Terex

I'm pretty good at managing risk. Here's the evening I met folks for a group ride a couple miles west from home, evaluated the risk, said "Goodbye", rode home as fast as I could, and got into the garage just as this was blowing through. The high school was about a half mile to the east. They weren't as lucky. Start at 2:55 to get the picture, then just skip ahead as you want. It's a storm.

_ForceD_

In the early 1990s, I had read a piece in BICYCLING magazine about emergency, on-the-road fixes and repairs. One of the suggestions for getting back on the road when you flat, and don't have a patch kit or a spare tube, was to stuff the tire full of grass and leaves. (This was a long ride and I had already flatted once and used the spare tube I carried.) Obviously this method isn't meant to carry you any great distance, or speed. Just to where you can get help. Well, it was before everyone was carrying cell phones, and I was several miles from civilization so I couldn't call for a pick-up. So I gave the grass and leaves a try. Bad idea! I might as well ridden with the tire flat. The wheels were almost new, but I was never able to get them accurately trued again.

Dan

gettingold

Trying to pedal through a heart attack and then calling my wife instead of an ambulance. Luckily another club member came by while I was waiting for my ride (in some discomfort). He had had one previously and knew immediately. He called the ambulance and I barely made it. I had to be shocked while I was in the ER undergoing an angioplasty. Ran into the same ambulance driver a couple of years later after a crash and he recognized me. Said he honestly didn't think I was going to make it. He wondered how the fitness thing was working out for me!

Aubergine 

Many years ago I decided to ride from my home in Seattle out to Woodinville to check out the plants in the big Molbak’s Nursery there. The ride was about 40 miles or so, much of it along the Burke-Gilman trail. (This was long before the BG and Sammamish trails were connected.) It was a lovely March day (ominous music plays) when I left, and I had a great ride to the nursery where I spent a happy 45 minutes or so making a list of plants I would want to get.

Of course After a half hour I noticed that the clouds were coming over, so I figured I should get back on the road and head home. Within a few miles it started to rain. So far, no big deal . . . Seattle folks are used to rain.

Then the wind picked up. And it rained harder. Of course, it was a headwind. After another 10 minutes I was struggling to manage ten miles an hour on the flats. The temperature also dropped severely. I was dressed for upper 50s, although I at least had a decent jacket. So I pressed on, as it got darker and wetter.

The BG trail is heavily wooded in part, which did give me some protection from the wind. But at one point, a massive gust caught the trees, and a large branch cracked off directly in front of me. It hit my tire and bounced in front of me, and I ran over it, squealing loudly in surprise.)

By this time my hands were frozen. I made it home without further incidents but once at my front door, it took me several minutes before I was able to get my pocket unzipped and retrieve my keys. Rear-facing pockets with tiny zippers are a bad bad combination!

asmac

Close to the water, 2 narrow lanes, no shoulders, pot holes, 60 mph speed limit, speeding vehicles, large trucks. What's not to love?

fietsbob

Loved the view from Foyers, but, as the CTC book suggested , the route from Inverness to the north was a gradual rise,

But I was coming from Oban..

mcgeggy

I just recently got into cycling more seriously, so these are more "very close call" situations from when I was a kid (and we did not wear helmets or gloves back then):

My buddy and I are riding around an industrial park on a deserted Sunday summer evening, right around twilight. We start racing each other with the parking lot of a warehouse as the finish line about 1/2 mile ahead. Just as we are reaching the parking lot neck and neck my buddy starts slowing down and yelling something at me. I keep pedaling for the win while looking back behind me to try and hear him as he's yelling and waving. Finally I get frustrated and come to a stop so he can catch up and I can hear what he is trying to say. He pulls up, say nothing, but points to my front tire - I came to a stop with the front of my bike about two inches from a chain that had been hung across the parking lot entrance as a barrier, right at the mid line of my wheel, nearly invisible in the fading twilight. If he hadn't seen it, and I hadn't stopped at just that exact moment to hear him better...

Another time my buddy and I are riding behind my high school, in an area that was dirt and scrabble by the NJ Turnpike Bridge along Newark Bay. I have my brand new 10-speed Schwinn. We see a mound of dirt about 6 feet high and perfectly formed for racing up and over for a nice jump. It's a bit intimidating so we spend a few minutes trying to dare who will go first. He goes first, gets huge air and disappears over the other side. I get my adrenaline up and follow right after. It was great! But as I hit the crest and my wheels left the dirt, I look down and there is my friend crumpled up under his bike, in a huge hole - filled with metal traffic detour signs sticking up at all angles - and I am dropping with my bike right on top of him! Somehow, despite the sharp metal signs and posts, and me landing on top of him in a heap, and we both manage to ride away laughing our asses off with only a scrape or two!