my laces undone to take off my trainers. I honestly have never been so cold in my life, it took ages to thaw out before I could go for a well deserved beer or two!

I tend ride over to see the inlaws around Christmas, last year it was a short one as they were congregating at the sister in laws in leeds, ace.

I set out nice and early, well, as you can imagine the weather was northern…

It was about 100km and that was all good, if a little grim at times but nothing to worry about, I’d actually arrived before the wife and kids so had a little ride about leeds and found a garage with a Subway and shoved some bonus food in my face. Rode past the the in laws again and saw that the wife and kids had arrived, ace. Went in, had a shower and put everything on charge. sorted. Lunch was a bit of a disappointment, I eat quite a lot anyway and after a ride I’ll nail a good few thousand calories for fun, today the only way to do that was through the medium of Stella Artios and sausage rolls, I was quietly smug about that meatball marinara and it’s 900 calories.

Once the MIL had passed the threshold for acceptable alcohol consumption, I played the ace up my sleeve, “If i’m going to get home in time to put the kids to bed, i’d better get going!”

It was actually quite a pleasant ride for the first hour or so even though it’s a bit lumpy coming out of leeds towards manchester. It was getting pretty dark by now and quite cold but I kept on trucking.
By the time the power indicator on the back of my diablo went orange it was proper dark and the wind was now howling into my face. It’s alright, no idiot would go out on one of these rides with just one light. I’d fully charged all my lights. I turned off the diablo to save some juice and just ran my little backup while there was still a smidge of twilight to see by. I was still 60km from home and the garmin said i’d already done a fair bit of the climbing on the return route.

Hang on, if i’d fully charged all my lights, why was the exposure on orange already? As that though ran through my head, *Poof* backup front light plunges into darkness. That was about the time i got to the bottom of what I now know to be Saddleworth Road, with the aforementioned headwind and a skinful of Stella I felt like I was going backwards, Strava said i spent an hour climbing that hill, with just a rear light on in the fog. I figured that i’d be able to see any car coming far enough away to turn my lights on and it’s not as if someone was going to pull out of a side road. I can honestly say that was the longest hour of my life. I’m getting little flashbacks just looking at the route. If the weather had turned worse i’d have been completely screwed, as it was I got down New Hey road into Denshaw and saw the bright lights of Oldham spread out below me. The relief was palpable.
Somehow I got lost trying to get onto the canal at Ashton, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to die on the moors, if I got mugged on the Fallowfield loop, that was OK as well.

I’ll never do anything that stupid again.

This year is the second time i’ll have ridden over to Carsington water for christmas, last time I did it in the dark and the snow, off road and on a cross bike 😀

Turned out that people had been charging their phones instead of my lights for a significant portion of the day, priorities, eh?

For me Day 3 of BeMC.

I hadn’t trained enough, wasn’t fit enough and after 2 tough days / 180km through the Ardenne already it was pissing down on the start line.  As I hate cold and wet as a rule and therefore this is the biggest mental challenge, my head went as most riders passed me on the first climb, I got frustrated with losing traction in the first forest section and let some Belgians talk me out of the rest of the course (too dangerous in the wet apparently) and rode back with them.

I was very happy to be getting changed in the back of rollingdonuts van but also very disappointed.

To me not completing that weekend was worse than the multiple fractures and 50% road rash from being knocked off onto the rocks at Exmoor Scott Marathon 6 months later.

Stolen from my old (very old) thread
Inspired by the article in issue 75…. heres mine…

Singletrackmind and myself went for a ride with a small group from a local club (think large wooded area to the south west of Southampton)… it started well, with us turning up on our 6″ travel bikes to be met by all rigid, most singlespeed, some titanium xc bikes. Well, thats ok, its all trail riding innit. So we set off, me and stm chatting getting our legs warmed up. And they’re off! Like the start of a 90s sport cat race, these lads pedalled off into the distance. We eventually caught them going across a field and I had words…basically asking if they minded us coming on the ride with them. Oh yes they said, thats fine. and sped off. Then singletrackmind went’n’busted his blimmin chain. Oh my, we held them up for all of 10 mins but they weren’t best pleased and amused themselves by talking about the plane daddy had been flying.. (i shit you not). Then things got worse…miles of frozen, flat, rutted landrover tracks. Miles of them i tell you. Frozen feet sinking into frozen water every few seconds. It was shit. It was cold. It was boring. It went on for ages.
The descent back to the car was the only good bit cos we could fly down on our full sussers leaving our jolly new friends behind us for once.

(Posted 7 years ago)
I’d rather have days like that than none at all, so it doesn’t seem so bad now 🙁

Apart from the day I crashed and broke my collar bone and two ribs, it was probably a Polaris back in about 1997 in the Yorkshire Dales. It rained all Saturday and the overnight camp was in a steeply sloping field with a stream running down one side. I saw one poor bloke walking with bidons to collect water, slip and then toboggan in his waterproofs the full length of the field, magically not piling through anybody’s tent and fetching up against the drystone wall at the foot of the slope. Water was running straight down the fell and we had a wet miserable night. Got up the following day and decided to bin it, eventually making it over to the Settle to Hawes road and sheltering behind a wall with about 50 other shivering competitors. As we left the Dales it dried up and then we spotted a farmhouse advertising ham and eggs so the car did a sharp left turn and my brother and I ate our first proper food in 48 hours. Proper epic.

Mine involve mechanicals at trail centres:

1) Cragg Quarry, I’d done all the climbing through Lee, the cross moors route, dropped into Cragg and got half way round, basically as far away from the car as I could be. I clattered the rear wheel off a rock, instant puncture. No worries, I’ll put a new tube in, a spoke has actually failed so i spent some time taping it to the next spoke so it wouldn’t rattle around. I got my pump out of the rucksack and the pump basically disintegrated in my hands.

It was now getting dark, so I thought’d i’d phone the girlfriend, only to not be able to find my phone. I then had to walk all the way back down all the good bits with no light at all by the time I’d got to Lee Quarry, with the pedal pins regularly digging in my calf.

The phone was in the boot of the car, with about 10 missed calls off the girlfriend.

2) Llandegla – freehub failed at the top of the first climb, rolled down it, went home. 3 hours driving for one hill.

Worst ride so far was a couple of years ago. Planned and arranged a weekend attempt at Snowdon with a few lads. Id arranged everything and was so looking forward to it, put in that bit of extra training so as not to struggle. Anyway ride started well felt ok, got about an hour in and I just started coming down with the worst cold and cough ever. Sounded and felt horrendous, only made it as far as the start of the rangers o whilst all the lads went up for summit photos I sat shaking and coughing hoping Id have enough energy to get me down. Started descending rangers and within 500yards had a rock strike on the rim and gunk went everywhere. Wouldnt seal rim was bent 🙁 . Put tube in and got all way down back over to telegraph valley where I proceeded to pinch flat 5 tubes and walked the last 3-4 miles solo whilst everyone else cheered their way back to the hostel 🙂

Boring but necessary final training ride with wife in preparation for holiday of a lifetime cycling across Vietnam, (due to fly out the next day). 1\2 mile from home, wife knocked off bike by car coming out of a pub car park (didn’t stop). Broke her arm in two places. Holiday cancelled, (poor consolation prize was week in the Canaries). Fast forward 9 months later and first of three children born. Holiday never re-booked! Maybe one day….!

2nd worse was riding with a mate in Swinley. Weird fall in the Labyrinth (going uphill to make it even weirder) and he shattered his ankle. Had to leave him on his own while I went to get a phone signal\help. Unfortunately the very kind lady from the forestry team who was first on the scene, didn’t have a stretcher. Air ambulance was called but couldn’t land for some reason. In the end a couple of passing mountain bikers helped me carry him out to the forestry flatbed trailer and we got him out that way. Obviously a lot worse for him than me, (although when I got him to hospital, the nurse insisting that I be the one to cut his cycling shorts off has to be comparable – some things cannot be unseen)! The bike was fine by the way.

…saw the bright lights of Oldham spread out below me. The relief was palpable.

Great story, a perfect combination of misery combined with regret and anxiety.

Hmmm, harder to pinpoint for me. I’ve not had much in the way of total horrors, but I’ve had a lot that would come under the category of ‘Type 2 fun’.

One candidate has to be a very silly mate’s race that I’ve been involved in for a a while, the year it started from Nateby near Kirkby Stephen. I’ve never been the fastest of the riders in that group, nowhere near in fact, but coming a week after a very muddy Sleepless in the Saddle I was in particularly knackered condition. One rider, a relative of one of the organisers, hadn’t told the others he was only doing half the day so went off full gas up the first climb, the road up Nine Standards, knowing the fast boys would try and pace him when they had double the distance to do. I was off the back of the group within about two minutes of the go, and knowing the rough distance/time I was going to be riding on my own for I suffered with weird, massive mood swings for the whole day. After Nine Standards, we dropped back down then climbed all the way to Tan Hill, then proceeded to ride what felt like a hundred miles of tussocky shooters path set in a thousand square miles of utterly featureless s***ty moorland – you know, that utterly blank canvas either side of the A66 on Bowes Moor? Yeah, that.

Eventually, I’m so far off the back I get to one of the checkpoints and get bundled into a vehicle to take me further forward on the course so the friendly marshalling staff don’t have to stay out all night. They drop me off at Cow Green reservoir and I slowly slope my way across to High Cup Nick and down the (frankly lovely) descent to the finish at the YHA in Dufton. The singletrack around the Nick and down to the end is the only part of the day I recall with any great fondness.

Some corkers here lads n lasses!

My worst ride ever isn’t on a list of great anecdotes, beset on all sides by adversities, mechanicals, and injuries. It was Dirty Reiver this year and I simply could not enjoy any of it after the first fifteen miles – it actually put me off riding. Got a teepee the night before and after, woke up with frost on the duvet, had a shit bacon butty and coffee, set off full of excitement and just run out of puff after an hour or so. Spent the remaining seven hours with the mantra ‘suffering is all mental, there’s nothing objectively bad about this’ (didn’t work for me this time). Drove straight home afterwards and haven’t done a road or gravel ride since. Gutted because the house I moved to in January has amazing extra-long-off-road commute option with a brilliant pub halfway, and I just can’t muster the enthusiasm to ride it.

My first crack at The Gap about 8/9 years ago.

We left Brecon town (probably not the best places to start) packing a couple of litres of water and no food, or indeed any way of buying any unless they took expressive dance / sexual favours as payment.

Took the route we’d taken loads of time before doing Taff Trail charity rides along the canal and up the (5 mile) “7 mile climb” which is the more boring / sloggy ways up. In the great tradition of **** ups, instead of consulting the map at the start we waited until this point to look at it. It was a low-res, cheaply printed A4 sized ‘map’ which was more an advertisement for the route than a way of navigating, it was also very, very not waterproof, and it was very, very raining by now.

The map, or rather our interpretation of this soggy ball of mush suggested you got to the top of the road / fire road bit, turned right, went through some trees and back down the other side of the Valley. This seemed a bit of nothing for such a famous ride, but being our first go on a non-TC ‘proper ride’ (I live in Cardiff, we’ve got centres in every direction, sue me) we thought maybe that’s all it was. We we rode around some trees, got stuck in some mud, got lost for a bit and thought “That’ll probably do” and headed down the road on the other side of the valley we rode up. It’s a 40mph+ flat out ‘don’t hit anything or you’ll die’ type of descent, but we’d been stranded in Les Gets when a storm has closed the lifts before so a fast, wet road descent wasn’t the stuff of nightmares, but it was no dream either.

This is where it went wrong, we got to the end of the road. I can’t remember if we decided to look for a better route back, or we just got lost, but the sun came out and it was a lovely day. By this time we’d be riding 3/4 hours so getting tired, but okay. What followed was a farce in navigating. We got so lost it wasn’t funny anymore. It’s the worst feeling in cycling for me, worse than a bad crash – the

“I’m so tired, thirsty and hungry all I want to do is lay down, but there’s no way of getting back unless I keep riding and I don’t know where I am, or how long it’s going to take, but I have to keep going”.

At one point, blissfully downhill, we passed a Roadie going the other way.

“Does this road go to Brecon?” I shouted

“erm….. yeah…” he replied.

Mate says to me “what did he say?”

“Yes” I reply.

What I should have done was listened to the “erm… bit” stopped, asked him for some more information, or at least checked my surroundings, but no we were going down hill and it was, at least whilst we were moving, cooling (it was very warm by now). It was soon uphill again.

What we’d done was take a road which technically did go to Brecon, but took you about 15k away from it first somehow. I’m sure a nice ride for a roadie, less so 5 hours in on a 160mm MTB (this was a 2006 era 160mm MTB too).

I can find humour in bad rides, I’ve crashed like everyone else, I’ve walked home with a flat and no spare tube because I’m an idiot, I’ve sheltered in trees from storms, been stuck in some random town in the Alps with closed lifts due to bad weather, I’ve got lost before and had rides when I’ve rode almost nothing worth remembering, but I can usually laugh about the shared experience but this was worse because I would have done almost anything to end it sooner, but couldn’t.

We were out about 7 hours in total, I don’t know the distance, this was pre-strava for me, but long. I used to get very aggressive (verbally) when I was tired or hungry, and made a few terrible threats to my mate. I don’t remember it ending, maybe I’m still out there and the last 9 years have been a dream in my final moments, I don’t think so, I’d make it better ha ha.

It cap it all off, early the next morning I was going on my first ever ‘family holiday’ my GF (at the time) her Son (our Son now) and I were off to Bluestone, although it wasn’t said, we both knew it was a rehearsal to see if we could all live together. Bluestone is great, but it’s situated in a steep bowl-like valley, I spend 4 great days there, but I could barely walk before we got there, I was in agony the whole time.

I’ve had bad rides for sure – need deep frozen bogs, mechanicals etc – but usually they fall under the ‘Type 2’ fun category.

My absolute worst rides are when riding buddy injures themselves badly. there’s been a few.

Worst was maybe 7 years ago, mate quite new to biking was following me, crashed, and was really not good. His helmet was a disassociated collection of bits of polystyrene. Shouting that his right side was ‘disconnected’. I thought he’d done his shoulder, turned out he’d smashed C3, 4 and 5, but miraculously only bruised the spinal column. But at the time, he had a right side of his body that wasn’t responding.

Every drawn out second is etched into my brain and I think still gives me a form of PTSD, from running back to get him, calling the emergency services, stabilising his head till they arrived, carrying one corner of the stretcher off the hill, calling his wife and mother of a 2yr old…

That, my friends, was a horrible bike ride. (as you can probably attest Saxonrider!)

Mine was probably the bike leg of the outlaw triathlon in 2015. 112 miles in the pissing rain, woefully underdressed, couldn’t change gear for the last 10 miles as I was so cold and then couldn’t get my helmet off in transition as my fingers couldn’t release the clasp.

Cold and wet and no way out is the recipe for my worst rides. Worst of those was around 8 hours point to point in sleety, freezing rain and high headwinds in February 2013, I was preparing for a big ride and needed to know how bad it might get and how I coped with getting to the real tipping point of hypothermia. I did and it was grim. Didn’t want to stop (even to get food out and eat, stupidly) as I’d get colder if I did, couldn’t keep going in any kind of comfort at all and it was just getting worse every 30 mins or so. Not exactly Touching the Void stuff but the closest I’ve been to thinking that crawling under a bush and hoping it would all go away was actually an option!

Didn’t end up in trouble but was a despairing, pained and howling mess with 30-odd miles to go. If I’d been anywhere properly remote it really would have been a case of stopping under shelter and getting into a sleeping bag, light a fire maybe if still capable, wait it out at a few degrees warmer than I was on the bike. Silly situation really. I hope I’d have not got myself in that situ in eg highlands or mid Wales, and that was the point of a few rides like this, to learn where I could draw a line before getting to that point. You just can’t keep going in bad weather, sooner or later you’re done for.

Learnt a few good ‘what not to do’ points and revised some kit ideas. The kick in the teeth at the end was that the hot aches after getting home were even worse than the ride : )

In recent memory, a road ride this summer as training for a 100 miler later in the year. It was a Saturday, and I was aiming for 70 miles or so, as an out and back, riding solo.
Got out to the turning point, didn’t feel too bad, and stopped for a few biscuits and jelly babies. My stomach started feeling a bit iffy about 5 miles into the return leg, so I paused, had another few biscuits and jelly babies, then hopped back on the bike.

Abuot 10 miles from home I started feeling really rough, and while stopped at a traffic light waiting for it to turn, I threw up in someone’s front garden, painfully and at length. Waited about 10 minutes, sipping water, and felt a little better, so slowly pottered the next 3 miles or so on a cyclepath, before feeling rough again and walking the next mile, then throwing up in someone else’s front garden.

Even though I was only about 5 miles from home I had to call the wife to come and collect me as I couldn’t move. Got home, I was freezing cold (it was 25C outside), couldn’t stop throwing up and couldn’t hold any food or drink down.

Working back through it the next day, the morning of the ride I’d eaten a bowl of Cheerios and a banana, and then went out without really considering how far I was going or how much fuel I’d need. So after that I took it a bit more seriously, fuelling up beforehand, taking lots of food options etc. Bit of a key lesson, really!

Mine doesn’t sound so bad compared to others here.
Last summer in Girona, we did the Rococorba on day 4 of our trip, already my legs were feeling a bit tired. The guys I was with thought it best to have a good breakfast before starting, but this meant leaving the hotel at 10am. We only had a single spare tube each…..By the time we got to Banyoles it was already close to 40 degree’s. Stopped for a nice cold drink before heading to the climb. I had a flat on the way there, stopped and fixed it nice and quick, no drama’s.
It was just a horrendous climb, made worse by the intense heat. Was 4 of us going up, I went at my own pace, trying to take it reasonably easy at the start, one of the other guys went off hard on the earlier flatter section. I was on a 53/39 and 11-28. The 15% sections were ridiculously hard, I had two bottles, the plain water went over my head fairly early on. Big mistake. After what seemed an eternity managed to get to the top, one of our group was really struggling, we lost sight of him early on. At the summit I had a short rest, turned around and headed downhill – was in a grumpy mood as I absolutely hated the climb up. Went past my friend who was struggling but he wanted to continue to the top, I said we would meet up at a rest area (a house selling fruit and drinks about half way up). Waited there for about 40 mins, tried phoning him as he should have been down then. No answer. Thought he must have been on the way down and couldn’t answer his phone. 10 minutes passed and still no sign. Again no answer. Must have been about 2pm by now and the heat was oppressive. There was no choice but for us to stock up on drinks and head back up the climb again. He had come off on the descent (pretty much at the top), he had a flat tyre coming down the hill, ended up in a bush, a bit cut and bruised, couldn’t really walk. He had tried fitting his new tube using his hire shop pump, took him ages to get some air in – tube went pop on him inside the tyre. He had no other spare. When I got to him, we had another spare, put it in and pumped it up, no worries with a working pump (another hire pump). Tried to remove the pump from the valve, not having it – it was stuck solid. Finally managed to get it off….but the valve came off and was stuck in the pump. We had one tube left….this only had a 50mm valve, his wheels were 60mm deep! So we are now stuck at the top of Rococorba. There are bike shops in town, but its a Sunday afternoon, called a couple but no answer. Decide to head down to town and see what I can find – only managed to get hold of a standard tube and a valve extender (no tool, but worth a shot). Start the ride back, get above the easier bits at the start onto the start of the steep pitches, meet them coming back down to me – they’d managed to get him a lift from a touring company who had gone up the climb. They’d had been calling me but phone was in my pocket on silent.
I enjoy climbing, have done all sorts of big days out. But that heat combined with going back up and down the climb was just horrible. I didn’t ride the next day as almost fell out of love with cycling.
The ride back to Girona was equally miserable. 4 good friends in such bad moods, dehydrated riding back pretty much in silence. But more annoyed with our own lack of preparation. There was a combined total of 80 years of cycling experience, and we failed the basic test of having enough spares in good working order.

I’ve had a few shockers but one that sticks in the memory was a commute. Of sorts.

I was working in London and living in Manningtree, about 80 miles away in Essex. I had an event coming up and had done little training so thought I would be home from work one evening to get some miles in.

I took the bike down on the train one Friday and planned to head back after work was finished. However I met a couple of mates for a quick beer and after three, started my journey homewards.

The traffic out of London on a Friday night was abysmal and I was highly stressed by the time I’d reached the edge of town. However I settled down a bit and got into a rhythm, starting to enjoy the quiet lanes of Essex.

At the half way spot – great dunmow – the heavens opened. No rain was in the forecast, but there was rain nonetheless. Lots of it. I had a Rapha wind jacket with me – a quality bit of kit but very much not waterproof.

I soldiered on. The beers began to were off and hunger grew. It transpired that rural Essex has few food shops open on a Friday night. Any, in fact.

Navigation began to get tricky as the lanes narrowed. My map began to disintegrate in the rain, as did my bottom bracket, which began to sound like a spanner chucked in a blender.

The bonk hit about 15 miles out and I was pushing up hills I’d normally breeze up. The last 5 miles were endless.

I arrived home around 1am, gaunt, ashen and absolutely empty. My wife had saved me some takeaway curry and I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so happy to see some congealed korma sitting on the kitchen worktop.

Pushed all the way up Snowdon looking forward to trying out my new 150mm forks on the ranger path. Set off, forks started working overtime, unfortunately(!) ripping brake hose from the lever, I hadn’t factored in needing a longer hose for longer forks. Brake fluid everywhere and careering down the scree with no front brake, I had to lay the bike down on it’s side as best I could. In doing so I ripped the hose on my brand new reverb and scratched the post too. This was day one of a week’s camp/bike holiday. Luckily the lovely mechanic at Beics Betwys was able to repair my brake, send my reverb for a warranty replacement and lend me a seatpost, or it would have been holiday over. Funnily enough although it was a disaster I quite enjoyed the day

Back in 2005. I’d recently got back into mountain biking after a year on road bikes (then girlfriend was a roadie) and decided to go the whole hog with a new bike, new kit and had switched my car for a Corsa Van. Had done a few small rides locally to get back into the swing of things and get my kit choice dialled then decided to do an all-day ride round Exmoor.

The day didn’t start well as I woke up late, I then left my helmet and shoes behind so had to double back to get them and in the rush at the petrol station managed to out a litre of petrol in the van before realising and brimming it with diesel. Got to my start point about 2 hours late by which time the small car park was full so had to go hunting for a spot nearby. Oh well, I knew I could cut a part of the route off and save time that way. Set off and all was well, for about 3 hours.
Then I managed to lose my printed map sheet after a pub stop. Oh well, back along the roads it is. Did that for a bit then I was riding the same way as a local who happened to be going roughly the same route so he invited me to tag along, result! Except he took me down some paths that were barely passable due to overgrowth. This overgrowth covered up a big stump that managed to rip my rear mech off, a lovely Deore XT with under 70 miles on it was toast together with the hanger and the yank on the gear cable had also snapped off one of the cable guides! It was only a 3 mile walk back to roughly where the van was so we parted ways and I pushed my new broken bike back.
Then the weather changed. It was meant to be warm but slightly cloudy all day, which it was. But for some reason one cloud decided to drop a motherload of rain on me and my immediate area for about a minute. Every way I looked it was still dry except for this little village I was in! I was soaked right through and absolutely fed up by now.
Finally got back to where I’d parked, easily identifiable by the house beside the small layby. Except there was no van. Double checked my location, even wandered further up the road a bit in case there was two similar houses near each other. Then I saw the glass on the ground. Bugger. Went and found a phonebox and called the police. They knew where my van was, it was smashed up in a field! They kindly came and got me and took me to it. It had gone though a drystone wall and was lying on it’s side with only two wheels in the right place and the rear loadspace a fair amount smaller than it was. They said it had been reported there at 12, less than an hour after I’d started my ride. Got my belongings out of it, called the insurance company from the police station then got my girlfriend to pick me up.

Got home and put the bike in the garage, it stayed there for year. The upside is I got £700 more from the insurance company than I paid for the van. Which I bought a car with. Haven’t had a van since.

@reluctantjumper that indeed is a bad day out!

too many to mention, some grim grassy wet climbs are probably still going on. Loads of solo didn;t bother with a light then had a mechanical races againts total darkness. That sort of thing. For some reason the one that comes to mind if from a few years ago in the big hills north of Verdon, on a crossbike (shite choice) trying to a mainly fireroads ride, mainly through planted pine forest, some time after it had rained. It was late in the day and I’d frankly had enough, so thought if I dropped down a ridge it’d short cut me to a road and then just a few miles spin home. Ha, the fire road steepened, then turned from gravel surfaced to mud, to clay. The few bits that were ridable weren’t as the tyres picked it up doubled in size and wheels would not turn. There was no way I’d try to slither back up so was committed. Scooping off cold handsful of clay.

Skies darkened. This continued until I found myself down in a small stream valley a few 100m from the road in theory. In practice impenetrable bushes, or a 75 degree unclimbable clay slope to climb. So climbed that, somehow and eventually after various failed attempts brought me back into hte stream. Can’t quite remember the next bit, just that I got to the larger valley thank ****, oops there’s a couple of knackered cars. There’d been distant gunshots all day and up the valley there’s a few french dudes giving out a bit of a Deliverance vibe. But I was now on ridable track so off I rode, looking like the swamp thing most probably (hey ma, look what we shot in the woods!) Then the road, then home. Cycling eh?

Great thread. Makes me glad that my rides these days are generally limited to just squeezing in a quick 1hr local loop.

One of the Kinlochleven enduros, went up later than most people and was out practicing after the marshalls came in (all allowed btw). Weather started to close in as I was approaching the last stage, went from a pretty lovely winter day to heavy snow in the space of about 2 minutes. Almost immediately took a spill into freezing water, and it’s a big mean descent even in perfect conditions. By the time I got off the hill, it was practically dark and I was so frozen and soaked that I couldn’t really think. Got to the B&B and the owner basically just threw me in the shower and turned on the hot. Discovered afterwards that I’d ripped teh sole of one shoe off almost completely, and had pedal cuts on my foot, didn’t feel a thing.

Basically, how to nearly have to call out mountain rescue when you’re practically in someone’s garden.

Race day went much better.

Unfamiliar forest. Winter day. Joined by riders we don’t usually ride with. Mega faff start ate daylight. Cold. Some decent singletrack. Darkness fell. Navigating by trying to hold the “screen” of a pre-smartphone mobile to illuminate the OS map. PITCH darkness. A grown man started to cry (!) One rider rode into a fallen tree across the forest road. Unhurt, but sobering nevertheless, and caused a significant reduction in group speed. Full bat senses required. It got very cold. Upon return, the wife of the crying rider started to cry too. Some people don’t seem to get what “fun” is.

Chilterns mid winter 2005

Been out the scene for 6 years (partying hard) then went out with work mtb mates thinking I still had it….legs blew up, the snow started, I had the wrong gear, punctures and couldn’t keep up for cramp. Left the ride group and headed back to car, sodden, hurting and cold. I’ve kept fit ever since that day

The most disappointing one for me. Found a path on the map that looked like a lovely 4 mile downhill with a nasty doubletrack climb to the start. Did the climb, found the beginning of the path and set off down it. iIt was a deer track thus it disappeared. Never mind – there is a sheiling in about half a mile – the path will be better after that. It wasn’t but now beyond the point at which returning seemed sensible. Maybe it will get better. It didn’t. a 4 mile walk thru heather downhill was the result not the lovely singletrack the map led me to believe was there.

What made it worse was I found a pal had done exactly the same thing a while before.

so deflating to do an evil climb for a 4 mile walk!