White Mountains of AZ, where most of the water in the state falls, I believe. We get good rain during the monsoon. If I skipped the commute every time it might rain, I would never ride in the summer. It sucks when the road home turns to mud but sometimes it happens.

If I could have proceeded on a better route, I would have got it going again but I still had 1.5 miles of mud to make it through!

It seems to me that the most reported commute ending events are tire related; Not very surprising. What's interesting is the next most reported seem to be crashes. I might have guessed something else.

I worked a 19 hour shift, which since it was a swing shift, meant that I had been up for 24 hours straight by the time I was ready to head home. Called the wife and got a ride home. So I guess it ended half my commute if that counts...

Bogged down fenders. That's a new one.


I had my big crash back in march that ended the 12 years of having my cruiser. EMT's had to check me out, and i later went to hospital for proper look-over by docs (including xrays and CT scan). They found no real issues and i recovered OK in a few weeks. Was one hell of a crash though. Thankfully the frozen stuff in my backpack got home without thawing thanks to my awesome family.

The other 2 recent times is when the spokes broke. First time i carried the bike (35 lbs) on my shoulder about half mile to avoiding rotating rear (the affected) wheel, then walked it when my arm got too tired. Second time i was on a leisurely ride in the neighborhood, so i just walked it back home.

Since i live car free and have no one really to bail me out, if there is severe weather bearing down i have 3 options. One option is to try and beat the worst part to a place i can go inside, only catching the preliminary drizzles and breezes. Another is to simply wait till it passes and stay where i am. Finally, if there are no other choices (especially doing certain routes) all i can do is brace for the worst and not ride near any big trees. Fun times i tell you

- Andy

It may be where most of the water in the state falls but that's still a small amount of water. I'm not saying that you should skip riding when the rain falls but you should really question the need for fenders. If you lived in the Northwest and had to ride in rain all day long, fenders make some sense, although my daughter lived in Seattle for 2 years without fenders on a bike and did just fine. But Southwestern monsoons are quick hit storms not usually all day soakers.

If your route includes dirt roads that can turn to mud, I really question the use of fenders. I use fenders in winter because of snow melt but I also fashion fenders that are very open to keep any snow from packing around the wheel.



Snow, however, doesn't stick like mud can and I wouldn't consider riding the above bike in mud even with those fenders. I have had to ride in wet conditions while on a mountain bike...it happens...but the bike is naked for the summer



as are all my bikes.

only once. when I was a teenager, I was far from home (30 miles?) when my saddle broke off and all I had was seat post. I called Mommy ...

One time, first commute after a rebuild, and for some reason I rode 'naked': no seatbag, no multitool etc in it.

Front derailleur broke off, was dangling off the cable, and no way to keep it clear of the chain. I wasn't equipped to remove it and continue on as a 1x, so I had to call home for a ride.

Note to self: the proper attitude for the first ride after doing some bike work is not "I fixed it, so now I have nothing to worry about", but rather "I 'fixed' it, so I better have some tools with me next time I ride..."

that makes me feet hurt in sympathy pain. i've taken shoes off and walked barefoot when it's not too hot or cold.

My rear derailleur was sucked into my rear wheel and thrown over the chainstay when I was about 2.5mi into my 14mi commute. I had to call my wife for a pickup. Rear der. must have been out of alignment and I didn't realize it until I shifted up and by then it was too late.

So far, that's the only abort I've had to make. (knock on wood)

Broken chain, broken front shift lever (hills), broken front brake calipers (hills), broken front brake cable (separate incident, hills again), flats with an appointment time to make, mangled front chain ring, shredded rear tire, too much happy hour, ice (which resulted in walking bike), and one day of local street flooding.

Usually these rides ended up with me on the bus. Only a couple required an actual bail out car ride.

Hit by car. Kinda takes the wind out of your sails... so to speak.

Wow, you are hard on your bike(s)!

Yes. My bike shop loves me.

I have not, but should have. I slipped and fell on ice a couple of years ago. I landed on my side and regained my breath and managed to make it the rest of they way in to work. The pain got worse through the day and I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with broken ribs. I was off the bike for two months. My wife is still mad at me for not calling her right away.

Once I was riding my bike to high school in the morning, I was riding no hands to unwrap a piece of candy, and I snagged a parked van's side-mirror, BAM! I didn't realize it, but I had a broken right wrist, and went to school anyways. On the way home, coming downhill to a stop sign, there was a car going through (quite legally), so I had to stop hard to avoid the car. Because my right wrist hurt, I used the left, ENDO! Broken left collar bone. The very nice lady in the car drove me home with my bike hanging out of her trunk, and then my parents took me to the doctor or ER or whatever for X-rays etc.

That was in the mid-80s when there were no cellphones yet.

....aaaaaaaand add to this list losing a deraileur pulley making the bike into a scooter. Needed to replace them, put it off, and look where it got me. Coasting downhill at least.

My commute ending event is usually arriving at work or arriving home.

Typically if I commute to work I also commute home from work. The main exceptions to that have been a few times I meet my wife somewhere afterwork, which usually means riding to her somewhere and putting my bike in her car, then later going home with her.

The only other exception was when I crashed a few weeks ago on my way to work. I actually finished riding to work, and even as I went to urgent care I thought about riding home or doing a multi-modal commute. In the end I realized I was in to0 much pain and accepted a ride home for me and my bike from a friend.

To date, any minor mechanical issue or flat has been dealt with and I continued on my commute. Hope it continues to be the case. If something is really bad, I have plan B on parts of my commute, though there are a few sections where a break down could mean a long walk.

Not so far. I was near a couple of times, like when some kid stole my front wheel and I had to borrow one from a friend who lived nearby, and another when there was a flood and many roads were impassable, but I found some alternative route anyway.

This.

The fork isn't rotated in the steertube there either. Smashed in and to the side pretty bad, it makes a nice wall ornament now.
First bike, piece of junk, within six months of commuting daily to school. I being the inexperienced rider I was was riding at speed with only foot clipped in and soon hit a pothole, foot slipped off the pedal, back came the pedal and hit my achilles, halting the drivetrain and flipping the bike. Walked it home on my shoulder on the hottest day of the year with a torn rotator cuff, bag, clothes and ego.

I've made the "call of shame" several times:

• Had my 2nd flat of the ride and had already used my spare tube.
• Had a flat and realized that when I moved my panniers from my winter bike to my regular commuter that I hadn't also swapped the spare 26" schrader-valve mountain bike tube with the 700c presta-valve road bike tube.
• Had a flat and discovered my frame pump had broken and wouldn't pump up the tire.
• Snapped a chain 5 miles from home in sub-zero weather. Walked 2 miles until I found a phone I could use and then called my wife for rescue for the remainder of the trip. I did sit in the bed of the truck with the bike out of principle.

Several other times I've had issues but have been within a couple miles of home so I just walked the remainder of the way and pushed the bike.

The worst I ever had was a total tire blowout. Not just a normal flat tire (i.e. a hole in the tube), but the sidewall of the tire ripped open. Not at all patchable on the side of the road.

What made it worse was I was going through a sort of park area, and while houses were visible up and off to the side, I had about a 2 mile walk to get out to anywhere useful, and walking that kind of distance in cycling shoes is hard on the shoes. As it happens, this took place in warm weather, but that event spooked me from riding that trail in the winter. For a while I tried to carry an extra pair of shoes (bulky/heavy) and an extra fold-up tire (bulky/heavy).

If the sidewall tear is small enough, a common trick is to "boot" the tire with a dollar bill.

Yeah, I had heard of that. I wasn't really sure how well it would work in this case. This was on a road bike tire where the normal operating pressure is just over 100PSI, and it just seemed like getting enough pressure so that I wasn't riding the rims might result in the thing ripping open even more. And blowing out a second tube in the process.

Well if the alternative is to make the Call of Shame anyways, seems not much risk in trying. Doesn't have to ride well, just has to get you home. Then again, it depends how far from home. 50mi, I would probably make the call. 1-2mi I would probably just walk it.