Relieve your conscience and spill it! What’s the dumbest thing you’ve done while riding, or in the name of riding?
Here’s mine to start:
I ride with my car key fob in my zipped jersey pocket when I drive to rides/races. One time, I took the fob out of my pocket, put it on top of the car as I changed out of my jersey to drive the two hours back. You guessed it: I left the fob on the car as I drove off… I heard it fall, but didn’t connect… I drove 90 minutes before needing to stop for a nature break and gas. I stopped, filled the car up, went inside the station, came back out, got in the car, pushed the ignition… nothing. Found the key ring with my valet key on it, but the car doesn’t have a valet key starter, so I’m stuck 30 min from where I’m staying, 2000 miles from my actual home, no way to start my car… pushed the car into a parking spot at the small rural station where they graciously let me keep it for a few days, a friend bailed me out, and my wife overnighted me our backup fob.
So that’s it.
Well… kinda… this past weekend, I drove off from a ride and DID IT AGAIN. Except this time I heard the fob fall, stopped, and found two of the three pieces of the fob in the road and was able to get it working once I got home.
No chance in hell I tell my wife that, so consider this my “confession.”
Drove from my home 3 hours to an event. Took the bike out and closed the boot.
Then realized that i needed something else out the car , to then realize i had locked the car, and the keys i had placed in the car boot, when taking out the bike now locked.
My Partner drove all the way across Scotland to bring the spare set of keys. That cost me a nice bottle of wine and dinner out.
First MTB race of last season, I cram all of my stuff into the back pocket of my skin suit with the key at the very bottom. I’m racing, going hard, barely able to breathe and I slide out and crash in a loose corner. Get up, keep going through the race.
I finish, get back to the car so I can clean up and text my SO and…I pull the handle to the car and get nothing. Naturally I’m mortified and now I’m stuck in my kit until I can get in touch and get her to Uber out with the extra key.
I mope around for a good 20-30 minutes, and then decide I might as well go out and look for it. I go back to where I crashed where there was a photographer, ask if he saw anything and he says no. I look down at my feet and there is the key, have buried in the dirt. Touched by an angel!
After that, I immediately ordered a lockbox and faraday sleeve so I can put my key attached to the car while I race. I also have a Tile on my keys now too
I’ve gone out in the summer with bottles already on the bike, but since I got the bottles out the night before so as not to forget them I then forgot to fill them up.
I had an almost exact thing happen once early on in my riding days. Out pre-riding a course and my key fell out of my saddle bag (I said it was early on…) this was pre cell phone days and my only option was hitch-hiking the drive back home. I had to try to find the key, same deal I just happened to look down and there it sat. What a feeling of relief! I only stash my key in a zipped pocket now, and if a jersey doesn’t have a zipped pocket, I won’t buy it! Also, I stopped using saddle bags on a damn mountain bike!
At mile 10 of a 60 mile out and back ride I reached down for my first drink and realized i’d left both my bottles in my hotel room. I was in a rural area I’d never ridden in before but it was not too hot and I really did not want to back track. There has to be a gas station around the next bend or two right? So i pressed on. i finally found an open convenience store at mile 40. Fortunately I had not forgotten my wallet.
A few years ago I arranged a family holiday/training weekend in the Cairngorm mountain range.
My wife was on board to let me do some long hilly rides on each of the 3 days we were staying whilst her and my son went off to explore the local area.
Packed up the car and arrived nice and early. The weather was unseasonably warm and it was looking like the perfect weekend to get some miles in.
1st day & my wife left in the car with my son. They were going to do a walk and explore a small nearby town. We agreed to meet up for an ice cream part of the way through. I had a coffee, got dressed and was all ready to go until I realised I had forgotten to pack my cycling shoes.
The upside is that after 15 minutes of sulking about my stupidity I felt better and had an amazing weekend with my family!
Not cycling but still dumb AF, Decided to do birthday miles back in 2016. My birthday is in April. Since I already had Boston scheduled, decided to push it down to May. I was living near DC at that time, so i figured weather would be not horrible.
Morgan Freedman voice Turned out he was very wrong.
We started the run at 4 am to avoid the sun as much as possible. The route was mostly on the WOD train starting at Ashburn, VA and run to DC.
Oh man. At 4 am, the temperature was already high 70s, and it was humid too.
We decided to do it regarless, figured we had enough food and water, and with the right pace, it was doable.
Morgan Freedman voice Turned out he was very wrong.
Oh boy. Once the sun came out, the water consumption increased. And tho it was super hot, it was technically spring, so guess what happens to the water fountains in DC? They get winterized. So no water ANYWHERE!
We ran like 5 or 6 miles in the sun, to get to DC to find no water! It was a little scary, we still had like 8 miles to go, but with no water it would have been impossible. We finally got to a monument store, and we bought like 4 bottles of water each. I remember we drank a full bottles in one sip, Refilled the camelbacks and finished up.
How bad was the ‘regrowth’ period and how long until your legs looked ‘normal’ again? Always wondered how long it would take to get back to equilibrium…
The late 80s - bought a mountain bike and without any training in my legs decided the most epic thing to do was climb Mt Diablo on the fire roads, and descend the paved roads to South Gate. Discovered that “epic” is most definitely NOT defined by pushing a bike uphill 2500 vertical feet in the heat of mid morning… but hey, the descent was awesome!
