Maddest thing you have done on a bike

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swee'pea99

Squire
I was 12 or 13
Prime age for idiocy.
 

Jody

Stubborn git
Where do you start? Iv'e done lots of things over the years I look back on and wonder what on earth was I thinking. All these were in my teenage years so can probably be excused due to the stupidity of youth. A few spring to mind

Hitching lift by holding onto traffic that comes past you on a hill.
Hitting 50MPH off road wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts.
Hitching a lift on my mates car by holding the B pillar. Not that mad but by the time he was hitting nearly 50 as we sailed past a police car it certainly felt very sketchy.
Drafting a bus at a decent speed, Guy Martin style about 6 inch from the rear.
Riding a local stream (down rather than accross). Normally about 6-12" deep but it was the day after some heavy rain. We bailed when the water reached up to the top tube.
Jumping into a disused quarry which had turned into a lake at speed. The drop down to the water was about 10-15 feet. The bike lost over half of its flotation and nearly sunk. Luckily it wasn't my bike.
 
As a young student with a brand new 1983 Londoner (Claude Butler) Dalesman I set off to ride the 140 miles from London to Hereford with my panniers full of Xmas presents. It was a beautiful sunny day when I set off ... Coming out of London on the A40 I got my first puncture and pulling my bike over th grass verge covered my tyres in dog sh!t. It started to rain. I had a near death experience near Gerrards Cross when a truck overtook me too closely and blew my cape over my head. I got to Oxford as the sun went down and my Wonderlights were out of juice by Carterton. Eventually it turned into a soaking wet drudge into the teeth of a monster headwind with freezing rain. My hair plastered across my head, my feet were so cold in my dinky mesh Sidi summer touring shoes that I had to get off and walk every half a mile to get the blood back in them. I gave up at Cheltenham and caught the train.
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
Hitting 50mph on a recumbent bike and then remembering there was a T junction at the bottom of that particular hill. It made me regret not opting for the Disc brake upgrade, but at 50mph it's a bit too late. I managed to slow (and could have stopped at the bottom) for the Give Way and roll out onto the valley road wondering just how hot the 20" front rim had got and whether the tyre would pop off the rim at some point.* It didn't but I spent a fair time scraping melted brake block of the rim before it stopped snatching!

*The first Mrs Byegad had done something similar on a Raleigh Shopper, in Durham and the report of the tyre letting go would, these days, have generated an armed response squad turning up. We never did find all of the inner tube!
 
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Threevok

Growing old disgracefully
Location
South Wales
Going off road, doing a muddy mountain climb on a set of slick Panasonic RibMo tyres

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presta

Legendary Member
Going off road, doing a muddy mountain climb on a set of slick Panasonic RibMo tyres
Slick tyres on the mud? I remember that.

I don't do off-road so I use Marathons, but the towpath at Skipton was quite a lot muddier than I had bargained for once. If I had slipped to the left I would have been in the drink, but as it was I just went head-first down the embankment, and finished upside down with my head in the rhododendrons and the bike on top of me.
 
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