[Simon_MacMichael]

The idea for this thread came over the weekend when I was riding up the outside of a queue of traffic on the Kings Road, vehicles coming the other way, and approaching a zebra crossing foiund I couldn’t unclip my right foot … was so intent on trying to disengage it that it didn’t occur to me to unclip my left foot. 

Luckily managed to zig-zag through a gap in cars to the kerb and a friendly lamp post to hold on to while I sorted it out, but for a few seconds I thought I was going to end up under the area’s apex predator, Chelseaus Tractorus.

Topic

[Awavey]

keeping it dog related, and

keeping it dog related, and light hearted,  I was cycling home one night from work in the winter, and using a short section of cycle path thats badly illuminated, so it was dark, misty, damp and there was no-one around I could see.

and as I approached a section of overgrown bush on my side, this huge black dog suddenly leapt out of the bush at me, and my bike light picked up its eyes, so all I saw was a huge black dog with teeth bared growling and with glowing eyes jumping towards me at handlebar height, I thought I was seeing Black Shuck (local folklore legend hellhound/hound of the baskervilles type thing) brought to life.

no idea how I stayed upright or didnt hit the dog, it was just then the owner walked round the corner on their mobile phone, as I had probably yelped quite loudly in fright, and they muttered some form of apology. took a while for my heart rate to recover.

[NOtotheEU]

For me it was when my rear

For me it was when my rear rim exploded in traffic, the tube deflated and the tyre came off. It was bad enough to nearly crash at 20mph-ish with cars whizzing past but when I saw the rim had split at the joint and then along the brake wear line and could have speared me in the leg as the wheel spun around I felt sick.

The rim wasn’t even 50% worn so even though it was probably the combination of a cheap rim, Schwalbe Marathon Plus Tours pumped up very hard and my excess weight it was the last rim brake bike I ever bought.

[andystow]

I was on a winter ride

I was on a winter ride downtown, and had put pogies on my single speed bike that had only a front brake, activated from the left bar. As I approached a T junction from its branch, with stop signs for all three directions, I signalled to turn left, which meant pulling my left hand out of the pogie. A car was also approaching from my right.

Then I went to brake, immediately realizing that my brake lever was inside the pogie, whereas my hand, needed to pull it, was inconveniently outside of the pogie. I thought for sure I was going to T-bone the car.

Luckily I was going slowly enough and had sufficient traction that I managed to execute a U turn before the intersection, which also scrubbed off 80% of my speed. I was eventually able to un-suction-cup my sphincter from the saddle.

I ordered an additional brake for that bike the next day. I’ve also learned that I can brake without putting my hand back inside the pogie, but my reactive brain did not have time to experiment with that while it was happening.

This was in the US, so only one brake is required, although two is smart for obvious reasons. Also to visualize the equivalent situation in the UK, switch left and right in all cases.

[JustTryingToGetFromAtoB]

I’ve shared before my cycling
I’ve shared before my cycling on a flood plain. This next example is also idiocy on my part.

Idiocy one, left my rather crap bike outside and uncovered on one of coldest nights of the year. I got home from work late and was just interested in a cuppa

Idiocy two, the next morning, around 5:30, I get on said bike without thinking anything of the freezing weather.

Idiocy three, I managed to get a mile from home before I realised my brakes were frozen… unfortunately I realised this approaching a junction. In hindsight, I should have just thrown my self to the ground but I swung out whilst desperately signalling “slow down”. Traffic was light, I was lit up like a Xmas tree and the one motorist probably thought I was dick, but was able to keep clear.

[Grahamd]

Thanks for sharing. This road

Thanks for sharing. This road was frequented regularly by friends and myself when we were kids and we attacked it with youthful fearlessness and never any incidents. I dare say we were never as fast as we envisaged, but still recall the joy it brought.

[AlsoSomniloquism]

Probably on my first ever

Probably on my first ever planned bike ride, the Worcester Evans branch Ride-it in 2017. Thirty Two miles on a Boardman MXSport hybrid (my longest ride at that point). I was the first on the short route as most others were doing the longer ride on their road bikes. On the descent of Croft Bank, at the steepest section, two young quails exited the hedge ahead of me. I slightly slowed and moved more centrally to avoid them. A third then ran out in front of me. Brakes on, back-wheel locked and deciding to slide right. Luckily the noise of the locked wheels scared the quails out the road and brake release recovered the bike to all going straight. If I had come off there, I had no idea when the next cyclists or any vehicle would have been passing. 

[Rendel Harris]

What a beauty, though I

What a beauty, though I certainly wouldn’t want to be on its wrong side! That’s interesting actually because I was relating my story to a guy in a bike shop in Nice and he said that I was lucky it was a wolf and not wild dogs, because apparently the wild dogs in that region are absolutely fearless and will attack anything whereas the wolves are quite solitary and tend to shy away from human contact. Wish I’d known that at the time!

[Daveyraveygravey]

Rendel Harris wrote:

Not sure if it counts as the scariest thing to happen, as not much actually happened, but riding up a long climb in the Alpes Maritimes and hearing, seemingly pretty close by, the howl of a wolf was probably the most scared I’ve been on a bike, probably the fastest I’ve climbed for many a year as well! (It sounded as if it was coming from down the mountain, so turning back didn’t really feel like an option)

 

Similar thing happened to me, but with a twist.  I was climbing the Blockhaus in Abruzzo, on a section just after a village.  The road zig zagged up the mountain, and there was a shepherd and his 4 dogs taking the straight route, so they seemed to be crossing the road at the same time as I was labouring up the climb, which happened about 4 times.  The dogs look a bit like large retrievers, but they can be vicious.  They’re bred to deal with wolves! 

Not only that, the shepherd was wearing red speedos, which really freaked me out…

[AlsoSomniloquism]

Not as scary but had similar

Not as scary but had similar incidents as well with SPD two bolt. Hadn’t been an issue on one bike as the clip tension was less, but had gone on the “shopping bike” and just got to the supermarket and realised the shoe was not unclipping. Cycled home, took the foot out of the shoe and turned the shoe until the cleat jammed against the tread and has leverage to unclip. 

Also had something similar when an overlarge overshoe wedged between the cleat and the clip and I didn’t realise until I stopped at lights and couldn’t unclip. Unfortunately I had already leaned that way but luckily was close to the pavement as the plan was to rest my foot on the kerb. So fell flat down. However as I couldn’t unclip, and the left leg was under the bike, getting back up again was very tricky. 

[Rendel Harris]

Not sure if it counts as the

Not sure if it counts as the scariest thing to happen, as not much actually happened, but riding up a long climb in the Alpes Maritimes and hearing, seemingly pretty close by, the howl of a wolf was probably the most scared I’ve been on a bike, probably the fastest I’ve climbed for many a year as well! (It sounded as if it was coming from down the mountain, so turning back didn’t really feel like an option)

[Simon_MacMichael]

That’s not quite the scariest

That’s not quite the scariest thing that’s happened to me … prize for that goes to when I lived in West Oxfordshire and went for a ride along a road I had never ridden before. Coming downhill at a fair old speed I realised there was no way on earth I was going to safely make the right hander that suddenly appeared, carrying the road over the River Cherwell. Split-second decision to go straight-on down that handy little road just before the bridge averted disaster, and when I’d regained composure I popped over the bridge to the Rock of Gibraltar pub to calm my nerves. 

[Simon_MacMichael]

I rode the rest of the day

I rode the rest of the day without clipping my right foot in (double sided pedals FTW) and when I got home, realised what the problem was … probably a good idea to check the screws on your cleats now and again 🙂 

[Author]

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