Midnight Biker

I have a few... I don't know which is the worst, but here they are in no particular order:

*About this time last year, my second year biking, I decided to cross some railroad tracks when the gates were down. Before I crossed I heard the horn far away and looked to my right where I saw the train coming about 200-400 meters away. I went ahead and crossed, figuring I had plenty of time since the train seemed to be so far away. When I made it across the tracks I heard the horn blasting almost right next to me and before I knew it the train was thundering past me at speeds in excess of 70 mph. I had no idea it was moving so fast when I looked at it before crossing. Had my tire gotten trapped in one of the little grooves, which was possible as they were not perpendicular to the path, I would have been turned into a fine mist with the odd large piece of bone here and there... scary.

*Last year I decided to go on a long ride on the forest preserve trail after a night of rain. The mud was thick but that didn't deter me. I felt I needed to ride that day because I was so anxious. I ended up riding out very far, about 26 miles, in addition to the 7 miles I had put in in the morning. I started to feel tired and turned back when I got out to almost Wisconsin (I live in Chicago). On my way back I had to pedal through all that mud again, it was incredibly difficult, and on top of that the temperature was some 87 degrees with high humidity. By the time I got out of the wooded trail and onto a road I noticed my heart skip a beat. I made nothing of it initially, as that often happens to me when I'm pissed off, and I was a little pissed off because of the difficulty of my ride and the fact that I had gotten mud in my eye. When I crossed the road I realized I was feeling very tired and everything seemed a bit surrewal. I was getting a bit disorientated also. I then checked my heart-rate and saw that it was very rapid and faint. When I put my hand over my chest I could not feel my heart pounding like I expected. I expected it to be pounding like crazy given the insane effort I had just made to pedal through all that thick mud. I drank down my last 8 oz and sat down to rest. Suddenly I felt the need to urinate. I stood up and took a whizz and got some of the urine on my hand. To my shock, the urine felt like hot coffee on my finger. I realized I was overheated and started to freak out a little, but my heart-rate didn't change at all -- it remained weak. I knew I was in trouble and started going home slowly on some quiet side roads. I got to a gas station and bought a bottle of water, standing by the cooler with the door open until the shop owner got pissed. I paid and drank and started to ride home. On that ride I started feeling like I was going to pass out any minute. At one point I was sure I would pass out, I even started waving to a car that passed me just in case I did. Somehow I made it home and jumped into a cold shower right away. I slept all afternoon and when I awoke I tried to ride my bike around the block and I honestly couldn't. I had no energy left in me AT ALL. I had ridden 50 miles total that day and a lot of it through thick mud. I really gave it my all that day.

*Earlier this year I was driving down a side street when I noticed a car coming up behind me. It was a two-lane side street and I was in his lane. Thinking the driver expected me to get out of the way I proceeded to ride to the other side of the street. Little did I know the guy was riding at some 40 mph in his large Escalade. I could hear him desperately hitting the breaks behind me and honking his car horn like a maniac as I swerved in front of him. Somehow I survived and I learned a valuable lesson - never ride when you're tired and liable to make an error of judgement. I could have ended up smeared that day... scary.

*One day, after an insanely long bike ride, I was crossing the street in the evening time. There was a car stopped at the stop sign and because I was tired I assumed the driver saw me and I proceeded to cross. As soon as I got in motion so did the car and I was nearly hit. I figure there was a meter between the car and me. Thankfully the car wasn't going fast. The driver probably did not see me at all given how he/she just kept driving.

I'll think of more...

KeyserSoze81

I rode on a flat rear tire for about 1 mile before realizing it was flat. I just thought I had hit the wall energy-wise, so I was swearing at my lack of conditioning.

Endo'ed on one of my first mountain bike rides - had gone done the same hill three times and got overconfident. Gravel at the bottom of a hill + my lack of experience + my excessive speed + my locking the brakes = nearly broken collarbone and road rash. I completely taco'ed the front wheel. So I swore off mountain biking...for about two weeks, which is when I bought a much better bike with disc brakes (Giant Revel 1, now upgraded beyond recognition).

mwchandler21

Several years ago when I first started riding pretty regularly (but didn't have much understanding of bike maintenance) my front derailleur was not shifting to the smaller chain ring very easy (it moved but not enough, easy fix now just didn't know at the time). My solution for about two weeks was to lightly tap the chain with my heel to give it the nudge to switch to the smaller ring. One day I missed the chain on the first attempt so for the second attempt I went harder than normal and ended up sticking my heel in the spokes of my back wheel. The wheel immediately locked and I fish tailed across the road and then rolled over. Broke my arm, road rash every where and back wheel trashed, but the bike was surprisingly only slightly damaged.

Tundra_Man 

I was riding my bike to school (7th grade - early 80s) one morning when I had the brilliant idea, "I wonder if I can ride my bike while crossing my hands on the opposite hand grips?" BAM! I went down really fast and hard.

That wasn't the dumbest thing though. The dumbest thing was after I recovered enough to get back on the bike and started pedaling, I thought to myself, "I wonder if I'd do any better with a second attempt?" BAM!

Midnight Biker

I don't know what taco'ed and endo'ed mean, but they don't sound too good.

That sort of reminds me. One time I squeezed the breaks on my spanking new Columbia bake a little too hard and nearly got flipped over.

SteamingAlong

I think it would be something I did when I was 12.

I was working on my Huffy Pro3 and got aggravated. So, I threw a combo wrench at the bike, it hit the side wall of the back tire and rebounded right back at my face, at probably twice the speed I had thrown it. The open end of the wrench, caught me right under the point of the chin and I wound up seeing little birdies and stars, just like in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

That was the day I learned not to throw tools.

jon c. 

dumbest thing I ever did was ride straight into a 'bucket' from a front loader while riding in a cemetery at night. crunched the wheel, bent the frame and gave me a hell of a concussion.

Midnight Biker

I hope that taught you not to disturb the dead at night.

Did you have a light attached to your bike?

rumrunn6

run a stop sign only to be face to face with a surprise automobile

kjmillig

Did you mean you squeezed the brakes on your bike too hard? Then you almost endo'ed. It means to go head first over your handlebars.
Taco'ed means you bent a wheel into the shape of a taco.

Shimagnolo

I was probably about Jr High age when riding down the road one day I decided to try crossing my arms and gripping the left part of the handlebar with my right hand, and vice versa. Never did that again.

kjmillig

When I was in about 6th grade I tried to jump a wide ditch with a homemade plywood ramp on my single speed, banana seat bike. The ramp held, but a combination of low ramp agle and ditch width landed me with my rear wheel in the ditch, front wheel out of the ditch, and me on the ground writhing in pain after hitting the gooseneck (stem) with my crotch and knee with the frame.

On a less painful note, about 6 years ago I had just finished cleaning my bike and decided to roll around the block to check the derailleure function. I had just rolled down the driveway and was looking down at the chainring when I suddenly found myself bent over the handlebars onto the hood of a parked car. Luckily I was barely moving and didn't cause any damage to the car, my bike, or myself. My pride was hurt pretty badly though.

CraigB

I didn't do this myself, but I heard about a guy who saw, while riding his road bike, that one of his bar end plugs was coming loose, so he slammed it into place. Again, while riding (but not for long).

danmc

LOL! I thought I was the only kid stupid enough to do that!

danmc

Wow, does every kid do that?

Shimagnolo

Probably not more than once.

steve0257

Back in high school. Wading across a local river that was normally between knee and waist deep. Turn out the spring runoff had scoured a deep spot in the river. Have anybody else ever gone swimming while carrying a bicycle?

conradpdx

About 15 years ago my only bike was nice a Raleigh MT 600, my first real bike. It was also my only transportation. I did a lot mountain biking and I liked my seat a little low for when I was on the trails. However, when I was riding streets I would raise the seat, and the most comfortable position for me was with the seat about a 1/2 inch over the maximum extension line on the seat stem.

Riding to work one morning I was riding no handed and WHAM. Next thing I know I'm sitting on my butt in the middle of the road my seat bouncing along behind me, while I'm watching my bike roll on down the street without me. Boy I had that bike dialed in good, it must of rolled 50 feet or so before it finally lost momentum and fell over.

Luckily I didn't land on the seat when it fell out, and the street wasn't a busy one so my bike or myself didn't get hit by a truck or car (my job was in a light commercial industrial area). And even more importantly no one I knew saw me either. I got made fun of enough for being a carless adult and riding my bike everyday/everywhere, that would have been the icing on the cake for a few of my co-workers.

Flying Merkel

Originally Posted by Shimagnolo
I was probably about Jr High age when riding down the road one day I decided to try crossing my arms and gripping the left part of the handlebar with my right hand, and vice versa. Never did that again.



Yes, every kid does that. It doesn't work.

jon c. 

I'm sure I did it as a kid. And crashed. But having read this thread yesterday before I went out for a ride, I found I had a tremendous urge to try it again. Thinking 'it really seems like you ought to be able to do it.'

I resisted the urge :-)

doc0c

Tried riding with no hands for the first time (I was about 12). Everything was going well until I hit a pothole. Over the handlebars, road rash over my whole abdomen, and a broken arm. This was about 2 weeks before going on vacation with my parents to a beach resort.

Riding with no hands down a steep hill in traffic. Nothing bad happened, but as I think about it more, it was a dumb-a$$ thing to do.

Taking a corner at very high speed on asphalt covered in loose rocks. Still have the scars from that adventure. Also happened in the middle of summer. Going into the pool and taking a shower were a little painful for the next few days.

Riding down the trails, standing up on the pedals, and squeezing the front brakes. This was more of a spectacular incident than painful.

+ many, many others.

bgraham111

A friend and I were on an organized bike ride and we both decided to do the "extension" loop that let us ride farther. There weren't as many people on the extension, and we got bored. The path was all road, and we were used to doing MT biking. And we got bored. So to spice it up, we decided it would be fun to try and grab the brakes on each others handle bars and see if we could stop the other guy. At 15 mph. On a road.

We came close to actually doing this when we realized that it was probably stupid. Disaster averted.

Allen

I was disgusted with myself for bonking on the way to town a few days in a row.
I have carbon fenders on my commuter. The rear fender had slipped and was dragging on my rear tire like a drum brake but not making any noise. I figured it out when the tire flatted.