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Worst mountain biking experience???

hooples3

Fuggetaboutit!
Mar 14, 2005
5,245
0
Brooklyn
I know we all have these great stories of perfect days in the saddle, then having few bottles of beer and some great food to cap off the day.
But what about the not so great days?


Please tell:

Here is one of mine:

quite a few years back, perhaps 10, we rode at Ringwood, NJ. It was a long, hot day of fabulous riding. after about 4 hrs we were beat and we weren't sure how to get back to the car, so we headed for the roads. From the road we saw a very steep, fast grassy downhill, the type you just want to fly down on your bike just for fun. it was so steep however we weren't looking forward to the walk back up. As we go to enter we see a sign " no trespassing DEC". That was our first mistake.
It turns out the person who went first, flew down with 2 of us following. then there was a short drop were we couldn't see the 1st guy for a second and then he was supposed to come back up the other side.. but he never did. at the bottom the was a concrete culvert used for drainage.. he was going so fast he didn't have time to stop. he was flipped over on the side mumbling. he suffered a minor concussion and a broken collarbone.. then the cops came and gave us summonses for trespassing. We had to bring our friend to the hospital and wait for all sorts of results..
In the end it all turned out ok, except for having to go to court for being on private land.. but we will all never forget it..
lesson learned
 

I Are Baboon

The Full Dopey
Aug 6, 2001
32,383
9,289
MTB New England
I can probably count the number of bad days I've had on one hand that was missing fingers.

However, a few years ago I attempted an MTB ride having just kicked the flu. Now if you've ever had the flu, you know that you're sick for a week, sore as hell, and barely eat. I *felt* ok though, so off we went (me and Wife). Two miles into the ride, I was completely spent, to the point where I didn't even have the upper body strength to stay upright on the bike. I could not go any further, so we turned around and went back to the car. Not a real good ride that day.
 
Not so much a bad day of riding but a bad day for me involving riding. Two with the same person, the last two times he and i rode together. The 1st day ended with him in a neck and back brace for 3months. The other ended with 4 hours of oral surgery for me. Both were great days of riding until stupid little and i mean little crashes took us out. I lost a good riding buddy because both of us are afraid to ride with one another. Those 2 days caused him to never ride dirt again.
 

offsprung

Monkey
Aug 5, 2007
907
1
Rochester
my worst was riding at attitash. i came over a roller and my front wheel planted, i did a chin spike with my entire body vertical. a couple of runs later i did the same thing except it was a thumb spike.
 

HAB

Chelsea from Seattle
Apr 28, 2007
11,580
2,006
Seattle
I made the mistake of doing a solo 6 hour race, in the rain, with a high temperature of 45 for the day. That was awful.


My absolute worst experience was the time I went for a 20+ mile ride (at Ringwood and Ramapo), having started the ride with some bad saddle sores from the ride the day before. The trails were great, but sitting down was excruciating.
 

dirttastesgood

Turbo Monkey
Dec 12, 2006
1,517
0
CT
Where I used to live there was this decent hill with a long winding fire road on it. Sounds perfect right? Well it's a horse pasture and the guy who guards the horses is a little nuts. I got up to the top and start flying down when I hear a engine start and the guys chasing after me in a pick up. I'd only been riding a mountain bike for 4 days, that got me hooked on downhill and scared the crap out of me.
 

mantispf2000

Turbo Monkey
Aug 9, 2001
1,793
243
Nevada, 2 hours from Mammoth
A bad and a foolish---

Bad-- Called in sick to do an xc race, never rode the area, went over the bars during the event, and broke my left arm. Then I was stupid enough to fess up to my boss and got a 3-day suspension and change of shift.

Foolish-- Was "examing" the Virginia City area for my first Make-A-Wish mtb fund raiser. Didn't know the area (or how to read a map), and ended up by Washoe Lake. Asked a resident for directions, he looks at my map, and says I'm not even on it right now. Easy enough to ride back the way I came, though the whole time I'm thinking about my dogs that I left in the back of my truck. Yes, they had water, and yes, they were ok when I arrived.
 

kidwoo

Artisanal Tweet Curator
Watching a friend overshoot a 35 foot double by about 15 feet straight to his face, with his hands still on the bars........with an open face helmet.

And then in the midst of scanning his spine and reattaching his face to his skull a few hours later in the hospital, discovering he has lymphoma.
 

ire

Turbo Monkey
Aug 6, 2007
6,196
4
I did a 24 hour race solo and cursed myself most of the race for even entering. I won though and now I'm all nostalgic about it :) Other than that I had a bad crash at a DH race in '01 that knocked me out, seperated my shoulder and sprained my wrist...that was probably the worst day (fun till that crash though)
 

OGRipper

back alley ripper
Feb 3, 2004
10,647
1,116
NORCAL is the hizzle
A buddy and I did a backcountry ride on a hot day at the end of summer and ended up seriously dehydrated and in trouble. We had a water filter but kept descending steep canyons only to find dry stream beds, and would then have to drag our butts back out and keep looking. After hours of this up and down we were both starting to come apart, just wanting to lie down and stop. We finally found a horse trough with some nasty green sludge - complete with little tadpole looking things swimming around in it - and it was the sweetest, most delicious drink I've ever had. The ride ended up being 9 hours or something. From a map we figured it was over 10,000 feet of climbing.

The solo 24 race I did was easier.
 

stinkyboy

Plastic Santa
Jan 6, 2005
15,187
1
¡Phoenix!
What should have been a 4 hour drive to do some lift runs with a buddy and a 35 year old dude from the LBS and his 17 year old "friend" turned into turned into 8 when the "friends" truck flatted and he didn't have a spare. Call On Star, blah, blah, blah.

Finally get to the mountain, get one run in and I flat and the only pump we have is broken. Arrrgghh!

Spend 4 hours on the way back with clenched fists trying not to repeatedly punch 35 year old for being a complete tool throughout the trip and then trying to get 17 year old to spend the night at his house... Wtf?
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
1. Wrecking on a stupid little hummock I had cleared 9 million times before, breaking my wrist and riding out 7 miles to the truck, solo. Then sitting in the emergency room, feeling like a sissy as they bring in 2 gunshot victims and a guy with a stab wound.

2. Taking a female friend (Who I was absolutely mad about...and was a great road and mtb racer) out to a cheesy forest preserve, having her wreck on an innocuous downhill limestone path (We never figured out how or why), totally eating her stem and wrecking her teeth and nose. 9 hours later she gets out of the ER, first thing she says to me, her Mom and boyfriend (Who became her husband. Ever like someone but hate them at the same time?) as they wheel her out, all swollen and f*cked up..."Dont hate me because I am beautiful!"
 

skatetokil

Turbo Monkey
Jan 2, 2005
2,383
-1
DC/Bluemont VA
watching a friend go otb in a chute and land on her head. longest 30 min of my life waiting for the rescue guys. never been so relieved to see someone else get shot up with morphine.

Crushed 2 lumbar vert.
 

pinkshirtphotos

site moron
Jul 5, 2006
4,827
521
Vernon, NJ
bad days.... there was a day i got new handlebars and no matter how hard you tightened the stem you could roll your bars... well i figured eh they wont roll to bad so i am taking my first run at diablo with them on alpine and i got stung by a bee on the third berm, then felt the bars roll a little. i got to the bottom and hit phantom making my bars roll all the way back. i just called it a day.

another day i had come back from a week long school trip and wanted to ride, my body had different plans my balance was off and i didnt even get down my driveway w/o hitting my head.

my stupid was getting banned from diablo for sitting on the lift.
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
40,942
13,135
Portland, OR
Not that bad, but it seemed bad at the time.

First time racing at Willamette Pass, practice on Saturday, race on Sunday. Got 3 solid runs first thing Saturday morning and felt great. Decided not to get crazy and stopped before lunch.

Race organizers decided later that Saturday to reroute the top section of the course. Race day comes and I'm 3 people from the gate when I overhear someone mention the course has changed.

I roll in and the course change nearly killed me. I overshoot 3 different log drops and go OTB on 2 of them. By the time I got out of the top section, I was so beat up, I could barely ride.

I only did one run and came in next to last. I did finish before my buddy who knocked himself out 500 feet shy of the finish :D
 

skinny mike

Turbo Monkey
Jan 24, 2005
6,415
0
sport class xc race at mt snow in 2006. bonked about 1/3 of the way through the 3rd lap, but still was determined to finish since the week before i got a dnf in a race that was an absolute mudfest. the first two laps took me about an hour each and the last one took me 2.5 hours. i was running late and made the mistake of not having gatorade or food on me, just water. i thought i was going to die that day from dehydration or something.
 

Serial Midget

Al Bundy
Jun 25, 2002
13,053
1,896
Fort of Rio Grande
All my bad biking experiences involve poor weather and unexpected adversity - boring to write about but cool to embellish upon with my friends that where on the same ride. :)
 

Lex

Monkey
Dec 6, 2001
594
0
Massachusetts
The second or third year after I started riding I went on my first night ride in a local state forest with a few friends who had been at the riding game a lot longer than me. It was about 20 degrees and I'm riding a hardtail with an oldschool Judy XC. On the last hill heading toward the parking lot my buddies get to the bottom and I'm suddenly nowhere to be found. They head back up the hill but can't find me. They spent an hour or more searching for me and finally had to call in the police who brought in search dogs. They were about to call for more people and possibly a helicopter when they found out that I was already at the hospital in the next town over. I had ridden several miles and stumbled into a local gym with my light blinding everyone in the lobby.

The crazy part is that I don't remember anything about riding out of the woods on my own in a place that I didn't know my way around. To top that off I did it on a fork that had a cracked arch.