Then there was the Christmas day commute. 7 miles with 1000ft of climb. set of a bit late and the weather just kept on getting worse. Halfway there with sleet blinding me and my face frozen I just gave up, flagged a taxi down and got it to take me to work. certainly the worst commute ever and the only time I was defeated. It was just truly horrid.

I’d say mine was a Torridon (area) ride about 8 years ago. Long story short….bad route from interweb + lots and lots of pushing & shoving both up & down + a mechanical I couldn’t fix (tubeless puncture, don’t ask) + dark night + no headtorch – daylight = Torridon Mountain Rescue to the rescue. (with spare head torches, 15 mins from the car)
Yep, seriously. Rescued by Torridon MR.

Halfway there with sleet blinding me and my face frozen

Oh yes, had that on a ‘3 Shires ride’ some years ago. Could only see out of one eye cos the other one was full of snow.
Sacked that one off before the end.

Hot_fiat and I rode a few Dragon downhill events back in the late 90s/early 00s.

We rocked up to one of the welsh championship races, I forget where, to be confronted with a vertical one-line rut through a dark wet pine forest.

Most of it was unrideable by mortals. There was one bit which was an off-camber vertical slide for about 10m with a catch berm at the bottom.

We were standing at the top of this section with some other riders, scratching our heads and talking bullshit lines, when the marshal whistles sounded and a pro-train of Peaty/Longden/Page and many others came hauling down the hill. They all just picked their wheels up, prejumped the drop, missed the whole section out and landed on the berm and disappeared.

It was a defining moment for me. I was never going to be a downhiller. What they could do and what I could imagine where eons apart.

I went home and sold my LTS. Bad times!

I’ve got lost a lot, a lot of daft ideas, bad weather , broken bones,broken bike- my beloved 99 mini mula snapped at the top tube in thetford forest a miserable 10km walk back to the car a lowlight.

Worst 2 rides

The Mega 2014?. The mud edition, took my clogged goggles off 1/3rd of the way down- big mistake, the mud was endless, wheels clogged up in frame, forcing/carrying a 100kg bike/ mud down steepest hairpins with an army of cursing miserable fellow racers, I rode the bottom third swapping eyes when the pain from all the grit got too much in the other one
At the bottom my shorts were ripped to shreds & i had to get a saline wash from the medics, still got an eye infection a couple of days ater

@scottfitz had it worse he spent the week in his tent shitting out his bodyweight after a dodgy burger!

Even more miserable was dyfi enduro a few years agoo

I had a dire cold but was meeting mates, 3 hr drive to get there, tanked up on ibuprofen, first half was fine, got colder & wetter as it went on, made the feed stop and decided to gorge on sausage rolls to see me through

The last 10k were a miserable slog of crippling indigestion, endless snot & a pounding headache.

Never even said goodbye to my mates who id seen for about 5mins at the start.

Got in the car exploded a sachet of recovery powder in the car trying to fill my water bottle.

Miserable drive home too.

Great thread, love Lister’s one above about realising your own limitations.

For me it’s been almost all type 1 or type 2 fun and I have loved every moment, however it felt at the time. The only ride I actually regret is the brake test ride 10 years ago when I went uncharacteristically otb, fractured my elbow and have arthritis in it now as a result. But still, it really is a small price to pay for all the fun I have had and continue to have.

Probably the worst at the time actual ride was me about age 15, 1993, winter. bonked on a huge 50 mile Cheshire and peak MBC ride to Hayfield from Macclesfield. Could not turn the pedals on the way back. Took hours and hours to ride home. Ate a more than I ever before or since sat slumped outside McDonalds, on the cold terracotta tiles (I still clearly remember exactly how they felt) in Macclesfield town centre.

I would not be who i am today, without that ride.
It was **** awesome.

Cheshire and peak MBC 4 eva

Jeezus Christ. 45 posts in and nobody has said “Your mum”.

What is the world coming to? 🙁

Me and two mates flew to Mallorca 7 years ago at the end of February after reading about it being a cycling paradise.

Had the map everyone recommends with the cycle routes on but not one Garmin between us and it was pre free data abroad so we didn’t take our phones out on the ride.

We mainly took summer/spring gear as it’s always warm in Mallorca we thought, set out for a 100km ride from Alcudia down the east coast returning on some minor inland roads.

After an hour it started bucketing down with rain and dropped to single digits temperature, soaked, cold and starving we made it to Cala Ratjada to find everywhere closed it being a Sunday in February!

We set off on what we thought was the direction back in what was now relentless sleet, after an hour or so of miserable riding in silence we stopped to check the map and we were near Portocolom, we had pedalled completely the wrong direction and were now completely fed up.

We managed to find a cafe open and sat dripping wet and shivering in our summer gear whilst waiting for a taxi to come and get us and 3 bikes with locals taking pity on us giving us hot chocolates and towels.

To top of the day after finally warming up back at the hotel we went out for food only for my mate to slip on the wet marble stairs and bang his head and have a seizure.

It was apparently the worse winter they had in 11 years!

Marmotte Sportive 2014.
My front tyre blew (properly blew, 40mph, shat myself)
On the descent off the Col du Glandon, the tyre was basically scrap, with the sidewall holed in several places by the ‘pizza cutter’ effect of being ridden on inflated at speed down a hill. By the time I’d managed to vaguely patch it with gel sachets, I was dead last and there was no tech support. No way was I making it all the way round, so I went back up to the col hoping I might be able to procure a tyre there. Nothing up there but the broom wagon, and if I got on it, I’d be on it for the next 10-12 hours which I didn’t fancy, so I decided I’d try to ride back to the start (not far, all downhill). I’d had to disconnect my front brake to clear the bulging inner tube and buckled wheel caused by the blowout, and as the blowout had been caused by overheating on the brakes I was now pathologically afraid of it happening again to the back wheel, so I was now walking down the steepest sections. Finally got back to Bourg d’oisins where I punctured again and discovered the glue in my repair kit had dried up and both my spare tubes had already been used earlier. The snag was that my hotel was in Alpe D’huez at the finish line. At this point I did manage to borrow a tyre of a bemused and sympathetic English fellow there to support his mates and I proceeded to endure a horrific 2 hours in 30-degree heat dragging my fat and sorry arse up the Alpe.
That was a pretty unenjoyable day out.