Discussion
The weather was fantastic down my way today. I decided to go for a long (160 mile) ride. I hit some sharp crap on the road about 3/4 into the ride and had to stick a new tube in the rear tyre. It took about 15 minutes, which would have screwed my timings up enough to lose useful daylight before I'd reached civilisation on the return, so I aborted and turned back. To save even more time, I decided to go 'route 1' on the return. This took me down the A34. That was without doubt the dumbest idea I've had in many a long year. I made it, in one piece. Luck not judgement. What's the dumbest thing you've done on a bike this year?
Decided to not cycle through a ford, which I later found out was about 9 inches deep, instead I cycled across the walkway over the stream. The small concrete ramp was ok, but the three damp sleepers provided no traction. Cue me going side ways into a 2ft deep section of said stream.
160miles, good effort. Would 15mins really made much difference?
160miles, good effort. Would 15mins really made much difference?
ALawson said:
Decided to not cycle through a ford, which I later found out was about 9 inches deep, instead I cycled across the walkway over the stream. The small concrete ramp was ok, but the three damp sleepers provided no traction. Cue me going side ways into a 2ft deep section of said stream.
160miles, good effort. Would 15mins really made much difference?
It was more the fact I could only get 70 psi in the tube from a gas pump. It screwed my speed up badly / felt horrible. The changing of the tube, in itself, wasn't the issue.160miles, good effort. Would 15mins really made much difference?
Jumped a berm to meet the adjoining fire road rather than taking the flat exit out of the berm to get onto it.
There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
shouldbworking said:
Jumped a berm to meet the adjoining fire road rather than taking the flat exit out of the berm to get onto it.
There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
Ouch! Hope you recover okay.There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
One from another perspective. I'm reframing my MTB down a size to an 18" frame. It's all going swimmingly well except I've ended up with a whopping amount of play in the headset bearings. I can't understand for the life of me how I've managed this as it's a straight swap & the components are all in very good shape.
Cue hours of head scratching, grunting, forcing stuff in, swapping bearings, crown races, the lot until eventually I end up stripping the star nut allen bolt & resigning myself to a trip to the lbs on Monday.
Then as an after thought, I wonder if I've done something the wrong way round. I eventually manage to undo the allen bolt by hammering a bigger allen key into it, loosen it a touch, undo the stem bolts, re tighten the star nut & then the stem. All sorted & my ride today is back on.
So, by doing up the stem bolts before the star nut, I effectively guaranteed the slack in the system.
It's only set me back an allen bolt, but nonetheless, what a thicky.
Cue hours of head scratching, grunting, forcing stuff in, swapping bearings, crown races, the lot until eventually I end up stripping the star nut allen bolt & resigning myself to a trip to the lbs on Monday.
Then as an after thought, I wonder if I've done something the wrong way round. I eventually manage to undo the allen bolt by hammering a bigger allen key into it, loosen it a touch, undo the stem bolts, re tighten the star nut & then the stem. All sorted & my ride today is back on.
So, by doing up the stem bolts before the star nut, I effectively guaranteed the slack in the system.
It's only set me back an allen bolt, but nonetheless, what a thicky.
Justin Cyder said:
One from another perspective. I'm reframing my MTB down a size to an 18" frame. It's all going swimmingly well except I've ended up with a whopping amount of play in the headset bearings. I can't understand for the life of me how I've managed this as it's a straight swap & the components are all in very good shape.
Cue hours of head scratching, grunting, forcing stuff in, swapping bearings, crown races, the lot until eventually I end up stripping the star nut allen bolt & resigning myself to a trip to the lbs on Monday.
Then as an after thought, I wonder if I've done something the wrong way round. I eventually manage to undo the allen bolt by hammering a bigger allen key into it, loosen it a touch, undo the stem bolts, re tighten the star nut & then the stem. All sorted & my ride today is back on.
So, by doing up the stem bolts before the star nut, I effectively guaranteed the slack in the system.
It's only set me back an allen bolt, but nonetheless, what a thicky.
I've pulled a similar trick on my road bike. Tightened the crown without checking the stem first. Bingo, slack forks a go go.Cue hours of head scratching, grunting, forcing stuff in, swapping bearings, crown races, the lot until eventually I end up stripping the star nut allen bolt & resigning myself to a trip to the lbs on Monday.
Then as an after thought, I wonder if I've done something the wrong way round. I eventually manage to undo the allen bolt by hammering a bigger allen key into it, loosen it a touch, undo the stem bolts, re tighten the star nut & then the stem. All sorted & my ride today is back on.
So, by doing up the stem bolts before the star nut, I effectively guaranteed the slack in the system.
It's only set me back an allen bolt, but nonetheless, what a thicky.
shouldbworking said:
Jumped a berm to meet the adjoining fire road rather than taking the flat exit out of the berm to get onto it.
There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
You have my sympathy. I did something similar on skis once; broke my back. Very fortunate to still have all my limbs working. Tend to check over the tops of rises quite carefully, these days, whatever my mode of transport.There was a 6ft drainage ditch hiding behind the berm. Broken humerus, 6 weeks off work, missed most of the summer and will be lucky if I'm back to having normal usage of the arm by christmas.
Due to road closures on my normal route, I once decided that, as it was an A road, I'd go up along the elevated section of the A40 into Marylebone.
Not one of my finest ideas.
If the speed of the cars going past at 50* (*yeah right) wasn't enough, it was all the accumulated crap by the side of the road.
Not one of my finest ideas.
If the speed of the cars going past at 50* (*yeah right) wasn't enough, it was all the accumulated crap by the side of the road.
Kell said:
Due to road closures on my normal route, I once decided that, as it was an A road, I'd go up along the elevated section of the A40 into Marylebone.
Not one of my finest ideas.
If the speed of the cars going past at 50* (*yeah right) wasn't enough, it was all the accumulated crap by the side of the road.
I was doing a dummy run of the ride I attempted on Saturday, a few weeks back (Southampton to Oxford and back again), I was just seeing what sort of time it would take to do it, as the estimated times given by the map apps seem to be based on a slow paced / worse case scenario, which is fair enough. I didn't have enough time to do the full ride on that occasion, so I stopped at Newbury, then came back by the scenic route (through Highclear, then down to Andover / Stockbridge / Romsey).Not one of my finest ideas.
If the speed of the cars going past at 50* (*yeah right) wasn't enough, it was all the accumulated crap by the side of the road.
However, I took the wrong road at Andover, and ended up doing 1 mile on the A303 westbound. That was worse than 25 miles on the A34.
WinstonWolf said:
Done a very similar thing, riding from Peterborough to London this weekend I thought the A505 from Royston to Stevenage was a good call. It wasn't and all I could think was "this is how cyclists die" on repeat.
I've done Cambridge to London several times and have a route that avoids major roads... ie turns off the A10 before it gets really busy and ends up in Barnet.Let me know and I'll send you the route.
I think I've figured an alternative that heads out round Biggleswade that looks quite nice. That said, it was on my bucket list so I might not do it again 
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