The bl**dy bonk!!

[speccy1]

I rather stupidly left work after a 12 hour day yesterday (oh the joys of overtime) and without eating since the morning, and decided to extend my boring 2 mile ride home to a more respectable 12 miles. Just after the half way point the inevitable started - I went light headed, shaky, and as I got nearer home the sweats started

A huge bowl of porridge and 4 tuna sandwiches later I was ok again!!

Just glad I wasn`t 50 miles away when it started

 

[downfader]

Hasnt happened to me on the ride for a long time *fingers crossed*. A bottle of still lucozade might have come in handy before you'd left, or a banananananana.

 

[hackbike 666]

That's happened to me quite a few time during my 20 year commute down and up the Mile End Road.

 

[marinyork]

Bonking is having to stop, collapse and lie down, pump yourself with food and still be totally knackered then crawl home at 6mph.

 

[marinyork]

Mine included a long sit down like yours. I think if you work out the crude average speed it was something like 3.6mph - 18 miles in 5hrs!

 

[hackbike 666]

You didn't bonk.

How would you know?

 

[hackbike 666]

Forgive me if I sound patronising Hackbike but there is bonking and feeling a bit tired/light headed through lack of sleep/food.

Seriously - If Speccy bonked then he would be at the side of the road feeling like shite and unless he eats loads of sugar then it's a lift back to where he lives via the car.

Fair enough just watch me when I go to defcon 2.

Im very tiredd as well.

Seriously - If Speccy bonked then he would be at the side of the road feeling like shite and unless he eats loads of sugar then it's a lift back to where he lives via the car.

I've had that on the way to work (I think) had to go in the petrol station and buy loads of chocolate bars.Also coming back I had to sit down with bike,same thing and chcololate bars.Milky bar.Glucose drink.Sweet drinks.

Also had it when me and a workmate cycled down to Brighton.He didn't tell me but when I felt ill then he told me he felt the same.I said to him why didn't he tell me?

Must be a pride/competition thing.

Legs turned to jelly.

 

[yello]

I'm inclined to believe User3143. I think the bonk is like flu; loads of people claim to have had it but it's only a cold... then when you DO get flu, you're in no doubt! Or like migraine v headache.

My understanding of the bonk is that you're just about incapable of doing anything, no chance of being able to finish the ride until you got some food inside you. You may well have been on the way to it but I very much doubt it was the real thing.

 

[TWBNK]

So what would the expression be for a near bonk experience?

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

foreplay

 

[montage]

so the difference between the bonk and hitting the wall??

 

[montage]

None, apart from their respective sports.

Hitting the wall is usually used in running, bonking is used in cycling.

fair enough. I've definately managed both of the above - not pleasent. When I bonked I lost around 10 minutes of memory.... a week later I looked through my phone to see I had sent several texts (with poor spelling) ... proof that I had not just fallen asleep....scary!

 

[yello]

So what would the expression be for a near bonk experience?

Hungry?

 

[ComedyPilot]

I had the bonk last weekend. I was a mile from my campsite, but couldn't ride any more. I pulled over, sat down, brewed up a cup of sweet coffee on my Trangia, and ate a packet of raisins and ate a Soreen bar. 20 mins later I crawled into the village and put my tent up. A big meal in the local pub was all I could manage before collapsing into my sleeping bag at 20:30hrs.

 

[Steve Austin]

I don't think you can say there is a definitive definition of the bonk. we will all experience it differentially and as there a variety of different reasons the effects will be different too.
I've 'bonked' through sheer physical tiredness, lack of food, lack of sleep but to say it wasn't really bonking as i wasn't near hospitalising is a bit glib imo.

I once bonked five miles form home, i threw up, i went cross eyed, my speech went, but i carried on till i got home. did i bonk? yes.