That. Fucking. Hill.
Worst bonk was in NZ last October, riding the fixed about the port hills near Christchurch. First half was grand… Second half was not, and still had quite the hill remaining to climb back over in order to get back to town. I caught the bus back over the hill.
Epic day for a ride though.
Bonk started somewhere in that inlet in the background.
that’s not an inlet, its a harbour!
and yeah, Port Hills/Banks Peninsula is just sea level to 200-400 over and over again.
and don’t think I’ve ever bonked, skinny man life means I’m always eating whilst riding.
Ive had my fair share,
Most memorable was christmas just gone.
I was in sydney and hadn’t ridden in a few weeks, I flew out to Sydney friday night got the bike together by about 11:00pm with no lunch and no dinner i decided to get up and do the Rapha ride down the coast as i had no idea where to ride. I had no breakfast and a bid on of gatorade and the ride was a fair pace with a few turns on the front but it was 120km for me and at about the 80km i was cooked and couldn’t ride straight and popped out the back of the fast bunch and rolled back with the girls bunch but was struggling to hang on to them at about 27km/hr not long after one of the girls gave me a bar but it didn’t do much by the end i was just cooked i could hardly get off my bike, couldn’t talk or stand and just sat down in the kerb it was terrible but pulled up ok the next day and backed it up.
First big one was with the boys in Bris when i had been off the bike for months and they took me on a hot day through a hilly bayside loop of about 120km the last 15km i was done and told them to ride on, by the end i was at walking pace on a bike path.
Ive also had some classic dig to deep moments that resulted in a 225hr that would not drop for what seamed like 10mins after rolling turns over 55km/hr for way to long and had to stop and fall off the bike thinking i was having a heart attack.
Or the time i spewed on myself in a motor pace at disc.
Yeah bikes good times.
well, yeah, Akaroa Harbour…
the descent down to the harbours edge was stoopid. A normal person bike with derailleurs, two brakes and no pedal strikes would have been wicked fun…
https://www.strava.com/activities/206245753/overview
I’ve ridden up that road, it is steep.
But coming down fixed must have sucked about as much as the climb up from little river.
But how good is the summit road around there eh.
This is me if I miss breakfast
I’ve had a few good ones, most epic was at the start of this year.
I was in Myanmar for a tour from Mandalay to Bangkok. 4th day in the country, 2nd day on the bike. Had some samosas for breakfast from a place next to my hotel. The ride started with 30kms of flat winding country roads. I began feeling a little queasy and was worried the samosas had been dodgy. It was also well over 30 degrees, my bike with all it’s gear was a bit over 30kgs and my easiest gear was 34/36. There was 1800 metres to climb in 30kms and the road turned to absolute shit. I was starting to burp real bad as I was climbing, but was trying to hold it down. About halfway up the hill I stopped and couldn’t even get off the bike before I projectile vom’d all over my shoes and the side of the road. Sat down for 45 minutes drinking water (had 2.5L with me), stupidly drank it all and went to get back on the bike. Gave a big sniff and dislodged a bunch of vomit in my nose which made me spew the whole 2.5L of water back up.
Spent another 20 minutes sitting down with no water. Got on the bike and was totally incapable of turning the pedals over. Luckily was only 200 metres from a roadside stall. Bought a bunch of water and had some electrolytes. Realised I had 40kms of climbing still to go. Managed to communicate I needed a lift to the next town (it’s illegal for foreigners to camp in Myanmar). Amazingly the stall was owned by the only dickheads I met in the whole country - they wanted $60 for a drive to the next town (in a country where a beer costs 60 cents)
Waited an hour by the side of the road for a car that could fit my bike. A 4 door Toyota Hilux pulls up with 6 monks in the cab and 5 labourers in the tray. They squeeze me in but can’t fit my bike, so I have to hold onto it as dangles off the back… totally delirious with no strength. We start descending the hill I had been climbing and the driver keeps loosing the back end of the ute on every corner. Eventually we pull over, he pops the bonnet and I discover the brake hose has a massive leak and the driver is using the handbrake and engine braking to slow down the whole time. With no other option, I get back in the car with the eleven other guys and 20kms later miraculously find the guest house I had been looking for (that I wasn’t exactly sure existed anyway).
The was the only time I bonked or got sick on that trip. But fucking scary shit.
The best aspect of this story is the fact that I was bonking at exactly the same time.
You win.
It was a special moment that no one can take from us…
Probably the only time I bonked was approx 18 months ago, it was Summer, or the end of summer and I was doing a 130km ride with my new mates in Sydney.
This was my first big ride back in Sydney and first with serious elevation (only 1500m so not much really but compared to Perth it was heaps).
Basically didn’t plan very well, wore a heavy jersey, the lowest gear on my bike was 39/23, I was riding on 20c tyres on the roughest roads, bike only had 1 bidon mount so could hardly carry any food/water cause pockets were full with spares and other crap.
About 90km deep I started to struggle. Fortunately we had a river crossing on a ferry which gave me some rest and someone gave me some almonds. Coming off the ferry I felt a million bucks and flew up the short sharp climb only to bonk hard. Coming back to Windsor on 2 occasions I just rode straight off the road into potholes/the grass ditch for no reason other than just did. Kept upright both times fortunately but it was kind of like a microsleep in a car.
Stopped, grabbed a coke and a mars bar from a servo, took off again into a 30+km/h headwind back home along Windsor road.
I was pretty much in the granny gear and the group strung out as we were all suffering after a long day into this wind. Eventually I said to the group that i’ll peel off at a nearby pub because it’s a shortcut home, and I did.
It’s not a short cut, I don’t know why I turned there. A km down the road I had to pull out google maps to figure out where the fuck in suburbia I was. Reviewed directions, memorised the next few turns and set off. 20m down the road, couldn’t remember. Stopped, looked again, set off. Another 20m couldn’t remember. Stopped, memorised the NEXT, singular, turn, set off. Made the turn. Stopped, memorised the next single turn, did it again, and again and again til I found somewhere familiar.
Eventually got home shaking and delirious.
Stace told me I should have got her to pick me up. She made me a pizza then went and got me a Big Mac.
I make sure I’m prepared on every decent ride now!
I would have sent out the bat signal the other day if my girlfriend were able to drive my car but she can only drive an auto and it’s not the most ideal car to teach her to drive a manual in.
Benzy has had some of the best bonk stories, mainly because he is ‘somewhat’ strongminded and this can apply to nutrition and hydration requirements.
Having said that, I remember meeting him and Ryan when they finished the cannonball run and the inside of his crumpler showed what a pathological fear of bonking can look like when you are doing a syd-mel run.
James - surely the yea spur TWBD is up in your top 5 bonks? I can still remember hearing your voice for the first time after what was nearly an hour of silence, and working out that you were reading the current grade from your garmin as we walked/climbed that hill out of the cow paddocks. i know we were all very concerned about you, especially since we then had to go a bit of a way to even find water.
One that always sticks into my mind was quitting bikes earlier in that ride about halfway up yea spur. I thought i’d been eating ok, but it obviously caught up with me. I remember thinking that i was a hilly ~60km from melbourne and no way to get a lift home, we hadnt hit the 1/2way point, there was this seemingly unending climb happening and everyone was slowly riding away. i figured all i could do was stuff another bar in my face, try and switch my brain off and keep pedalling and see what the day brought. i remember cresting the climb to a pretty awesome view and an immediate switch in mindstate.
i’d love to have talked to purdy after that drive back to the city from whittlesea. we were all pretty cracked and babbled about how awesome bruce dickinson was for the whole thing.
dunno if chux bonked as such, but I’m glad he stopped racing that CMWC fundraiser alleycat at flagstaff gardens on a 40C degree day. dude was almost purple in the face. it was so hot.
HOLY SHIT i forgot that one. That must be pretty much equal with the Baw Baw race. fuck me.
Oh yeah, heat!
Not really a “bonk” so much as a “What the fuck is going on”. That 46 degree day we had in January 2013, doing the #messlife. Literally do not remember half the day but remember it was just the most fucked thing ever… Insane…
I still have the old horseshoe I found while we were hiking up that road. It’s in my garage, I see it every time I get my bike. Good times.
My worst bonk? So many to choose from… maybe riding back from Woods Point in the early hours of the morning after getting into town long after the pub was closed? It was a long dark night and I just kept following the reflectors on the side of the road and repeating, “red on the left, white on the right, red on the left, white on the right” to make sure I didn’t ride off the side of the road. Every slight incline felt like a massive hill, I wanted so badly to just stop riding and curl up and go to sleep but no bivvy gear, no bailout options, no choice, just had to keep rolling. Character building.
the 2009 SS Nats at Awaba was in 40+ heat - It was a 5 lap race but I just managed 4 then just hung out at the beer tent.
After reading the everyones stories I realised I forgot to mention in my story that I had only 4 hrs sleep and party snack food dinner the night before. I think I’ll revise my no saddle bag, only carry what fits in the jersey approach for longer rides especially with the track bike when a bottle takes one of the jersey pockets.
Something that stands out for me riding in Oz compared to my experience in France/Europe is the remoteness factor. That’s something I think about quite a bit when I plan long rides and obviously want to avoid bonking. It is not too hard really to ride out of town and find yourself in a ‘relatively remote’ area. By this I don’t mean some massive uninhabited area but a place with no village/township to get supplies and with patchy mobile reception. Might be a specificity of Canberra too, where there’s only a handful of roads (often those less interesting ones) with cafes/shops along the way.
Well. That wasn’t really a bonking story. Just some reflections.