rwan

have you ever read pathetic geek stories? it used to be a cartoon featured in The Onion. pretty hilarious stuff, but then the artist went off and did her own thing and it's not in the onion no more. you can see her website at:

https://www.patheticgeekstories.com/




anyhow. we should have a pathetic cycling geek thread. embarrassing mishaps, calamities, and tear jerkers go here.

*everyone holds hands*
let the healing begin.

rwan

i'll start it off maybe.


today my sinuses were pretty overactive because of the pollen and i had just done a 2 mile run + workout. i was pretty exhausted and cycling really slow on the way back to my apt. when i feel this nice, bloated, bubbly loogie coming on in the back of my throat. so after much hawking and throat clearing i lean over to spit, but i wasn't going fast enough and all of it ended up on my leg.

rwan

and then the other day i was walking into this building, carrying by bike on my shoulder, with my chain wrapped around my waist cause i'm an awesome poser like that when the chain caught the curvy doorhandle. best yet, the door was pretty heavy and caught me by surprise and started pulling me back as it closed. so i was an asian dude carrying a bike, stuck to a closing door, with a chain around my waist. i was fumbling and bumping into everything.

people were looking.

SamHouston

I gave up on lock holsters on the waist years ago because I had a nice spill one day and ended up with a deep ugly fugly barely can walk u-lok shaped bruise on muh hip bone/hip/upper thigh. Glorious, remind you you are alive and want to stay that way pain when I got it too. So not wanting to have to hold it in my hand all day I wondered what to do, can't have it clanging around on the bike. Those plastic clip-it-on-your-frame things they always come with suck toads. I'd just had some dental work done and didn't want to carry it in my teeth. What to do? So this fellow I tell of my troubles, Lumpy, sez "watch." I watch. Lumpy's a good guy ya see, was been riding a year more than me and hooked me up with the primo job I had and almost always has good advice if you're not discussing women or catapults.

He takes his lock, slips it between the strap of his timkuk and his shoulder, the U slides facing downward, lock the barrel back on, flips it over his shoulder and it sits on the bag. "Viola!" The barrel, the long parts most of the tapered, all but 2 inches sits on the bag totally cushioned. Jumps up and down, bunny-hops some curbs, gets into his drops, no problemo, it moves but it stays back, never flies forward. I thank him in our usual way with a comment about his tremendous monobrow, he welcomes my thanks with a few choice words about my mothers chosen profession and my fathers fondness for livestock and later buys me a beer and I buy him a soda since he don't drink. (Beer=$4.75 Soda=$1.25 Ha I win after all!)

So this is nice, I can get it quick to lock up and put it away quick to get going. All is well. Cept he don't tell me that at least once almost everyone using this method learns how important it is to be quite adept and aware with the toss over the shoulder.

All casual working the day way a week or so later, come waltzing out of the what was then the Texas Commerce Tower, now its called the sumthin or other tower. I liked its first name so I call it that, or just "The Tower". Jump on my ride and zip over to 1000 LA to get some money for lunch, feelin good.
Anyway so it's lunchtime right? That and quittin time only time people come outside in downtown Houston and only if the weather is nice. It was nice, there were people everywhere. So I get my money, goin to lunch not a care in the world. Unlock the Uie, slip it tween my strap and me, re-lock it, (beautiful girl enters field of view, watching me, smiling..stay casual, smile back) BANG! He is down, he is outta there folks, and let me tell you she...is...not...impressed. At leaast I don't think she was since she wasnt among the do-gooders helping me up, asking who had done this to me. Blood covers everything and below it, blood spattered pride, above it shame...and pain mmmmmm pain.

But hey I took the rest of the day off, why push your luck.

chimblysweep

yeah, i have lots of bad stories of trackstanding in my clipless pedals to show off for cute boys and ending up, well, you know how this one ends.

note to self- unclip before flirting.

isotopesope

this one time i was on the interweb hub and found this stupid message board called bikebums.net and i looked at it everyday, several times a day even though it drove me up the wall most of the time.

MKRG

here ya' go

Monday, May 30

I had a little fun after it all. Still a little sick so I drove to a friend’s house. Drank too much. Talked a lot. I figured out I’m not really all that ****ed up after all. Still drank too much. Good thing that I lent that friend a bike a few weeks ago. Borrowed the nut number back and pedaled off into the night sans helmet. Pedaled off to the bar to meet up with another friend. Drank more beer. Talked more ****. Pedaled off into the night loaded with piss and vinegar. Thankfully the last bar on the list was closed so I just kept going. This is a first…for at least one mile I was puking overboard. The car behind me was probably laughing their asses off. I just kept pedaling…I figured if it was a cop it was over anyway so I might as well just keep going. I shouldn't have been eating fried cheese sticks anyway...what the **** was I thinking?!?! There was a footpath coming up I could disappear down. It wasn’t a cop but when I cleared the footpath I pushed it up over 20 and held back the rumble. A mighty rumble it was! The stupidest part is that when I got home I cracked another beer. The morning is going to hurt. I hope I can suffer a good ride tomorrow without ****ed up sinuses or puking but I doubt it.

Aeroplane

One of my first offroad rides with a group... All these dudes wore the baggies, and I only had lycra. So, naturally being a little self-concious, I wore a pair of baggy cotton shorts (think Big Lebowski) over the lycra to cover my bits.

About 40 minutes into the ride, while coming down a medium sized roller, I shift back behind the seat, as one is wont to do. Upon clearing the roller, I rise up, and tear the hell out of the crotch of my shorts. I end up having to bear the lycra ass anyways, which wouldn't have been 1/10th as bad if I hadn't tried to hide it in the first place. Was taunted for the rest of the ride.

pitboss

owns

12XU

That geek stories comic reminds me of R. Crumb if he were a Gen Xer.

BlindRobert

back when I was a silly roadie, I had just cleaned up my bike and was going out for a ride in my new wool Cinzano jersey. I thought I looked pretty cool and hit Prospect Park for a few laps - well there was some sort of "event" near the park that day and it had apparently just ended. There were all kinds of people in matching outfits - girl scouts, marching bands, veterans of foreign wars, shriners - you name it - along with LOTS of civilian, average joe types. And they were all walking in the street and not paying much attention to the possibility of getting hit by a wool-clad cyclist.

Anyhoo, it was quickly obvious that there were too many people to do any productive or fun riding in the park, so I crawled around the loop slowly figuring I would head out towards Coney Island. On the North end of the park I was moving slowly and noticed this woman staring at me 20 or so yards ahead. I assumed that she was noticing how cool my new jersey was and how all my gear matched and how even the spokes on my bike were recently polished and sparkly in the sun...I slowed down a little more to let her get an eyeful as I rolled past. As I got near her she shouted a question to me, "Were you in the PARADE?!?"

What a jackass. That's what gears will do to you.

South Fulcrum

So last night, I changed stems. Tonight when I was on my way home I was doing a stand at a light. It turned green so I moved my bars to go forward. The bars went fine, but the fork and wheel didn't tag along. I guess I didn't get it tight enough.

I took the bus home.

sbeatonNJ

The other day my buddy and I are riding back down a street in our neighborhood on our fixed gears, just coming back from doing like 20 hill repeats on this one big (being relative to living on a coastal plain) hill. So its like 35 miles when all is said and done between rididng out and riding back. We're feeling like tough guys and just cruising back to our houses and we see this like ten year old girl cranking down the street on a unicycle with perfect form. I felt humbled.

This other time I had this old beater ten speed I used to ride to school so I had changed a flat the day before and I guess I didnt tighten the quick release at all. So I pull up to school dismout off the bike and as I lean back top dismout the front wheel rolls out in front of me. I already had one leg off so I didn't fall and actually caught the wheel in my hand and slammed it against the back wheel into the bike rack and locked up. It looked pretty smooth to bystanders but I felt like a moron on the inside.

yonderboy

One time, way back, I was hotdogging on the local trails, pedalling a wheelie up the hill passed the top where everyone hung out. My wheel hit a dip, I lost my balance, and fell over backwards, feet still clipped in. It's a pain to get out of clipless pedals upside down.

Another time, not so way back, I was hotdogging again, but this time for members of the opposite sex. So I was mounting a picnic table, in usual fashion: front wheel to the bench, two wheeled hop to the top, then pop the rear on. I lost balance in the final step, making a spectacular off-balance fall (no feet). What I had to show from this endeavor was a bruised butt, a tacoed wheel, and no play.

The moral of the story is don't hotdog when other people are around, unless you're BikerFox.

soupless

I read every post in this thread. There's my pathetic story. Pistons woot woot.

prodigal son

Last year I was riding through a park, not really paying attention and did an endo over a locked gate. I split my helmet in two. I was more worried about my bike than me. It now has big scratch in the paint that I should really touch up.

HereNT

Um, a lot of stories that I don't really remember that involve me waking up bloody and wondering how far I rode with the handlebars so crooked?

I was accused of being a little too obsessive in my color matching by a roadie for not being happy with green tires instead of Celeste. But I match color for a living, so I blew it off.

talipdx

ahhhh the "woke up bloodied and broken" mornings..... gawd I love booze throw in a bike and I almost prefer it to the "who the f*** are you where's my pants" mornings.....

s2sxiii

not so much me, but another rider --

we broke into an impromptu game of foot down. And this tall skinny kid is gunning for me, hardcore. Luckily, i am a hefty dude, and can take much shoving before toppling. the "circle" is fairly big, so tall skinny kid gets a pretty good run on me, at an angle, close to head on. he jerks the bars to the side as a feint, trying to shake me. no dice. but he does come out of his clips, knee the handlebars, and send himself flying, as he tries to reach out and shove. Bloodies up his knee quite well, and I stand victorious in the foot down circle.

not 15 minutes later, we're out on the ride, and tall skinny kid reaches down to play with his computer mount on his fork, breaking the "reach from the front of the fork, not from behind" rule. Result? One finger trapped between spokes and fork and dislocated. Owie. But at least he didn't get it caught in the chain.

HereNT

I dunno - I'm out 4 or 5 or 6 grand from one of those nights, but that's all the more that it will ever be. The 'where's my pants mornings' can lead to a lot longer commitment and pain, and of course, money.

Honestly, I'd rather wake up to another 'OW, my head hurts really bad, why is there dried blood on my chin, and running out of my ears' day (yes, that would be the second time I woke up that way, after riding home) than wake up to a 'Hey, you don't remember me, but we hooked up and - here's your kid!'. Which is what would probably happen if I woke up from one of the "who the f*** are you where's my pants" because I would have had to have been REALLY *****faced for one of those, which means something in context.

So, um yeah, I'm drunk enough to eat White Castle and post this? Time to stop posting and wish my front door locked from the outside... Not like I'm riding anymore tonight, anyways...

lilHinault

I was taking some dumbbells to the local Salvation Army to donate them, this is way back when I was maybe 100 lbs, and I had them in my backpack. I was going slowly and going up the little ramp in the sidewalk to the front of the salvation army and that small momentary incline was enough, I knew I was top-heavy with 35 or 40 lbs of dumbbels, but that tipped it and I fell over backwards!

talipdx

much love brother hahaha much love.....

which is why the bloody and broken mornings are preferable..... again getting smashed whilst riding your cherry ride is poor planning.

always have the beater for times of adventures

BostonFixed

I was once walking with a lady friend, through a populated square area, and actually said that I dropped something and had to tie my shoe just to check out a bike.

r-dub

Sometimes when it's raining my partner drives to work rather than riding (she's not as Super-Hardcore(tm) at me) and sometimes I get a ride with her since my shop is near where she works (guess I'm not so hardcore either...) My bike gets really upset when I make it ride on the back of the car, though, and once it decided to drop the front wheel onto the road at about 65mph (okay, maybe I didn't tighten the qr enough.) The wheel (shimano 600 hub laced to MA-3 rim) bounced off the freeway out of harm's way (and out of reach), and I was pretty useless all day (as messengers with one-wheeled bikes often are.)

loaf

Yesterday I threw the chain on my brakeless in traffic, flinstoned my way to the sidewalk so I could go fix my chain. Some dude across the street saw the whole thing and gave me a thumbs up. It made me smile for the rest of the day.