Your strangest (or best) cycling experience ... to date.

[Afasoas]

I think everyone at some point, when they do something often enough or long enough has a bit of a surreal experience doing that thing. Usually something to do with ingrained muscle memory.

I recall once, being hit on the head with half a house brick that someone slung from out of a car window. It knocked me unconscious for at least a second, maybe longer. I came around with my vision fading back in and my ears ringing - unbelievably, I was still pedalling. I didn't remember straight away what had happened and just carried on cycling. It wasn't until I realised I had blood running into my eyes that I regained situational awareness and started to recall what had happened.

Cycled into A&E to get my head glued up and then cycled back home.
It could have been so much worse had my legs not known what to do!


What has been, your strangest (or best) cycling experience?

[sam]

Spending the night in a phone box in Dalwhinnie (on a winter's e2e) because of a puncture repair gone wrong.

If we're talking strictly in-the-saddle experiences, a rabbit once raced between my wheels and timed it perfectly so I didn't come off and he didn't get injured. That was passing strange.

Fell asleep once while riding. I'd say exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks but that would be insensitive.

As for best, yesterday's ride was up there, simply because I felt wonderful and the bike did too.

[ravenbait]

The first time we did the Dumb Run, we were standing at one of the interminable roundabouts in Cumbernauld trying to work out where we were, as the route directions I'd come up with had not accounted for there being even more roundabouts. We'd left Dumbarton at 8pm, getting to the Kirkhouse Inn at Strathblane in good time for last orders, but by the time we hit Cumbernauld we were in need of a coffee, and the only place likely to be able to furnish us with same was the 24 hour service station on the M80 junction. The last thing we wanted was to get lost in a maze of roundabouts, hence the need for a stop and a map consult. The only GPS we had was Munky's old Etrex, which wasn't very reliable.

As we stood there, comparing my routesheet to the OS map, scratching our heads, a small hatchback -- something like a Nissan Micra -- screeched to a stop beside us. The passenger window rolled down, and Aerosmith's Armageddon anthem "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" came blaring out of the window. A man who vaguely resembled a young Brian May suddenly emerged, hanging out of the window to his waist, and belted out a verse and the chorus at us, then scooted back inside and screeched off with a puff of smoking rubber.

The coffee machine was broken, by the way, and remained so until DR5, IIRC.

We had some great times on the Dumb Run. Occasionally I think about doing it again.

Sam

[sparklyfish]

a rabbit once raced between my wheels and timed it perfectly so I didn't come off and he didn't get injured.

I have had the same thing, but with a squirrel. That weird rusty wheelbarrow noise squirrels make? Even stranger when it (and me) were screaming.

[Wowbagger]

I was knocked off by a badger, a short time after leaving Glastonbury Tor whilst heading for Stonehenge on a solstice ride. We saw about 8 badgers that night.

Being randomly forumite-spotted by Glasgow Dave and Perkygirl whilst at a ramshackle feeding stop by St. Mary's Loch. ("Excuse me, are you Wowbagger by any chance?")

We were forumite-spotted on the same tour by Rig of the Jarkness in a tea room in Castle Douglas, but he wasn't brave enough to come and say hello. Forummers may remember his allegiance to Fred Wossname the Banking Billionaire and I don't think we would have got along terribly well. He made a comment a few days later on my ride report about seeing "his & hers" Thorns outside the tea room. He and his wife were lunching there as well.

[Rod Marton]

I was once attacked by a vicious man-eating rabbit.

It was on a 600, around dawn, when a group of rabbits ran across the road. One of them attempted the between-the-wheels manoevre, but decided to do this via my foot (which was at the bottom of the pedal stroke). As it was lifted, it started scrabbling frantically. exiting through the main triangle and via my other foot. Explaining the mass of scratches across my shins at the end of the event was entertaining, to say the least.

[sam]

I was once attacked by a vicious man-eating rabbit.

(click to show/hide)

Was this him?



Even domestic rabbits can take your arm off if you're not careful.

[Rod Marton]

I was reminded of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Lepus, a film which I have unfortunately seen. Regularly turns up in the list of worst films ever made.

[T42]

I too have had a rabbit bolt across the road and pass between my wheels.  I was also once rammed by a roe-deer on a climb in the Jura.  And at around km 350 of a 400 in 2011, when I was still labouring under misprescribed vasodilators and beta-blockers, I was so slow on one climb that a butterfly went through my front wheel without damage.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was so slow on one climb that a butterfly went through my front wheel without damage.

You were not slow – you had achieved perfect Zen harmony and stillness.

 

[Wowbagger]

My brother had a chaffinch commit suicide by flying into his front wheel quite a few years ago. He thought it may have been attracted by the flashing of the spoke reflectors.

[Phil21]

On the hills around Hannington, near Basingstoke, on a warm summers night, an owl flew just ahead of me for a couple of hundred meters. Didn't make a sound.

[Lightning Phil]

An owl flying alongside me at head height as the last light of the day fades away. Experienced that a few times.

Large herds of deer in the early morning as the mist hangs about 2 feet above the fields, basking everything in silence.

Mtn biking up near Coniston under a big bright full moon and not needing lights.

[FifeingEejit]

When I worked at the local big hospital, I would occasionaly ride in.
One morning with the haar in I was battering along the waterfront in blissful silence as the sound of what little traffic there was on the road beside was muffled and invisible too,
when a buzzing noise arrived behind and to the left of me suddenly, shortly after the road bridge tender buzzed past just off the wall splashing the still waters of high tide and passed ahead and away into the haar.

Plenty of others with animals of course.

[T42]

I was so slow on one climb that a butterfly went through my front wheel without damage.

You were not slow – you had achieved perfect Zen harmony and stillness.

 

Aye, gasping for breath at 4 kph and trying desperately to keep upright.

[sam]

[mrcharly-YHT]

Hmm, strangest?

Possibly cycling to Leeds on a winter morning. Forecast was bad, really cold (-15 was recorded nearby) and a bit of snow already fallen.

There was hardly a car on the dual carriageway bit of the A64. I had a whole lane to myself and an occasional car passed in the other lane.

It was really lovely right up until my tyre punctured (rear, natch), and I then discovered that patch glue doesn't work at -15C. Had to walk to tadcaster (fortunately I was passing at that point) and wait for the bike shop to open.

[Socks]

My best would be a ride at one of the FFCT rallies.  Nice route and scenery, thousands of cyclists on the road.  Hot, sunny weather. Lunch stop in the centre of a medieval castle, drinking a cold beer and eating a ham and cheese baguette while watching and listening to a traditional Breton dance and music display. Felt like one of those perfect moments.

[Peter]

Mais pas de blaireaux?  Pas de Bernard?!

[Ian H]

We were staying in North Berwick, whose notable features are the Bass Rock and The Law: two volcanic plugs which can be seen for miles around.
E and I set off for a gentle three day tour skirting the Lammermuirs, visiting Duns and Lauder along the way.  Returning north we passed through Haddington on familiar roads, only to be suddenly unsure of where we were.  The Law should have been visible ahead of us, but it wasn't there.  We passed signposts telling us we were going in the right direction, but we were still disorientated.  Suddenly it appeared for a moment and we realised there was a haar above us enveloping anything higher than about 60m. 

[Cudzoziemiec]

One of my most pleasurable ever bike rides was entirely unremarkable. From our flat in the city to the in-laws in the country. Only 30km, no topographical features of note, just a gentle climb through the city then entirely flat into the countryside and through the forest. But one occasion sticks in my mind as I took a slightly different route, it was a blazing hot summer day, and I meandered through a new part of the forest with lakes and things.

[Pickled Onion]

My brother had a chaffinch commit suicide by flying into his front wheel quite a few years ago. He thought it may have been attracted by the flashing of the spoke reflectors.

A cycling friend told me he had a small bird fly *through* the spokes of his front wheel and out the other side, apparently unharmed (or at least still able to fly).

[Pickled Onion]

On the hills around Hannington, near Basingstoke, on a warm summers night, an owl flew just ahead of me for a couple of hundred meters. Didn't make a sound.

This is quite common, I think they are following the light on the road to hunt by. But yes, it's quite an amazing experience.

[Pickled Onion]

Not sure about strangest, but this was pretty odd.

Cycling home one evening, people in a car by the side of the road flagged me down, they were lost and asked directions to some hotel, they were late for some event. So I gave them directions and carried on.

A little while later, I saw the car again, pulled over, the occupants looking at a map. So I stopped and explained they were going the wrong way and gave the directions again.

They thanked me, said that was really helpful but how did I know where they were going? I took a better look at them, and said: well, when you get there, you'll find two people who look exactly like you and drive the same car!

[peterc]

Riding back from work many years ago sometime in the middle of winter, dark, with a little wind with a some of frost forming.

I had just had that unconscious relaxation you get after leaving a busy bit and getting onto a separated cycle path

I must have turned downwind and ended up riding at the same speed as the wind was moving creating a peaceful bubble of still air

All the floating water/frost droplets started to sparkle in the blue cone of my bike light

For a few seconds I had my own personal snow globe