Whats been your worst....
Thought I would add this in after my ordeal yesterday...kinda got me to thinking I can't be the only one...given the things we do...
So yesterday I was determined to not let winter back into my life...and so despite mid 30"s temp and 5-10mph north wind...I went out for my Sunday ABP ride...the plan was to go 1:30-2hr north against the wind and enjoy the wind at my back on the way home...I had gels, fluids, was well dressed...checked my bike kit...spare tube, levers, 2xCO2's..check check check...so off I go...sun is out so despite cold and wind...rather pleasat...easy paced out 1hr..ok...1.5hr..ok...1:45 and I reach a natural turnaround point and decide to head back...the sun has tucked back behind clouds but at least the wind is at my back...about 15min. into the return and I just miss a large pothole and half-jump a small pothole...and dam if my rear tire doesn't go flat....now despite not looking forward to the task of changing the rear tire in the cold breeze with cold hands...I wasn't panicked ...I had my stuff...and have done this before...so I start the process.....wheel off, tire off, tube out...new tube in...tire back on...wheel on...CO2...oops...the CO2 canister in the inflator is dead...hmmm good thing I have the back up...well...cold fingers...fumbled the job...and before i could stop the impending doom the CO2 escaped from my second canister...Ruh Roh...I say ruh roh because the road I am on runs north along the Delaware river....there a numerous small towns along the way..but spaced out...I'm currently 25 miles from home...5miles from the closest town back north...and 5miles from the closest town headed south....Ruh Roh...normally this road is busy with Roadie Cyclist...and have borrowed my share of tubes, patches, CO2 in past...but its not a nice day...I haven't seen a single rider all day....there are cars passing by...and if figure if someone sees a bike rider walking his bike down this stretch of road...well someone will stop and help right?...but what to do...standing still is just cold....should I walk North or South?...Should I ride on the flat? Can you ride on the flat? ....
I call a friend...but don't ask her to drive out 40 miles to get me just yet...I decide to start walking south...someone will stop...and maybe they will have a pump? or if I can get a ride 2 towns down ...they have a bike shop...
Well I can't tell you how many cars went by...including cars with bikes in their bike racks....the prospect of walking 5-7 miles was not pleasant...but I'm happy to say that after about 30 minutes of walking a couple finally stopped and offered me a ride into the next town where they thought I could get air....but when the gas station was closed they drove me to the next town with the bike shop...where I was able to get additional CO2 & tubes...and pump up my tire....I then had an awesome hour ride home...but it could have turned out far worse......
So...whats your worst "Stranded" story?
Comments
As we're cruising down the road my wife goes FLYING past me in my truck.....she knows my route, had eventually seen the call from an unfamiliar number and rightly assumed it was from me.... she's thinking the worst (she says it took a year off her life) as she always has been super nervous about me riding. I had seen her approaching from the opposite direction and flagged her down, made the switch of vehicles, thanking the guy who was giving me the ride, and spending the better part of the week calming my poor wife down!
Well, one year, my buddy Terrance and I are riding the long route, a century ride. About 45 miles in...BOOM...rear wheel blows a spoke. We spend an hour on the side of the road trying to wrestle my spoke out of the hub/wheel with a Leatherman, hoping I can make it to the next town after that. No go. Even once the spoke was out, the wheel was so untrue'd it wouldn't rotate at all - even with the brake calipers all the way open. So, Terrance rolls on without me, as I sit on the side of the road. He rides ~55 miles back to our hotel, hops in the car and comes and gets me. I spent ~3 hours on the side of the road without anyone stopping, including multiple law enforcement folks.
The very next year, Terrance and I are out there again, on our longest ride of the week, another century, and almost ~50 miles in...BOOM...this time a front spoke busts out. This year, the route maps included the phone number of the event organizer. I call him (surprised my cell phone worked this far out in the Texas countryside), he takes 1.5 hours to even get to me. Then another 2.5-3 hours to drive back to home base, as he decides to stop every five miles to see how other riders are doing. Another long day for sure!
So, two years, about as far away from home you can get and I break my wheels two successive years! Needless to say, I ditched that wheelset the day after. I haven't done more than a long 3-day weekend at Hell Week since then.
Damn Joe!, Glad you're safe and got through that! Tough when its cold out there like that.........I have lots of stories but will spare you all.
Way to get it done regardless bro!
SS
Wow, I've been pretty lucky!
My almost stranded story:
Was climbing Hwy 39 / Azusa Canyon on a weekday, I think my plan was to just go to East Fork, a bridge about 8 miles up the canyon. It's a climb but with a handful of short to kinda long downhills. You lose cell signal right at the the entrance of the canyon. My chain broke not too far up so I started walking/coasting back. A cyclist passed me, offered to help. I gave him my phone and asked him to go to the entrance of the canyon and call my wife. He did, rode the phone back to me and carried on. I walked to the top of the last hill, coasted down, called Joanne at the entrance to confirm she was on her way, continued coasting out of the canyon, then down the bike path, then allllmost to a park...where she met me and we had lunch
I broke another chain once about 1.7 miles from my house and exactly where it's a slight downhill all the way back home...so I could just coast home.
Knocking on every piece of wood around me right now...
Wish I was strong enough to break a chain!
I've been wracking my brain trying to remember at least SOMETHING in my very long cycling career which resembles being stranded by an intractable mechanical. First off, in 1997, my whole family went cross country, MA to WA with an RV as a support vehicle (driven by my 16 y/o son). This was before there was pervasive cell phone coverage, and out little CB radios only had a 5 mile range max. During the entire 3400 mile journey, somehow, we always were able to find each other, no matter what happened to bikes or route finding, and no one ever had to be "saved".
I've fixed a lot of stuff at the side of the road, or trail: torn tires, broken spokes, broken chains, ruined derailleurs ( bypassing them, meaning turning the bike into a fixie), and other stuff I can't recall. I've even ridden more than once for 10+ miles on a flat tire; it can be done, and the rim really doesn;t get damaged as long as you're careful.
But once, while riding my MTB on a powerline trail (which has since been paved) about 2 miles from my house, I encountered something I could not repair, and could not ride on with. About 400 meters in, my bike came to an abrupt halt, as if God had simply reached out and grabbed it. I catapulted over the handlebars ( and got a bruise the exact shaped of the bars on my thigh), rolled in the dirt, torquing my shoulder. I picked up the bike, assuming I might be able to limp home with one arm, But BOTH wheels were severely taco'd; the sudden stop had applied so much force to the rims they bent into a shape resembling a potato chip. My biggest puzzlement was why this happened - no rock or pit was evident. Besides, hitting one of those, the bike would have kept going forward. Finally, I noticed that one of support wires attached to a power pole, the ends of which were buried in the ground, had started to fray, and a single strand had wormed its way out of the ground. It had gotten trapped between my chain and the jockey pulley of the rear derailleur (those two little wheels in the RD through which the chain makes an S bend). Instead of flicking out, as, say, a pice of grass or brush would, it simply jammed itself into the gears of the pulley, stopping me instantly.
Mercifully, I had DRIVEN to the trailhead, instead of riding like I usually do, so I hauled my bike back (it wouldn't roll) with my one good arm the quarter mile to the car, and drove back home. Not really "stranded", but as close I have come ...
It wasn't me, it was the chain
. The first one was with a SRAM Red chain, which has some metal drilled out to save weight, I guess. It just bent in / kink on itself, poor design IMO. For the second, my cassette had so many miles on it that the teeth and larger and larger gaps, which placed a lot of stress on the chain rollers. It just gave out at the right time.
My other just laughable story is that when I was in PT school, I did a clinical rotation out in lovely Bakersfield, CA. Being the good Jewish mother that she is, my mom was repeatedly telling me of all the mountain lions that would surely eat me if I was riding/running/hiking alone. So there I am riding alone one morning and something darts in the path in front of me. Thanks to my mom, I was sure it was a mountain lion cub and that a mountain lion momma was surely lurking ready to eat me. I tried to turn around really fast, which resulted in me falling over still clipped in on my bike. So there I am, lying on the ground attached to my bike absolutely positive that I was going to be attacked. And then I saw that it was in fact, a little rabbit. Thankfully my bike was fine, and I had a good 15 mile ride back to make up a good story to tell the folks I was staying with as to why I was so scratched up.
Whaa, behind the rabbit?
This was one thing I was really interested in knowing/hearing...if anyone had done such a thing....I started down the road..but just wasn't sure...next time at least I know I can move down the road a bit more efficiently than simply walking.
It's easier, and a bit safer, if the flat is on the rear (aren;t most of them there?), than the front. It's like driving on ice (as my father used to say) "No problem as long as you don[t have to slow down or turn". A steady speed of, say 12-15 mph, and extreme caution when turning or hitting road irregularities.
My best is how I got my calf "tattoo".
I was 20-25 miles from home...having a great ride. A really great ride. I am pretty sure it was one of those 4-5 hour riding days, and I was roughly an hour out. I did something where I threw my chain to the inside on my front chain rings. I reached down and pulled the chain and thought I had everything set...and pulled away. In very short order (about 15-20 feet?) as soon as my right foot went down trying to get started again, the chain (which I apparently hadn't gotten quite on again) slipped off and my pedal released from the cleat, so that my foot went down in front of the chain ring, and i felt the "bite" of the big chain ring into my calf. I figured I got a nice little puncture wound until I looked back at my calf and saw that I really had a 2-3 inch "chain saw" wound from my calf stopping the rotation of the chain ring.
I felt so good I wanted to keep riding, and it didn't hurt that much... but I looked at it and Iknew my wife would kill me for riding for 4 hours with a gaping flapping open wound...so I called home. I probably only thought about riding on for about 1 minute, but boy, the way I remember it, it was a real debate! I rode back towards home and met her maybe half way.
I went to the ER to get it fixed up. It turned out the would ended just between the skin and the muscle capsule, so I was pretty lucky.
I got a "tattoo" along most of the cut line because they couldn't clean all of the bike grease out of the wound no matter what they did...and believe me they scrubbed back there for a while. So, now I have a little mark of glory (or stupidity, depending on how you look at it). :-)
I thought I would revive this thread because I had my first ever broken spoke this past weekend ... in the middle of a race. I was about 14 miles into an oly when all of a sudden my rear wheel locked up and I was sliding down the road. Almost immediately into my slide the rear wheel flatted. I thought for sure I was going down but managed to unclip and catch myself.
The rear RD was flung outward and the wheel would not turn. I had no idea what had happened but I thought I might as well start changing the tube. I was riding a brand new tire and didn't see any external damage. Then I saw the broken spoke. The longer piece had shot through the rim tape and flatted the latex tube from the inside. The lower portion had jammed into the cassette which is what caused the wheel to lock. I replaced the tube, removed the spoke pieces, and remounted the wheel but the warp at the missing spoke would not clear my brake pads which have a very tight tolerance on undermount brakes. And I didn't have any allen keys with me to remove the pads. Race over. Some other athletes sent word to the RD (3 loop bike course) and I was picked up.
Took the bike into the shop yesterday. The bad spoke gashed several others so the right side of the wheel has to be rebuilt. The rear DR hanger was slightly bent and that's already repaired.
I have no idea what caused the spoke to snap - maybe that particular one had an impurity in the metal - but I sure hope it's a long time before that ever happens again.
@Paul Hough , I've broken a lot of spokes, on just about every wheel I've ever owned. I'm a big dood and probably a little too aggressive on the bike, but that's my riding style and I enjoy it, but the downside is the potential to break spokes frequently!
I will tell you, I broke a spoke on my gravel bike during a ride this Feb, and all I did was wrap the spoke around another one next to it. Thankfully, the bike has disc brakes and the wheel didn't warp too bad. No problem finishing the rest of the 70 miles of gravel. I guess that's one advantage of a disc brake!
@Scott Alexander - maybe I've been lucky up to now; and yes, that would be an advantage for disc brakes that I had never thought of!