General Cycling Discussion - I knew it would happen! I just knew it!

Dumb story but thought it might be worth sharing........Has this ever happened to you?

I decide last night that I'm gonna just take off and ride as far as I can until it gets close to being dark and then call my wife to come get me in the car to take me back home. I'm still a newbie here, so a 10 mile ride is a pretty good jaunt for this old geezer! :D Anyway, I get to about 10 or 12 miles out and the sun is getting pretty low in the sky so I stop and call my wife and tell her I'm ready for her to head this way. So I tell her "Go out past the old drive-in movie theater, keep on going straight until you go over the new highway and you will come to a dead-end. Turn left and keep going until you see me" Now I ask you.... is that too difficult to understand? :confused: So I roll on down the road a few more miles until I come to another road where I have to turn left or right. I decide I better stop here and wait for her so she doesn't get lost. So I sit and I wait.....and wait......and wait.......and wait......and call her cell phone(goes directly to her voice mail)....and I wait.......and I sit.......and I call.....and I wait......and I sit and wait........

So after about 30-45 minutes of waiting, I decide screw this. If I'm gonna get home, I'm thinking I'll have to make it on my own. So I head back toward home.......in the dark.....with no lights.....or reflectors. :( Then I hear my phone ring but can't get stopped to answer it before it goes to voicemail. So I listen to the message and it's my wife calling from some convenience store saying her cell phone battery went dead and she can't find me. So I try to call the number back and the lady in the store tells me "oh yeah, she just left". So I roll on........and a couple more miles up the road I finally see her coming. She was in tears and all kinds of stressed out!! :rolleyes: I guess she thought I was dead on the side of the road or had been kidnapped by aliens or something.... I dunno. :D Said she knew I was going to be mad at her.....I just laughed and told her I sort of expected it to happen and that she obviously did not listen when I told her where I was.

So we went and got some ice cream and everything was cool. :D I actually feel pretty good for having ridden 18 miles just a few hours ago. That's way further than I've ever ridden at one time before. So maybe being forced to ride further was a good thing.....feel like I broke thru some sort of mental barrier or something. Now if I could just get her to listen when I talk. That barrier may never be broken. LOL ;) :D

Originally posted by dragracer
[. Now if I could just get her to listen when I talk. That barrier may never be broken. LOL ;) :D [/B]

Ha Ha! Seriously, I'm glad you're OK after riding after dark with no reflectors or lights....and congratulations on making it farther than you thought you could - that's what's great about this sport - you can constantly test your limits and break through them. Sorry that your wife was so distraught. The ice cream was a good move....

Ive been doing the same thing. Ive been forcing my self further and further. Now I regulary ride 6 to 12 miles almost every night. At the end of my long rides, is a big hill. I always end with it, just to torture my legs and lungs. It is a great feeling of accomplishment, when you beat a hill like that.

Originally posted by slotibartfast
.....glad you're OK after riding after dark with no reflectors or lights....and congratulations on making it farther than you thought you could....

Yeah thanks dude!! I feel great right now but I have a feeling these old legs will probably just seize up on me about 8:00 tonight. HEHEHE :D

Glad you made it home OK. Something I did this year is get lights - just a cheap Bell set that includes a red rear flasher and headlight. I've been riding in the evenings and always keep the lights on my bike, and carry extra batteries. Something else I do is always start my 'rambling' rides going into the wind, then I have the wind at my back on the return home. I make it a point to ride out and back, I guess I don't understand why you need to call someone to come and pick you up. I never go farther than I know I can get home on my own power, that's kind of what its all about, for me.

This sort of thing is the reason I absolutely refuse to rely on cell phones to get me out of "trouble". They just aren't reliable enough (not to mention that I frequently ride in places where the terrain makes any decent reception just about impossible). I think the lesson here is that if there's even a remote possibility that you might be out after dark, it's good to have the lights.

Agreed!!

I knew I'd probably get "the business" from a few folks for riding so close to dusk without having any lights but I had no idea it would turn out the way it did. Not making excuses, just would not have imagined in a million years that I would have been gone that long. I may at least get one of those cheap flashing lights to take along if I try a stunt like that again.

As for the way I did it and the reason why...........just wanted to do something different than the same old ride around the block. Gets a little boring riding the same loops all the time. If I were in better shape like a lot of you are, it would be a different story. But since I still feel limited on how far I can ride before my legs and/or lungs tire out, it's just fun to ride some different roads once in a while. So without the limit of having to make it back home, I felt like it would be fun to do something a little different. :)

In California these actions are grounds for divorce. My sugestion to you is to get yourself a good lawyer and start hiding funds.;)

Congrats on the biking breakthrough. Just think, if you had a pannier with food and a bivy sack, you could ride forever.

Congratulations on the ride. As you get in better shape and gain the experience to estimate the time you need to cover distance, you won't have to rely on your wife to pick you up--you'll be able to ride a loop and end up back at home by the time it's too dark to ride.

Don't beat yourself up too much, dragracer. I'll bet most of the folks on this forum have made a comparable, ahem, lapse in judgement.
Mine was similar but while hiking near Mount Rainier. The scenery was just too good to give up so I didn't turn around till sunset and was woefully w/o a flashlight (not a good idea in cliff country at night). After regaining my senses, I realized I was going to have to bivouac under a tree until daylight or else find my way back using the Braille method (a really bad idea when the trail borders on sheer cliffs). An hour after getting uh, comfortable, a full moon came up and I was easily able to see where I was going as I trekked back to the car by moonlight. Can't count on that kind of luck all the time though. ;)
Keep riding dragracer, but with a light next time please?