Beverly

This happened to me ONCE. I now keep a small basket in the van for helmet, gloves, extra tubes, shoe covers, extra pair shoes, energy bars, etc. It comes in handy during the winter months when you have so much more equipment to manage.

cc_rider

I usually take my helmet and gloves into the ac'd house to dry out after a sweaty ride. That's how I left them behind.
Now I keep my spare helmet and gloves in the car, along with my shoes, spare water bottle, granola bar and a t shirt.

buelito

this happened this morning... it's 22 degrees, so I have my booties on my beater bike...which has 'campus' pedals on it. (Clip on one side, flat on the other). I commute on this bike about once every 2-3 weeks, when my legs feel dead and I don't feel like riding the fixie. The booties made my foot bigger and for the life of me, I couldn't clip into the pedals. Tried for about 5 minutes. Went back inside, took the pedals off the fixie and put them on the beater so I could ride to work... Maybe I'll just go buy another set of the spd pedals for the beater...

train safe

Frankenbiker

Can't find my glasses. Can't find my glasses. Can't find my glasses. Where did I put my glasses? Now, where did I put my glasses down.


Oh... they're on my forehead.

Tom Bombadil

I would love it if this were true for me. But beginning about 4 years ago, I started getting vertigo when I travel at night. I'm okay if it is dark, but where there are lights in my field of view and I'm moving or bouncing, I get dizzy. Very hard for me to drive at night for more than 10-15 minutes, unless it is down a fairly straight, low traffic road with few street lights, like an open country road. But even then if it has some curves or hills, the movement of the road from my own headlights will get to me.

It keeps getting worse with each passing year. My doc has tried four different medications, with none having any affect. Been to an ear specialist, who believes it is due to an inner ear issue, but can do nothing about it.

Just last night I had to make a 25 mile drive and had to stop twice along the way to clear my head. This was the longest night drive that I had attempted in 2 years.

But I can walk at night for hours and really enjoy doing so.

PaulH

After I arrive at work, I usually stuff my gloves in my pockets before heading upstairs to my office. Before I sit down at my desk, I take them out to dry. What is bad is discovering, just as I put on my coat and head for the door, that the gloves are still in the pockets and sopping wet. This usually happens on the first real snow day of the season.

Paul

crtreedude 

I am sitting here feeling guilt - guilt I say. I see the pain that you all have it getting ready for a bike ride and I feel out of touch...

This morning, getting ready for a bike ride - it did involve work by the way.

1. Check out bike. I left instructions with our farm manager to have someone clean and oil my bike and check the tires. All is very well done. Bike rides like a dream. This work was tax deductable by the way.
2. Drink fruit smootie prepared by the wife of farm manager. She cooks for us and prepares my pre-ride beverage. This morning was a mix of papaya, pineapple and a touch of strawberries with Leche Agria (think sweet yogurt) - very very good. Musn't faint on the way to work you know. This is a hard job, but it isn't one that I can have anyone else do...
3. Go out to the cabin and change clothes, previous day's bike clothes are neatly folded for me and ready. Lay out my other clothes so that it looks like they will be used again or someone will take them and clean them too. Laying out the clothes is probably my biggest task.
4. Let office staff know that I need more tubes for the bike. Will have in a day or so.
5. Ride bike.

Tom Bombadil

May a banana stalk fall on your head!

Terrierman

I'm gonna show this to Lovey and make clear to her my expectations for marked improvement on her part in making my life easy.

Louis

I hope you have a comfortable couch.

crtreedude 

If we never see another post from Terrierman, we will know what happened.

Louis

Yeah, he was a nice guy. Wonder what ever happened to his bikes?

gerv 

+1 Photos are exquisite.

megaman

Doing the family things you need(should) to do before you go riding. The forecast calls for snow. It hasn't snowed yet. You get your clothes on and head out. It's started to snow. So what I say. The snow will slide right off. But there's rain mixed with the snow and that doesn't bounce off. Have to give up the ride after 1.5 miles cause my clothes are getting wet and I can't see. Then the rain snow mix continues until dark.

ken cummings

Finding the wife had comitted us/me to do something that morning and had forgotten to tell me until she heard the garage door go up.

Digital Gee

Are you saying your wife had you committed? Whoa.

Carusoswi

Pre-ride annoyances in no particular order:
1) being all set to mount my steed and start riding when my cell phone rings. It's one of those thin ones that gets lost in my jacket pocket. On a cold day (or night) I am wearing electrically heated gloves that lash on with velcro. Have to undo the velcro to get a glove off, unzip the pocket on my jacket, get to the phone, open it only to find that I've missed the call. Call the party back, converse, and reverse the entire process.

2) putting on my booties to keep my feet warm. I've tried a couple different types. Best quality I've ever owned I received as a Christmas present this year - thick, stretchy, nice to touch/hold. I could not get them zipped up after pulling them over my shoes. They are plenty big and fit ok over my shoes - but the zipper is placed on the side, and it's sort of recessed between flaps of material. Stretching the bootie to hold the zipper closed so you can operate the zipping mechanism causes the flaps to interfere with the zipper. Moving the flaps out of the way makes it almost impossible to hold the zipper in the proper position so you can zip the thing up. I've already worked up quite a sweat trying to close these things up. I used to struggle with a pair that zipped from the rear, but have since mastered them - and they are much easier to manage than these side zipping ones.

3) having mental lapses concerning what I have actually placed in my bag or what I have forgotten to place in it and need to grab before setting off. On a bad day, this could cause me to make several false starts before I can actually feel comfortable pulling away for a long ride.

4) (probably the worst of all) Pulling away, riding 15 miles or so, then, stopping to reach for something in your bag only to discover that it is not there - did you attach it, think you attached it but did so poorly so that it has fallen off along the road - or are you so absent minded that you left it sitting somewhere (outside (dread the thought) or inside (dread that thought even more). You now have no money, ID, cell phone (unless it's winter and you have it in your pocket), nothing. So, you trek the 15 miles back wondering if you'll see it along the road or if someone has picked it up. You get back to the house peer through the kitchen window to see it sitting there on the table - oh, it contains your house keys and the Mrs. is out for most of the day - argh! Double argh!

Caruso

Carusoswi

Oh, and one more thing. Those gloves. They have a little pocket over the wrist area where you insert a D sized cell into each glove. There is a spring at the inside "bottom" of the pocket that serves as the negative contact, and two snaps on the flap that covers the pocket. One actually snaps to hold the flap shut, the other serves as the positive contact, slipping over the 'terminal' of the battery cell. If you read the instructions, that flap is supposed to serve as an on-off switch. In the off position, there is a Velcro setup that allows you to close the flap without contacting the battery.

What has all this to do with pre-ride annoyance, you ask? Well, sometimes the battery slips in and you can snap the flap in an instant. On other occasions, for some reason I cannot explain, the battery is just too tight to fit into the pocket and allow the flap to snap shut properly. Again, on more than one occasion, I've worked up quite a bead of sweat on my brow struggling to close that @#$%@#$% flap on one or the other glove. There is no explanation that I can offer. It just happens sometimes. Again, the way the thing is constructed, extra effort to pull that flap far enough to reach the male portion of the snap works contrary to what you need to do in order to keep the battery down in the pocket where it belongs - and that just makes snapping the thing that much harder. Ease up on the tension and you can't get the flap to the snap.

This makes for one major annoyance just before heading out in cold weather.

Once you get the flaps closed, the gloves get warm as toast (ok, well not toast, but warm enough that you can ride at speed in very low temperatures and still have comfy 'finners' and thumbs). I believe that the only thing worse than pre-ride annoyances is having your hands first get very painfully cold, then, realizing that you'd better get inside soon as they start to go numb and get stiff.

That's it . . . I'm done being annoyed for the day.

Caruso

Bud Bent

I spent 10 minutes one day last week walking up and down the house looking for my reading glasses, when they were folded and hooked on the front of my t-shirt. My wife asked, "Is this what I have to look forward to as you get senile?"

Digital Gee

Yes...except you'll forget what you're even looking for.

ltspd

I know a guy who drove 300 miles for a weekend-long ride, only to realize he'd forgotten his BACK wheel! How does that happen?!?!

cheeseflavor

Without a doubt, nothing can deflate that pre-ride excitement like a flat.

Steve

SSP

How many times have you heard a "pow!" as someone blows out a tube at 6:55 am, just before the start of a century ride? That's always a sad sound...

NOS88

Yes, it seems that whenever this happens there is an unspoken ripple the courses through the riders. It's almost, as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, "There has been a disturbance in the Force."

I_Bike

Well, I'll add my $.02, I hate any and all pre-ride preperations. I want to just hop on my bike and ride like I did as a kid. I can't forget that feeling as I get my bike out, possibly drive somewhere, put on my special shoes... etc.

Dan