Stupidest mistake on a bike...

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barq

Senior Member
Location
Birmingham, UK
We haven't had a 'stupidest thing I've done on my bike' thread for a while.

On Sunday I fitted my VDO heart rate sensor around my chest and set off for a ride. As I climbed onto my MTB I noted I was registering about 80BPM. So I started up the climb that is my gateway into the Surrey Hills. The plan was to go slowly and avoid setting off the nagging cough that's been annoying me the last week or so.

Halfway up the hill the HRM was climbing steadily and I was feeling fine. But to my surprise the numbers just kept soaring rather than starting to level out. It wasn't long before I busted through my previously recorded max HR. Yet I wasn't really exerting myself. All I could think was that I was still ill and this had to account for the soaring heart rate showing on my cycle computer. So I slowed down slightly, however the numbers kept climbing. Soon I was up to 216BPM (20 above my usual max).

At the top of the hill I stopped. Something must be wrong. Then I realised I was looking at my VDO altimeter and the heart rate monitor was lying at home. :angry: I'm such an idiot. :tongue:

Anyone else?
 

gary r

Guru
Location
Camberley
This wasnt me honest!!!! My mate tried to remove some debris from his front tyre & wedged his fingers between the tyre & the back of the forks!!! sending him over the bars!!That was stupid & painful
 

domtyler

Über Member
Last week I set off to work in the morning lovely and toasty in my bib longs. After a while I began to be aware that my bum was getting really cold, I discovered that I had forgotten to put the straps over my shoulders and I was now displaying my arse to every motorist who went by. I spent the rest of the journey struggling to keep them up but it was a losing battle. Fortunately I was not apprehended and charged with displaying myself in public.
 

Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
Whilst on the C2C last May, in the space of two miles, my mate crashed into a barrier on the section from Consett to Newcastle, then, not paying to much attention, skidded on a slippery part of the old railway path and ended up head first in a stinging nettle patch. I, at this point couldn't help myself and was laughing loudly. As we got under way again my mate Dave, with nettle rash breaking out all over his head was then chased for about two hundred yards by a Jack Russell terrier. he was not amused.
 

Pete

Guest
Student days. Me and two or three mates, setting out from Oxford for a ride, one of us (not me :tongue:) unaccountably piles into a stone buttress which projected out into the road a little way - perfectly visible and we all knew it was there. Down he goes. Bruised and sore but not serious luckily. Buttress undamaged: it was in Blue Boar Street I seem to recall, anyone from Oxford care to confirm whether it is still there?

As for me, well my stupidest moment must surely have been looping a carrier bag over the handlebar. Catches in the spokes, down I go in a face-plant and lose my front teeth xx(:angry::tongue::tongue::blush:. 23 years ago.
 

Fnaar

Smutmaster General
Location
Thumberland
Nowt particularly stupid, but manged to cycle up a big long hill (which I'd done before a few times) and wondered why i was finding it so hard...got to top, and realised front was still on the big ring...doh! :tongue:

A few spills as a kid, trying to emulate Evel Knievel (RIP), with home-made ramps and stuff, and kid next door being the thing we were jumping over...:angry:

Oh yeah, student days, cycling home in the dark, pi$$ed, so went 'carefully' on pavement along deserted streets...scraped most of skin off my left arm along a brick wall going down a hill.... doh!
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
barq said:
At the top of the hill I stopped. Something must be wrong. Then I realised I was looking at my VDO altimeter and the heart rate monitor was lying at home. :tongue: I'm such an idiot. :wink

Yeah, but on the bright side, you made me laugh out loud!

I suppose mine is time I pulled up at the side of the road to take a longsleeved top off, and put my foot down on the verge, which was slightly raised above the tarmac level. Except it wasn't, it was lower, but looked higher because the grass was long, so I started to lean over and kept going instead of finding a firm footing. Thanks to the slight slope of the verge, and me being taken by surprise, I ended up hitting the ground, rolling over (bike still between my legs) and down into the ditch under the hedge, where I lay upside down for a second or two, unable to get up, bike upside down on top of me (with me still 'in the saddle' so to speak). Luckily there was another rider coming up behind, and he hauled me out, because for a second or two, I felt I was completely wedged in. Once I was out, I just couldn't stop laughing, but it was scary for a moment...
 

mr_hippo

Living Legend & Old Fart
Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, four of us planned a 'long' trip for Sunday from Prescot to Llangollen and Castell Dinas Bran. On my Saturday morning paper round, I noticed that the brake blocks needed replacing - no problem, get the brake blocks, fit them and also clean the bike for Sunday.
We set off bright and early on Sunday morning - a bright, summer's day. Runcorn, Frodsham and Helsby were soon behind us, in front was that nice sweeping curve that goes past RAF Sealand towards my nemesis - the Ewloe. Lunch was taken at Dinas Bran and what a lovely view and thoughts of the downhill into Llangollen. You know that I replaced my brake blocks and now you can imagine what came next - PING, PING, PING, PING as all brake blocks came shooting out - one hit my mate, Peter!
You youngsters will never know the pleasure of struggling to get the old blocks out of the shoes, getting the new blocks in and remembering to fit the blasted things the right way round!
 

walker

New Member
Location
Bromley, Kent
it's not that stupid but in my mind it was totaly idiotic, Turning up for a race last year (Brands Hatch's only cycle race in the year) and its the first time I asked my mum to come along as it was local.
Prepared myself far too much and drunk too much water resulting in a painful stitch about 4 laps in, only for my idiotic masculinity to kick in and decide to ride through it and put myself in more pain
 

yenrod

Guest
Once I decided to 'go for it' on a r.about at about 25mph - I could have been taken out soo easily by the car that I went to get past...[not recommended] = i did get past it.

When I 1st started cycling I got to ajunction in the summer and looked left and right but the sun was in my eyes from the right, pulled out and very nearly got taken out by a car !

Theirs been a few but thankfully im still here

bless me
 
gary r said:
This wasnt me honest!!!! My mate tried to remove some debris from his front tyre & wedged his fingers between the tyre & the back of the forks!!! sending him over the bars!!That was stupid & painful

along the same lines... even the pros slip up like this. a few years ago i was watching cycling on Eurosport and an ONCE rider crashed on a downhill bend and was carted off to hospital. it was an odd crash though as it happened before the bend. the tv footage was odd as well, he just fell sideways for no reason.

turned out that on the climb he'd been bugged by the noise of his computer senor being hit by the magnet, but he didn't have time to sort it out in case he lost time (he was in a leading group). on the descent he got really fed up with the high speed click-click-click and reached down to pull the sensor away. he thought he'd done it as he saw it fall away into the road and so he carried on descending... but then could still hear the noise and also his hand hurt... he looked down and realised it had been the tip of a finger he'd seen bounce away. he then fainted.

i'm also sure that a member of the public walked away with his bike as he was being seen to by his team car and the doctors.
 
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barq

barq

Senior Member
Location
Birmingham, UK
Fnaar said:
Nowt particularly stupid, but manged to cycle up a big long hill (which I'd done before a few times) and wondered why i was finding it so hard...got to top, and realised front was still on the big ring...doh! ;)

Hehe! I know that one. I do that quite often at night if I'm off-road because I loose all sense of how fast I'm going, gradient and don't keep track of which gear I'm in.
 
I was out early one Sunday morning, (just passing Virginia Water - for those that know the area...) and I spotted what looked like a walking stick. Umm-ed and ahh-ed about whether to turn around, but eventually did so.
'Nice stick' I thought...how am I going to get it home?
After several brain taxing moments, I lashed it to the top tube with an inner tube. "Neat solution" I said to myself.
The rest of the tour - about 80km was a drudge, simple inclines were drags, and the flat was slow...
I realised that the first time I applied my back brake, the inner tube custom-fit walking stick lashing had gripped the cable sufficiently to keep the brake blocks engaged with the wheel rim.
What a wally!:tongue: ;)

Still nice stick though! :smile:
 

Tetedelacourse

New Member
Location
Rosyth
No new ones of late but the old tale of cycling through a housing estate as a kid, watching the gears on my Raleigh Mustang change, and straight into the back of a parked car springs to mind. Fat lip, bleeding nose and bent forks.
 
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