Wales, in the south wales valleys (about 11miles north of cardiff)

We may be a metric nation but you can still buy sweets in quarters, and most scales here do Stones and lb's as well as kilos.

I was 20 Stone, which at 14 Lb's per stone = 280 Lbs.

I've converted it to lbs as well most of the people on this forum are american from what I've seen, and most diet and fitness sites and calcs take either kilos or lb's. I've no idea how many kilos there are to a stone (never found out) just seemed easier to calculate it in lbs. Spesh as I give my height in feet and inches :)

Age 10 or 11, showing off for the neighborhood girls, I rode down the steepest hill in town with my hands crossed right hand to left bar etc. I made it about 1/2 way down before I lost control & went offroad into the brambles & blackberries. Nothing more cruel to our fragile male egos than a girl's laughter ! Didn't hurt a bit, I'm fine, really! (Something we still laugh at today). Notice a common thread here, pre-teen boys + bikes = watch out

I dunno - you convert to pounds for the merkins, and they're still not happy! :)

2.2 lbs to the kilo. 14 lbs to the stone. Roughly 6 kilos to the stone, by my reckoning? I dunno, I've never totally got on with metric weights either.....

Most embarassing moments of mine hark back to the days of BMX, about 11 yrs old.

I lived on the edge of town, which was being built up with apartments and houses. There was a large hilly apartment site that must have been the dump site for all the residential excavation, so it made for some radical track racing. No girls in this story, just a 6' "grave" with a launch at one end, a landing ramp at the other, a good downhill approach, and a bunch of triple-dog-dares. I had just bought my first "good" bike, a used GT BMX hand-me-down from a real racer for $100, so I was going to be first. the bike weighed half of my Huffy Pro Thunder, so I flew higher and farther than ever before, missing the landing ramp. I had my front wheel pretty high, overcorrecting for the old beater, so when I landed, the back wheel ran right out from under me. I slid on my 'arse' in gym shorts for at least a good 10 yards leaving me with an Atomic Wedgie and a raw left cheek/hip. Still have a scar 21 years later.

Oi! What was it about 5th grade...?

I was showing off for the lovely and talented Danielle DiBlasi, on my orange Western Auto gas pipe 10 speed. Rolling down her street, I pull my patented one-foot-on-the-saddle-one-high-in-the-air-behind-me-hands-on-the tops-of-the-drops maneuver. Just as I caught her eye, I somehow decided that I was stable enough to REMOVE BOTH HANDS FROM THE BARS, and stand on the saddle on one foot, while continuing to roll smoothly down Jade Lane. I rolled smoothly for one billionth of a second, before crashing spectacularly.

Still, Dani and I wound up 'going together' for a good while. Learning to French Kiss made it all better...

my moment came just a few years ago. I was climbing a long hill on my way home in the early fall in the dark. As I climb the hill, a large quickly moving stream a water was pouring down the road. I realized they were releasing water from a fire hydrant and pouring it into the road at the 4 way stop. I slowly make my way into the intersection, balancing and waiting my turn. Everyone stops for me so I put tried to crank through. Well, just as I start to hammer through the water I realize I am on top of a metal road plate. At a very slow speed my bike slips out from underneath me, I drop into the fast water which has enough power to slide me across the metal plate. People get out of their cars to check on the EXTREMELY WET biker. I was fine and slowly made my way home, albeit a rather chilly ride.

Anyone else notice how many of these stories involve the presence of the "fairer sex"?

And yes, my story's coming.

I have a few embarassing stories, but none are as funny as this one from a friend (no really, this wasn't me!). It's long but VERY funny.

A little background. Nathalie is the writer's wife, and she was about 9 months pregnant at the time. Joe is her brother. I'm the "BJ" he mentions near the end (and his reference is to one of my embarassing rides, btw).

Ok, so Nathalie says "take Joe biking".

We go to Crabtree (Lake Park) and let Talya trike on the walking trails for a bit. Then I am going to take Joe to the easy trails to show Mtn biking is ok and easy and not dangerous.

The previous week I changed the pedals on the Klein for him since I use the purple bike for the child seat and it still has clipless pedals. Joe has the Klein and I have the purple monster.

So we are riding from the boathouse to the trail head, I bunny-hop the first speed bump and not quite clear it. I get a lot of speed going to clear the second one, maybe it turned out the purple bike don't wanna bunny-hop or I am not quite in shape enough to hop a 40-lb bike. Anyway I kinda wobbled and planted into the pavement. Scrapes, bruises, scratched helmet, the works.

One of those great road ones where all the cars stop and people get out and will not leave until you stand up and say you're ok so they can leave and you can lay back down and moan in peace. And the whole time I am thinking "Nathalie is going to kill me because a) I will be no help b) I will be in a body cast for the baby pictures. Some doctor woman stops, pokes, says "You have cracked ribs, go to the ER" and leaves. Joe says she was cute but my eyes were still out of focus.

Ended up going to the ER
a) Because I was sure I must have broken something
b) I was in too much pain to walk upstairs to take a shower.

Anyway, according to the ER doctor the ribs and the rest are just bruised but the shoulder is separated (even I can see it in the x-ray). Today I see the orthopedics to find out how much damage I did and how long to heal. As you can see I can still type and use my right arm but it is in a sling for now.
And you guys thought you had an adventure, I had more adventure than your three days and 60 miles just from the parking lot to the trailhead. HA!

Lessons learned:
1. Pavement hurts (just could have asked BJ, this seems redundant)
2. When you go to the ER, tell them you fell off of a bicycle, if you say bike they freak out.
3. The nurse tech on duty on Saturday night is in a bad mood. I scrub the deck more gently than nurse ratchet cleaned my scrapes
4. Much to my being anti-medication, ibuprofen-800 works wonders

i wear lycra shorts on my training rides, and one day it was so humid that as i came to a stop light, i stepped off the seat to stretch and my shorts were stuck to my saddle. i mooned everybody. now i only wear bibs

ROFL @ pancakeman :D lol!!!!

and itsjustb: its "your most" not "your mates 2nd cousin's best mates nan" :P Get those damn stories up ere!! :D

>>> do with a milk crate, a piece of plywood and a fifth grade girl

So was there an actual bike invilved? :)

I rammed a few parked cars before, about 10 years ago or so. The first one was at ultra low speed, no big deal, I was leaving a friends house just coasting down the driveway, looking back at friend, and hes sporting this crazy "what the hell are you doing?" look on his face. I have no idea why, then I found out when I rode right into his sisters parked honda rust bucket, hes laughing his ass off, and I am too of course, while still on the hood.

Then I did it again, this time on the street at a much higher speed, happened the exact same way, I was looking back at a different friend, who'm had the same crazy expression on his face. Just when Im about to say something like "what the hell is wrong with you?" WHAM! Clobbered someones parked car, went over the bars and remained on the vehicle.

I dont find these embarrasing really, although I guess if more people witnessed it it would be another story. Some of my happier memories really.

One that I get asked to tell again and again at the bar and on fishing trips. They just won't let this one die.

I was living in Minneapolis (St. Louis Park, actually), and decided to ride through downtown one sunny Saturday. I'm riding down Hennepin, when the road is blocked off. So, I walk my bike down the sidwalk trying to figure out why the road is blocked off, and for so many blocks. An out of town family asks me where the Grand Prix is, so I give them directions to the Metrodome, and figure this must be part of the Grand Prix, but it just didn't fit. Soon, I'm in the middle of a crowd, and it seems like everybody's anticipating something. So I stand there in my bike shorts, mesh t-shirt, and sandals, trying to catch on. Once the parade came down the street, it was clear in an instant that I was in the middle of the gay pride parade. Now I had gay friends, and had no issue with the whole event, but started feeling a little weird when protesters handed me a little bible and told me it wasn't too late. Then, I realize I'm standing behind a news reporter, right in front of the camera!

The embarassing part is that I told my wife about it all, who worked at the same company, who told my friends (gay and straight), who start interrogating me about why they saw me on the news (no one actually did).

slowly rolling around a parking lot when I noticed a small stick stuck in the spokes of my front wheel, I bent over and tried to pull it out when my hand jammed between the fork and the spokes. I then peddeled myself over the bars and onto the ground in slow motion. Glad my friends were all there watching at the time, I wouldn't have wanted to waste the moment on myself.

rather than unclipping at traffic lights I lent on a pedestrian rufuge sign.This partular one was not bolted to the floor, both sign and rider fell over slowly on to road!

15 years old going to work (1974-ish) on my old yeller 10-speed :love: attempting a new world's record for hard lean left turn while running stop sign at T intersection. FAIL. Low-sided and skidded off 6' embankment into nice soft gravel. That stopped traffic. Wish I had a pic of that dirt cloud. Passing motorists helped me find my glasses. Damn, that was tough bike - no damage.

So there's this bit on my route home where there's a bike lane you join from the road, through a gap in some railings. The kind of railings that look something like this:

|----|----|----|----| (gap here) |-----|-----|----|----|

So one lovely evening - clear, dry, tailwind - I'm rolling along nicely, about to join the bike path. And then find myself coming to a VERY abrupt stop. Hear people laughing. And my arms are killing me.

I'd missed the gap. Though the gap was in the same place as every other night I'd ridden that route the last 5 years. And I'd ridden - without slowing down - at about 20mph - into a railing. In sight of people.

So I make a quick getaway. And wear long sleeves the next 2 weeks to avoid explaining the symmetrical, purple bruises on my arms.

I was riding across campus and, as I often do, took a shortcut that had me jump a curb, ride down an alley and back onto the next street over,but this time when I went to jump the curb my foot snapped the strap on my toe clip so rather than gently hopping the curb, I went straight into the curb and over my handlebars. Unfortunately it was the middle of the afternoon so there were plenty of people around to watch.

The very first time I rode a 10-speed (yes, this was about 78 or 79 so they really were only 10 speeds)...pretty sure you can see where this is headed...

There was a new housing developement going in across the major road from my street. We were all playing around and riding on the big dirt hill. There were even some trails that had been worn into the dirt. One of the trails jumped a section that looped below it, and I was (unbeknownest to me) riding backwards. I saw the jump, knew I could not make it and grabbed a handful of brake levers. I had no clue that front and back were different, or which was which...my bike had coaster brakes. The next thing I know, I am laying-upside down in the lower track with the bike on top of me.

Not a commuting story but...

I'm a member of a local bicycle club and lead many rides...road, newbie, mountain, etc. I'd volunteered to lead a mountain bike ride with in the Denver Metro area since March isn't a good time to go out into the mountains of Colorado. I selected a route along Cherry Creek in Denver which wasn't too hard, since it's flat but it can be challenging with many obstacles like close trees and short but steep climbs.

I'd done the ride before and was familiar with all the challenging bits and, being the leader, I was showing off:o On one section of the trail, there was a tree that jutted out over the trail right over the creek. The trail went on the creek side of the tree and to ride the section properly, you had to lean to the right over the creek to clear both your body and the handlebars around the tree and then you had to quickly move the bike to the left to avoid a bend in the trail and a dropoff on the bank. The drop to the creek was about 4 feet. Not too difficult and I'd done it many times before.

Perhaps it had something to do with being the ride leader or with the ride coinciding with a March of Dimes walk-a-thon, but I was going to show everyone how to do this tricky little bit. Out in front of everyone, I approached the tree, dodged my bars to the right, then dodge my bars back to the left just like I should...except...

My bar leftward dodge hit the tree square and, according to those nasty little laws of motion, I was thrown back to the right...into space...flat on my back...4 feet above the surface of the creek. Fortunately, there was 4 feet of water in the creek that broke my fall. It is truly a curious sight to watch water fold over you as it closes in around the hole you made in it.

I sprang up out of the water with a mighty GASP! (it was March after all:rolleyes:) and one of the women walking on the path above asked, "Did he mean to do that?"

Look back to smile & wave 'bye', then look forward again just in time to plant face on car trunk lid. Bike was not harmed (it was a Schwinn) but face was bloodied & painful

Dropping your bike on a patch of algae in the desert seems pretty improbable. But I've done it.

During college in Arizona (ASU), my two roomates and I rented a townhouse about five miles from campus. None of us owned cars - we rode our bikes everywhere.

We attended a football game on a saturday evening...snuck in a bunch of vodka mixed in lime koolaid and got pretty lubricated. While riding home after the game we were doing the usual busting of each others chops and talking smack. As I was riding, I turned around to give one of my roomates a bad time...and promptly crashed into one of those low rectangular dumpsters that has an open top. Yup, over the bars I went into the dumpster. This is absolutely a true story.

My roomates were laughing so hard that they could not even muster the strength to come help me out for about five minutes. I felt no pain that night, but the next day was a different story.

To this day when I meet my roomates (25 years later) they bring up this story and I have to suffer all over again.

I'm a bike instructor, and my most embarrassing bike-related stories actually happened off bike. Like that time when I was walking a bike and talking to some kids taking a bike safety course. We were walking along the sidewalk; I was in front, looking back at them as I was walking, and talking to them about the importance of looking ahead when riding a bike. And in the middle of that speech I, of course, walk into a big concrete pole. :lol: I pretended it was intentional, to illustrate my point, but I think they knew... :D

Or the other time I was standing next to a building with a bunch of bike students around, pontificating on this and that... when a huge squirt of pigeon **** lands right on top of my head. (That's why you should ALWAYS wear your helmet... and make sure that it doesn't have too many vents. :rolleyes:)

Oh, wait, there is an on-bike one! Trying to trackstand a few days after getting clipless pedals. Resulted in the "forgot to unclip" fall of shame, in front of my whole bike class.

Boy, these make me sound like a crappy instructor, eh?.. :lol:

That is not too bad, be careful next time,haaa