Oddest thing happening to you while JRA

[Flinch]

No fair telling about flats, too common. What's the oddest thing that has happened to you while simply riding along? No, not on rough terrain, gotta be on 'sissy-fairy-worm' road/trail.

I'll start: Two days ago on Oregon Hwy 101, good shoulder, flat, easy peddling on my '85 Nishiki, then I noticed that peddling had no effect on forward speed. Looked down and my chain had come quietly separated at the quick connector and wrapped entirely around the small chainring. No drama, not wedged, neatly wrapped. OK, I admit I've reused the connectors for a while, one actually came from the Smithsonian Museum, but dang! Of course I had spares.

Over 50k miles in the last 12 years, no chain breaks, and in fact, none my entire riding life.

Yer tern...

[jm714]

Ive had two small birds fly through my front wheel spokes and die.

[makoti]

TODAY...as a matter of fact....
I rode up to a stoplight next to a guy in a huge pickup, towing a Harley Davidson trailer. After a min sitting there, the guy rolls down his window and I think "Here we go..."
"Hey, Is John still building bikes?"
I'm a little taken back, but I'm on my John Hollands frame, so it's a reasonable, out of the blue question.
"No, he retired"
"Oh. I still have my Merckx Motorola bike"
Not a conversation I expected to have at a light

[Peter P.]

Many years ago when I had a racing license, there was a spring criterium series on Sundays.

I would ride my bike the 15 miles to the race, race my category, and ride home.

So it was April 1st, I kid you not, and I'm returning home after the race, about 2 miles from home.

As I ride by a pay phone (yeah; it was that long ago!) I hear the thing ringing, and ringing, and ringing.

Oh what the heck, I'll turn around and answer it.

The conversation went something like this:


Me: Hello?

Some guy: Who's this?

Me: Just somebody who was riding by, heard the phone ring, and decided to answer it.

Some guy: Riding by?

Me: Yeah, I was riding my bike.

Some guy: How far?

Me: About 30 miles.

Some guy: Your legs must be tired. Would you like them massaged?

Me: Click.

[bikinchris]

My wife and I were riding along and passing through a zig zag in the road, when I spotted a cement truck coming from the other direction. I saw the truck was coming too fast and told my wife to slow down because I didn't think he was going to make it. Sure enough, we were about 100 yards from the turn when he tried to make the turn and the whole thing just flopped on its left side and flipped onto the top and then the other side. I rode up at the same time as the (former) driver was getting out. I wish I had my Cycliq video, but this was 15 years ago.

I was teaching a two week-long bicycling class at a middle school and was able to ride the block or so to a local food stop and on the way back, I was riding up the back driveway to the school along a long hedge when a squirrel jumped out of the bushes almost into my front wheel and continued because of his momentum under my bottom bracket. The whole time this was happening, he was back pedaling furiously trying to go back into the hedge in a way reminding me of a looney tunes cartoon character. and making scratching noises the whole time. He did manage to avoid my back wheel and go back into the hedge before getting squashed.

[Louis]

As previously reported by me on the forum: (This was after someone posted a story about riding over a Starbucks napkin that if I remember properly, got jammed in the rear derailleur and ended causing a lot of damage.)

https://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=48199

Crazy bike accident story - can you top this one?

In my opinion this is on par with the Starbucks napkin story...

Tonight at the end a short ride after the thunderstorms came through, I was about 150 yards from the entrance to my subdivision when I noticed two deer on my left running full tilt toward the road. A split second after my brain registered the deer I also realized that one of those monster pick-ups was heading toward us in the other lane. The first deer flashed in front of the braking truck, but the second was hit broadside, bounced off the front of the truck, then hit me on my left side, causing me to fall.

I wasn't hit too hard and was more concerned about the deer, so I got up and saw it up the road behind me, scrambling around on it's side, unable to get up. My first thought was, "Oh boy, it's hurt pretty badly and can't get up, but it's still alive, and we're going to have to figure out a way to put it out of it's misery." At that point the driver and passenger in the truck came out and I turned my attention to them. By the time I looked back the deer was gone. I don't know how badly it was hurt, but it was a pretty good "thud" on impact.

I'm fine. Something banged my right thigh, and it might be a bit bruised in the morning, but nothing serious. I'm bummed out about the deer, though. There are loads of them around and there is a state park across the road from my subdivision, which is where the deer were headed. Unfortunately, they are so stupid. I guess their little brains are not able to figure out that crossing carefully is safer than making a run for it.

Riding the rest of the way home I realized that I should have thanked the driver (a very young girl, who was starting to cry) for not trying to swerve into my lane, which would have taken me out. And I was lucky there were no cars behind me..

It can happen so quickly.

Louis

[duff_duffy]

Long time ago….riding my bike along and someone put nylon string across the road (not sure if joke or accident or what). Got caught under my neck/throat and by the time I stopped it had cut into neck! I had a straight line of blood coming down my neck. Crazy, teachers at school all thought I tried to off myself the following days. Thank goodness I stopped quickly. Would have been better if it just took me off bike.

[jimoots]

Originally Posted by jm714

Ive had two small birds fly through my front wheel spokes and die.

I had a bird run into my spokes and bounce off, it didn't affect the bike's trajectory at all. Just kept riding and had a look at the spokes when I got home, couple of features but no damage.

Was really strange!

[XXtwindad]

I was mountain biking through the woods and stumbled into a nude yoga photo shoot. Had to do another loop just to make sure I saw correctly

[Louis]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

I was mountain biking through the woods and stumbled into a nude yoga photo shoot. Had to do another loop just to make sure I saw correctly

You should have stopped to do the "Wild Thing" pose...

[camelbackkid]

Someone threw half a bushel of apples at me while I was riding Rt 2 through Grand Isle in Vermont. Knocked me clear off the bike into the ditch.

When the shock subsided I realized I was quite hungry. Sat there and ate damn near half the bag while pondering the absurdity of it all.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by camelbackkid

Someone threw half a bushel of apples at me while I was riding Rt 2 through Grand Isle in Vermont. Knocked me clear off the bike into the ditch.

Someone once threw an ear of corn at me. It landed in my ST bottle cage, which happened to be empty at the time...

[Tickdoc]

Had a bobcat jump out on me on a ride one time. He jumped out from behind a big tree. He must’ve thought I was something a lot smaller, and to me he was much bigger….scared the crap out of both of us!

[pdmtong]

This

[54ny77]

Central Park, NYC. Squirrel jumped into my front wheel while riding in a small group. It did a bunch of flips inside the wheel as it rotated, and then by some miracle launched itself out. Nobody went down (myself included). We were all cracking up. Squirrel probably had to see a chiropractor that night...