Wow did I suck!
 

Subtitled: A story of blowing up.

First of all, I had plenty of warning that I shouldn't have taken a ride at all yesterday. With the temps near 80 though, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. A nice ride with over 2500 feet of climbing was planned.

Before I took off I decided to change my rear tire. Easy enough, except I ended up going through four tube changes before heading out the door! The first one I snapped off the top of the needle valve when I removed the pump connection. Didn't lose any air at first, until I decided to see if it would work without that top piece. On the first downward push of the pump handle the connector blew off the stem and all the air pfsssed out, the remaining needle valve nowhere to be found. Second one - pop! The tire/tube wasn't seated correctly and pinched the tube at near full inflation. Third one - again I snapped the needle valve off!!! This time I just left it alone and readied to roll when I began hearing a slow hiss of air. Crap. So I patched the tube with the pinch damage, mounted it correctly and 45 minutes after changing that tire I finally had a wheel I could ride with! Suddenly the longish ride I had planned had to be cut short. That sucked.

As a safety measure, two miles into the ride I stopped at a new bike shop to purchase a spare tube. They were having a bike build party in the back yard for a customer, with a grill busy cooking up a batch of burgers. They offered a burger with some macaronni salad, which I ate with relish. Not the condiment, but the act of enjoyment. That was the second sign that I shouldn't have continued riding. I should have just stayed and ate some more and talked bikes.

The route I took included a nice 4 mile long 800 foot climb up a picturesque canyon followed by a fast 2 mile descent on the other side. Ordinarily I do the route the opposite way. Going the way I went yesterday is somewhat deceptive because it's maybe 4 to 6% gradient the whole way, with a few steep sections over 10%. Climbing up a 5% grade is fun because you can keep it in the large chainring and power up like Jan Ullrich. Except I'm not Der Kaiser and sooner or later the chain has to drop to the small ring or I risk blowing up.

I was doing fine for the first 2 miles, but when the steepness kicked up, I continued in the big ring and kept the same speed (14/16mph). I thought I was doing fine. I could feel my heart beating quickly through the arteries and veins in my head and neck, when suddenly my heart simply said no mas. I overdid it. It was like the air going out of one of the innertubes from earlier. All incentive and ability to power anything just disappeared. All I had left was the ability to poke along in shock.

I thought I would be fine once I reached the top and coasted down the other side. There was still some 700 feet of up left before I got home, and I was sure I'd be my normal self after a bit of rest. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Heart, lungs and legs would have none of it. Took me an additional 10 minutes on top of my usual time to reach home. What really sucks is for the past 4 days I did that same route (both ways) in very good time. They were all good, fast and strong rides, all within my normal range of exertion and current fitness. Yesterday? I just sucked.

We all suck from time to time, right? Any good blow up stories out there?

Sounds like a fun day. Don't worry man, it happens to the best of us. On my first ride on my bike, I got about 8 miles from home and my legs gave out. I spent at least 45 minutes sitting on the side of the road before I could get back on my bike. It took me at least 2x longer to get home :rolleyes:

Every day can't be sunday . . . some days we just aren't going to be at our best.

True. So let's hear your sucky blow up story. That will make me feel much better.:D

I bonked Saturday about mile 55 into a 60 miler. Unfortunately, it was at the base of a 6%, 300 foot climb up to the plateau that I live on. I've bonked a few times, and I never feel it coming until it happens. I get the shivers, a huge stomach ache, and my heartrate never went over 140 during the climb, which went at a laborious 4mph. I usually go up that climb at about 12-13mph.

Weird, that's the opposite of my typical experience. I'm usually riding along for a good 5-10 miles thinking "Uh-oh, I'm f**ked." The only time a bonk has snuck up on me is during a road race. Of course, once you feel even just the warning signs, there's rarely anything you can do to stop it.

I stopped there...

I wish it had been just a bonk, as in a reaction to losing steam after a long ride. This was definitely no bonk given that I was less than 6 miles into the ride. And I had a burger with mac salad just before! I was feeling great up until that moment, then pop I went. It's a weird feeling. Body goes into shock and just shuts down. I can only blame my over-enthusiasm. Coincidentally, I had just read Floyd Landis' book the night before, and I watched a re-run of his infamous 2006 TdF stage 17 comeback ride on DVD earlier that morning. (I forgot to mention that part of the story in the initial OP) My luck was not experiencing Floyd's stage 17, but stage 16 instead:(

Excellent. An added bonus reaction.

I had my first bonk back in January doing a 60mile out 'n back with BF'r ROJA and a couple of riding buddies. 3/4 way up Mt Diablo doing fine when suddenly all the energy drains from my body through my feet. All I can do is dial in my littlest gear and put one foot in front of the other to keep the cranks turning. I just didn't drink/eat enough on the way -- great thing was I was wearing my Hammer Nutrition jersey. It was fate.

I don't have any good ones, but I have a lot of them. Usually after doing several solid long rides in a row. My wife does marathons and always talks about avoiding bonking. Rest days can be good.

It was about 2 weeks after I *finally* actually got my hands on my new bike. Boy, was I excited. My old bike was full aluminum, 35c tires, $900 (in like 1994, though). My new bike (this year) was a top of the line specialized Tarmac - $3500, and I hadn't really wanted to spend that much but I had spent 3 months shopping, test riding, etc and this bike had my favorite ride. Plus it was more like $5500 retail. :D

So I was pretty excited, but for the first week I couldn't do much riding, but I finally got my bike lights and I was riding it everywhere. Keep in mind that I hadn't really been biking before I got this bike that summer because I had been bike shopping for so long, and the reason I was bike shopping was because I finally gave up on trying to fit onto my old bike and dealing with the pain at the end of a ride, and I didn't want to adjust back to the bad fit so I wasn't riding.

On Sunday I had ridden it out to my mother's place (her computer needed help, again) and it was 20 miles each way, round trip, so 40 miles. Pretty far for me, and believe me, I was pushing it. I got the whole "Let me give you a ride home, it's dark and dangerous, etc etc" thing but I rode myself home anyways (20 miles home, but like 17 of it is on a bike path). I wasn't going to get a ride when I could bike!

Monday I was trying to meet my dad for an organized ride - I figured I'd bike over there, but realized halfway there it was a lot longer trip than I had thought. When I got there, we tried to catch up to the group - again I was really pushing it, but we were maintaining around 22mph for 15 minutes or so. That's damn fast for me, trust me! :-) Never did quite catch them - so I was maxing out going over there, then maxing out trying to catch them - I think I did about 30 miles that day.

The last time I had biked out to his place he had tried to insist on giving me a ride home - it's late, it's dark, it's far, bla bla bla, but there was no way I was going to let *that* pattern start. I biked over, I was biking back!

Tuesday I was meeting some friends at their place for a movie after work. This guy's girlfriend was shocked, *shocked* that I would even *consider* riding my bike over to there place (15 miles there, 15 miles back), so naturally, I just *had* to do it. :D The bad part was that I had biked over there before and it took me over an hour, so it figured with my new better route it would take *much* less time. Halfway over there, I realized I was wrong and it was still going to take an hour. :-( So I was really pushing it to try to get there ASAP.

So we all hang out, watch a movie, and I'm the last one to leave. It's like 11:30 at night, I have to work the next day, and the guy offers me a ride home in his car. I say No. And then I look over at my bike...and I'm just completely physically exhausted, and unable to work up *any* enthusiasm whatsoever about biking home. And I start thinking about how I have to wake up for work the next day...and how I'm so tired (it's only effectively 2 weeks into my biking season, and I hit it really hard the previous 2 days) and they guy sees me eyeing my bike and he's like "Are you sure?" and I'm like "Yeah....maaaaaaaaaaaybe.....".

And as hard as I tried, I just could not muster up *any* enthusiasm for biking home that night, gave in, and got a ride home. But I still felt pretty darn lame about it. :-)

I had one of those moments where I felt like I could feel every muscle in my heart pumping and the I imagined the sound of blood rushing through my head like it was loud as a waterfall. I think that the best way to describe it was complete awareness of what was going on inside my body which was kinda freaky. That was the only time that I had to get off the bike and wait till my body was back under control. Things that might have contributed: first climbing in quite some time, first time using allergy meds this year, lots of caffeinated gel and 2/3 of a box of thin mints a bit earlier. Damn that roadside girl scout cookie stand!

Yeah, I forgot that part of the story: For the first time in months my bike saw the little gear. I used it on the last mile 1/4 slog up the steep hill I live on. I knew miles before then that I was probably going to use it. I even considered that I may have to walk :eek: up. I haven't walked my bike up that hill in over a year. Hmm, come to think of it, the last time I did walk up was after I blew up on a climb.

With all that fuel, I bet you thought you were gonna fly that day!

2 years ago, 40 mile ride...20 out, 20 back. 90+ degrees with a bunch of hills. Was feeling pretty pooped by the turnaround point and had to ride about 5 miles back to a gas station to get more to drink.

Stopped there, refilled bottles and just sat down...totally spent...at the bottom of another hill (maybe only a mile long, but about 9% at the start, maybe a couple hundred feet) feeling like I was sitting in an oven at the base of everest.

Finally got back on and struggled another 10 miles or so. About 5 miles from home, had to get off and sit in the shade again. Finally 3 miles from home had the choice of going up one more hill and coasting home, or cruising rollers back. Decided to do the hill and then literally stop pedaling for the last couple miles. Bad choice. Got halfway up, had to lie down (no more sitting for me) on a rock wall for about 10 minutes. Finally got to the top and coasted home.

Scary stuff. Did the same ride a week earlier with no problems and a few days later with no issues.

Sometimes you just have a bad day.

We all have bad days, as long as the good out weigh the bad we're doing something right ;)

Nothing fun about bonking, it's happened to me a few time under different cirumstances. The worst was once when I went on a 75 mile ride and thought I would be fine in the heat and flat riding conditions. I over did it on the spinning and the heat (92F) eventually got me so I spent most of my ride taking breaks because I just did not feel good putting in any kind of hard effort.