Some Days the Gods Are Against You

[BroDeal]

Ever have one of those rides where you know the gods are getting their jollies by making it hard?

I went trail running on Thursday, and decide I would take it easy on Friday by doing a little mountain biking, mostly on asphalt. I did not make it very far before the gods cursed the ride by giving me the tire from hell. Something embedded in the rubber was puncturing the tube but it was not detectable visibly or by touch. It must have been something hidden in the rubber so that it only poked out when the tire was inflated. I stopped three times with flats to try to find this thing, but could not find it, even though the location of the new punctures in the tube made it obvious where on the tire the problem must be.

I finally gave up and simply rode home, stopping every half mile to add more air. I think my arms got a much better workout than my legs. At home, I still could not find the problem. The tire is going in the garbage.

 

[180mmCrank]

I feel your pain

I was riding up at whistler last weekend - which was already a little wierd because the town was full of extreme down hill dudes and dudesses (Crankworx 2009) - so as a roadie I was a bit persona non g - I found a great ride out along the back of Alta lake away from all the hubbub but I chose to go out onto the Hwy 99 to get some extra miles ... 3 puntures later ... I called it a day and limped back home.

So I have my suspicion that the same 'cycling' god was watching over me (or not!)so to speak.

 

[David Suro]

I am convinced days like that exist so that we can enjoy the days when the only things that seem to go correctly is that the air stays in the tire and the skin stays off the road.

 

[elapid]

We were on a rest day on the Tour of Colorado this year and decided to go on a charity ride with Tom Ritchey in and around Crested Butte. We were taken up this dirt road to Taylor Creek and my mate got a flat. Tom and the rest of the crew rode off without us. My mate proceeded to get three more flats, we ran out of tubes, cartridges and patches between us, and no one stuck around to help us as we were stuck on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully a nice Texan couple in a big SUV were able to fit both our bikes and sorry asses into their car and drive us back to Crested Butte. Back at the bike store in Butte, we again could find nothing wrong with the tire, put a new tube in, and boom another blown tube. Turns out that there was a little full thickness crack in the tire that we couldn't see. As soon as the tube was pumped up, it would pinch and puncture in the defect in the tire. So, after being left by our fellow riders in the middle of nowhere, five flats and a tire later, we were ready to have a well-deserved pizza and beer at the Secret Stash!

 

[Fatclimber]

Me and a buddy went for a short ride after work a few days ago. I had a bee get stuck between my chin strap and cheek while I was riding but was able to get him out without too much trouble. He must have barely got his stinger in so it just aggravated me a little, nothing more.

On the way back home I had another bee sting me right above the eye, got the whole stinger that time. Oh well. Drop off my buddy and continue home. Looked down at my front tire and noticed it was getting pretty low. I'm not too far from home so I try to put all my weight on the back tire, next thing I know is I can feel my valve stem on the back tire hitting during every rotation. Damn! 2 flats and only one spare tube. Oh well again, I'll just walk home. 1/2 mile ain't bad.

Walking in cleats ain't no fun, didn't have the covers either, so I took off my shoes. Walked in my socks. I guess my feet have gotten soft from only cycling because by the time I got home I had a blister on each of my feet in the same spot.

The next day my eye was a little irritated, got worse as the day went on. Woke up the next morning and I looked like Vaughters in the 2001 TDF:

http://velonews.com/photo/21160

2 bees, 2 flats, 2 blisters, and one heck of a swollen eye. Glad that's overwith.

 

[runninboy]

Me and a buddy went for a short ride after work a few days ago. I had a bee get stuck between my chin strap and cheek while I was riding but was able to get him out without too much trouble. He must have barely got his stinger in so it just aggravated me a little, nothing more.

On the way back home I had another bee sting me right above the eye, got the whole stinger that time. Oh well. QUOTE]

I feel your pain as well. I have some experience with bee stings, usually no big deal one day i was doing intervals on the road, my mouth was open...
bam! bee sting to the tongue when i spit it out i would swear it was a yellow jacket. Almost immediately i could feel my tongue start to swell. Lucky i was only about a mile from a walk-in clinic where i got a shot to keep my tongue from blocking my air way.
Anyway they told me i was allergic blah blah blah. Fast forward a year later doing hill reapeats about a quarter mile from a fire station, another open mouth another bee sting. I immediately turn and head right for the fire station. When they got the stinger out they said i got a full dose, they hooked me up to an EKG when i told them about my prior experience. They started to load me into the ambulance when i noticed the swelling was going down without any shot. I didnt want to go to the hospital especially since i was getting much better. They agreed kept me monitored and then let me sign a waiver & i rode home.
The good news is that i learned i am not allergic to bees it was defitinely a yellow jacket the first time.
the bad news is sometimes the crew from the firehouse passes me in their truck and they smile & yell "keep your mouth closed when you ride!"

 

[BroDeal]

Bees suck, but hornets suck even more.

I hate it when I have my jersey zipped open and one flies in. Often you get a glimpse of it as it comes zinging in toward you, zips below your head and into your jersey. If it does not immediately sting you upon impact, you then desperately slap your body, hoping to kill it before it stings.

 

[runninboy]

Bees suck, but hornets suck even more.

I hate it when I have my jersey zipped open and one flies in. Often you get a glimpse of it as it comes zinging in toward you, zips below your head and into your jersey. If it does not immediately sting you upon impact, you then desperately slap your body, hoping to kill it before it stings.

Hornets? Yikes! I just felt a certain part of my body pucker

 

[TheDude]

I read the thread-title a bit off...
The rides are the only thing that has been going well for me. Gods have been against us a work, so I've been trying to put in extra time on the bike to compensate.

 

[rgmerk]

tree branch

I had a tree branch fall on me.

Unfortunate, but not that unusual, right? Surely I was ducking my way through a forest on a MTB and broke the branch off?

Nope.

I was on my nearly brand-new road bike. I'd just done Mount Donna Buang, near Melbourne (16.8 km at 6.4%), had ridden down, and was just about back where I'd parked the car. All of a sudden I heard a crack...and WHOP. The falling branch and I managed, through freakish coincidence, to reach a particular patch of bitumen at the same time. I went flying off the bike.

I was only hit by the extremities of the eucalyptus tree branch, luckily, so I didn't break anything. But the entire drivetrain was so jammed up with leaves and twigs that the bike was unrideable. I had some moderately nasty road rash; all I could do was wait at the side of the road for somebody to give me a lift back the remaining few kilometres.

I still don't know whether to curse my bad luck, or thank my lucky stars I wasn't hit by a more substantial part of the branch, which would have almost certainly killed me.

 

[unsheath]

Damn, thats some bad luck rgmerk!!

Was riding in town about 3 months ago when I spotted a floating plastic bag up the road swirling in the wind. I saw it with plenty of time so swerved to the left to miss it only for the side wind to blow it straight back into the rear wheel, mashing up in the cassette. Slammed on the brakes but the wheel had already done 3 or 4 rotations and the plastic was too far embedded. Spent 10 minutes pulling bits and pieces out but the main section wasnt going anywhere.

Conveniently I was close to 2 bike shops one didnt have the campag tool and the other was too busy so I had to catch a cab home.

 

[Tugboat]

Bees suck, but hornets suck even more.

I hate it when I have my jersey zipped open and one flies in. Often you get a glimpse of it as it comes zinging in toward you, zips below your head and into your jersey. If it does not immediately sting you upon impact, you then desperately slap your body, hoping to kill it before it stings.

Ha! I've had that happen a couple of times. Once I had a wasp go into my open jersey on a descent and he must have crawled around for a bit before starting to sting me on my back. It would have been hard enough to reach around and try and slap him dead where he was on my back if I were stopped let alone having to do at at 70-80km/h down a fairly technical descent!

Another bad one was a bee going into my helmet vents and stinging me on top of the head.

 

[mherm79]

on the day i attempted my first 200+km ride i spent the last 100km riding into the wind, on a 37C day....it was an organised ride and the streets where literrally lined with riders packing up bikes or sitting under trees...ugly...

 

[rhubroma]

Bees suck, but hornets suck even more.

I hate it when I have my jersey zipped open and one flies in. Often you get a glimpse of it as it comes zinging in toward you, zips below your head and into your jersey. If it does not immediately sting you upon impact, you then desperately slap your body, hoping to kill it before it stings.

That's exactly what happened to me years ago, only I was also at that moment crossing a set of obliquely positioned railroad tracks...

Imagine the carnage! To add insult to injury! (What a D!ck I was, I thought.)

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

Bees suck, but hornets suck even more.

I hate it when I have my jersey zipped open and one flies in. Often you get a glimpse of it as it comes zinging in toward you, zips below your head and into your jersey. If it does not immediately sting you upon impact, you then desperately slap your body, hoping to kill it before it stings.

Couple weeks ago I had a big fat bumble bee fly not only into my half unzipped jersey, but underneath my mesh undershirt. How it unfolded: Beating chest like Tarzan, whilst climbing a 7% grade, I managed to rip out and destroy the top half of my mesh layer with the jersey still on. Since it was a Castelli top, I'm just glad it was a bee instead of a scorpion. Still ended up with the usual red welt, that seemingly itches for weeks on end.

 

[Anonymous]

gods where unleashed on wednesday on the wife..

took a couple of days up in north devon to get in some bike time away from home, and get the wife her longest run out so far.. (was targeted 80k but for various reasons she finished on 72k but still good on her)...

outward 35k was going ok, bit of rain, pretty nasty headwind for the first 8k or so, but all flat so i let her draught behind me being a gentleman.. 25k in and the track turned a litte muddle, rain got just a bit heavier and it started feeling like a bit of a slog, was about 28k in when i started suspecting we where going uphill but decided to keep it quiete.. was one of those gradients, nothing serious, maybe about 5%, but enough that when its chucking it down with rain, and theres a lot of mud you start to notice it..

thankfully she didnt, until about 32k (7k into the slope) when she twigged, looked back and noticed that we had been rising solidly all along.. got to 35k, with a mildly unhappy wife.. poor sod thought she had just been riding crap.. lol

thankfully a cracking olive, feta, and sundried tomato salad cheered her up, the sun came out, and she got to see just what a nice steady 10k downhill feels like in the sunshine..

poor lamb..

 

[mherm79]

thankfully she didnt, until about 32k (7k into the slope) when she twigged, looked back and noticed that we had been rising solidly all along.. got to 35k, with a mildly unhappy wife.. poor sod thought she had just been riding crap.. lol

my wife would have killed me!

 

[Bala Verde]

gods where unleashed on wednesday on the wife..

Either she loves you or riding the bike....

 

[Anonymous]

my wife would have killed me!

shes a determined little so-an-so when there is lunch a few k down the road... helps when sneaky hubby tells her that a 500yd really tough section was 1k, and 1k flat easy section was half a K..

weird spooky happening in the pub where we stopped for a cup of tea though.. looked at the clock and the mileage for the day said 50.22k, looked at the odo, and that said 502.2k

weird..

 

[Anonymous]

nice photo opportunities though...