Originally Posted by Towlie
In my part of the world too. When passing folks on the trail, or on the side of a road, I am the first to ask if all is OK. But there's a distinction that makes this scenario interesting to me. In this case the guy was NOT stranded. Far from it. He was not out on a dirt trail, not even stuck on the side of the road. He was on the paved loop in a public park, about 30 seconds from a major road, very much in the city, plenty of water fountains, payphones, businesses. He was on a closed LOOP, so no matter how far he had ridden, he could not be more than 60 seconds of the parking area by foot. If he was like 99% of riders there, he drove his car there.
This reminds me of something I recently did. It was during the Seattle to Portland Ride. We had just left one of the rest stops about a couple of miles previous when I noticed this guy along the side of the road.
So instead of stopping and asking if he needed help, I snapped a picture and kept going.
I'm such an a$$!
Seriously though, I did keep on going. I heard him shout something to me but I just thought it was a greeting so I waved back.
You see... the thing is. I knew the guy. He and I ride with my bike shop. I also knew several other things about his situation.
- That was not his bike he was standing next to. That was one of the shop's bike that one of the people riding with him was borrowing. I surmised he was giving one of them help.
- He was travelling with four other people.
- We were not far from a rest stop.
- The STP has rolling mechanical support. Stick your arm out with your thumb down and one of the motorcycles or sag-wagons will stop for you.
- He had his own two-van personal support. I saw them at the last rest stop when he was changing the cassette on his wheels.
I figured he was in no danger.
However, I later found out that he had to wait an hour for help to arrive. Apparently his crew had already driven ahead. Hundreds of other riders passed him but nobody stopped. All he needed was a tyre lever because the tyre bead was too tight. He gave me a ribbing the next day when I saw him at the shop and luckily he doesn't consider me a snob. I think that if it were anyone else, the perception might have been different. It's true that he wasn't in any danger of being truly stranded but he was inconvenienced and all I needed to have done was stop for five minutes to lend him a tyre lever. It would have been the nice thing to do.
Last week, I was riding along one of the bike paths here. I got to this nice straight section where I normally crank it up. It was a nice sunny Saturday afternoon and there were lots of cyclists. I was flying down the paths at about 25MPH when I saw on the opposite side, a guy on the side of the road with his front wheel off. Other cyclists had gone by him in both directions. I shouted, "you okay?" He responded with, "not really." I grabbed the brakes and pulled off. After turning around to get to him, he first thanked me for stopping to help and then explained his problem. He said his front wheel was wobbling badly and felt loose. I looked at it and determined that the hub cones had loosened up. After tightening them and making sure everything was spinning freely, we had a conversation about cycling. He was a newbie cyclist and asked a few other pieces of advice. He told me that he had stopped off at a bikeshop along the path a bit earlier and they wanted $15 just to even look at the wheel. After about 10 minutes, he thanked me again and we went our ways. I felt good for the rest of the day.