How often do you need rescuing?

How often do you need to be rescued from a mechanical on average?

  • once in every 100 miles

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • once in every 1,000 miles

    Votes: 2 1.8%
  • once in every 10,000 miles

    Votes: 19 17.1%
  • once in every 100,000 miles

    Votes: 20 18.0%
  • less often or never been rescued

    Votes: 69 62.2%

  • Total voters
    111
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fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
I have excluded two ambulance collections though !

I have ridden home with a bike bent on the top tube, severed brake cable, and a broken wrist. Then went to A&E once changed. (Hit by van).

Also got home with broken ribs and mashed brake levers (hit by car), rode about 7 miles home but had to call out the Team car as couldn't ride the bike the last mile up a long hill. Said team car just took me straight to A&E with the bike on the roof. :laugh:
 

Tail End Charlie

Well, write it down boy ......
The clamp on my seatpost once snapped and I decided I'd nip to a bike shop only five or six miles away to try and get a new one, no problem I thought I can stand all the way. However I was on my fixie and going downhill was especially hard. My thighs were on fire when I arrived at the shop, I had to sit down for fifteen minutes! They had a replacement post though, so all was good.
 

andrew_s

Legendary Member
Location
Gloucester
Once, sort of (I put 100,000).
I might have made it all the way back, but having had a ride, I'll count it.

A worn out wheel rim starting to split, discovered in Llandrindod Wells on the Brevet Cymru 400k.

I spotted it when the split was maybe an inch long, and bulging enough to give pulsing braking, but not enough for the tube to have got through the split and burst. I let half the air out, and set off to ride back to Chepstow without using the brake on the affected wheel.
I got as far as the control at Erwood (ex) Station, half way between Builth Wells and Glasbury. The controllers were clubmates, and had just packed up, so I got a lift back to the car at Chepstow (bike locked to a bridge and retrieved later).

The others that I would have needed rescuing from were on the commute, and hence walkable (pulled half the handlebar off, bent forks after being car doored).
 

Aravis

Putrid Donut
Location
Gloucester
I voted for 10,000 miles*, by the way. I seem to remember a discussion a while back about how far we reckoned we'd cycled in our lifetimes. I concluded that I probably haven't reached 100,000 yet, and I've been going a while. I'll stick my neck out and suggest that the true average is less than might appear from the poll.

One of my instances involved being taken away by ambulance, something I generally manage to airbrush from my memory. Given the same incident in the situation we're now in a rescue by car would be quite sufficient, though I guess the broken scaphoid might not receive such prompt attention.

* I hope those who only use kms have been able to cope with the unfamiliar units. ;)
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Twice

One time I punctured about 20 miles from home and found my spare tube's valve was faulty. Rang international rescue and repaired to the nearby bub where I had burger and chips and a pint while I waited for Mrs N

Other was recent. Broken spoke on my hopelessly underspoked fancy wheels a couple of miles from home. Could easily have walked it but that's why you get married for these sort of problems. International rescue again
 
Once by a friend who promptly took me to A&E because I could not walk due to torn knee ligaments.

Once by an ambulance who took me to hospital (with my bike) because I had been found unconscious by passers-by. 5 years later still no idea how it happened.

Never for a mechanical problem.
 

Rickshaw Phil

Overconfidentii Vulgaris
Moderator
I've called for rescue twice and been forced to return by train once.:

I had a cheap wheel start to unzip itself and after the third spoke went it was binding on the frame. No mobile signal - fortunately it was only about a mile back to the phone box (which has been decommissioned since).
A century ride had to be abandoned due to a pulled muscle. Again no phone signal so I made my way to Craven Arms where there was a signal and the cafe at the Discovery Centre to wait in.
On another century ride a rim started to split. I thought it had enough life left in it - apparently not.:shy: Very luckily I was only a mile from the railway station in Ludlow.
 

Moodyman

Legendary Member
Never needed rescuing due to the bike.

But, once aborted 80 miles into @nickyboy 's 100 mile ride to Llandudno due to a festering cold. That windy stretch through the golf course just broke me so bailed out at Prestatyn.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Never been rescued but have rescued the ex 4 times as he refuses to carry a repair kit
You've got more tolerance and understanding than me...

Some people do take the piss though! One colleague out on a summer evening ride with me punctured and stood at the side of the road looking embarrassed until I finally asked him why he wasn't fixing it. Turned out that he no tools or spares with him! So, I fixed it ...

When I was done, I asked him why he had not been prepared and he cheerfully told me that "I don't need to carry all that crap - I never get punctures!" I politely informed him that I didn't see it as my place in life to be 'a carrier of the crap that my colleague doesn't want to carry' and that I would never repair a puncture for him again. If he wasn't prepared to repair his own bike, then he must be prepared to do his own walk! (Or phone his girlfriend and explain to her why she should have to rush out of her yoga class, jump in the car and drive 20 miles to get him just because he was too lazy to carry a couple of tyre levers, a pump and a spare tube and/or a puncture kit!)
:laugh:

Twice

One time I punctured about 20 miles from home and found my spare tube's valve was faulty. Rang international rescue and repaired to the nearby bub where I had burger and chips and a pint while I waited for Mrs N

Other was recent. Broken spoke on my hopelessly underspoked fancy wheels a couple of miles from home. Could easily have walked it but that's why you get married for these sort of problems. International rescue again
Thrice? :whistle:

What can I say? I've done about 12,000km on those Maviks and they chose a group ride to twang a spoke. Only managed 50km but at least (a) we were about 5km from the café and (b) the café was about 5km from a train station to get me back to Leeds.

What bit I did of the ride was really nice. Good company as always and I managed to get a bit of the really nice section after we got out of Leeds (thanks to @colly for managing that quicker than the official route). Great to see old friends and make some new ones. Sorry if I didn't get chance to chat with everyone, I was planning on riding a bit further than I managed!

When I got back to Glossop the weather was glorious but I was bike-less so I had to take it to the bike shop (fitting spokes and truing wheels I way beyond my capabilities), take son #1 to his swimming lesson, have a Chinese takeaway and pop out for a few beers with son#2. Not as much fun as riding to Scarby, fish and chips and 'spoons but not too bad

I will try to make sure my bike is in decent working order for any subsequent rides.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
dropped the rear mech into the spokes,
ooh you reminded me that I did once have a hire bike swapped mid-ride by the support van after poorly-adjusted limits let me shift the chain into the spokes. I would have fixed it if I'd had my toolkit but it wouldn't have happened to one of my bikes in the first place because I've never yet set a low limit as badly as that!
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
ooh you reminded me that I did once have a hire bike swapped mid-ride by the support van after poorly-adjusted limits let me shift the chain into the spokes. I would have fixed it if I'd had my toolkit but it wouldn't have happened to one of my bikes in the first place because I've never yet set a low limit as badly as that!
'The bunch' rescued a fellow rider who had a similar thing happen on a cycling holiday...

I was in a group of about 30 riders on the Costa Blanca. We had just hit a small hill and were starting to power our way up it when we heard a loud noise and a stream of expletives coming from the back of the group. A rider had just tried to change gear and his gear hanger had broken, sending his rear mech into the wheel. Several spokes were broken, his mech was hanging down into the wheel and the chain was mangled. We were about 30 miles from our hotel, in the middle of nowhere.

Between us, we managed to take off his rear mech, shorten the damaged section of chain and turn his bike into a singlespeed for the ride back, and straighten his rear wheel enough to make it rideable with the back brake slackened off.
 
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Hacienda71

Mancunian in self imposed exile in leafy Cheshire
From a mechanical once. QR lever snapped when trying to remove the wheel to fix a puncture.
Picked up after crashing, didn't fancy fixing a snapped chain with a smashed up face leg and shoulder. Although my worst crash on a MTB with a broken sternum I cycled back from.
 
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