What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

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Escape Goat
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What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Escape Goat »

All my stuff is braking. This time leaving me with a 3.5 hour push, shove and roll. Another Freehub Body dead in 600km.

Make me feel better / worse? I'm in a right grump. Today was spectacular weather too.
ton
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by ton »

lots of years ago, me , my son and a mate, who is a mechanic at Orange bike, went on the Nan Bield route.
starting at Staveley. we went up over Garburn from Troutbeck, then over to Sadgill and then over Gatesgarth, prior to heading up the push carry up to Nan Bield.
at the bottom of Gatesgarth my deore hub seized solid, rotating in the rear drop outs.

Dan from orange continued on the route, with plans of getting the van and coming round to collect us back at the end of the track at Sadgill. it was a vary long carry back over Gatesgarth and along the track back to the road.
he collected us at the phone box down Wetsladale.

i had to carry the bike the whole way back.
Rasta
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Rasta »

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12863&p=158259#p158259

Amberley to Worthing starting at 10pm. South Downs Way.
About 20km. Lots of owls.
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JohnClimber
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by JohnClimber »

17 miles (as the crow flies) down in Dorset 2 days before the Dorset Gravel Dash.
The Gates belt drive on my 29er+ split apart with the flint in the claggy mud down that way.
A guy with a pick up took pity on my have gave the the 12 miles lift back to my car.
The next day was wasted trying and succeeding to put a chain and Rohloff cog on it ready for the event.
Last edited by JohnClimber on Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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BigdummySteve
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by BigdummySteve »

Not really had any mechanical issues i couldn’t solve, broke a mech once when I was a lad.
Before the era of mobile phones you had to have a plan, broke the chain and used one of those special
Joining pins (reminder them?) to single speed it.

My biggest walk was due to an optical illusion, one of my usual haunts was the cliffs between Deal and Dover the way home it was a hoot. A gentle incline and youthful exuberance led to 30mph chalk single track with a few gentle jumps for a few miles.
These jumps were just little humps, the speed turned them into lift off points.
On the fateful day I took a slightly different track, flat out it looked like another gentle whoop, the illusion hid the 20ft drop. I hit hard on my diamond back, remarkably stayed upright, tried to pedal, opps! The damage included left crank bent enough to hit frame, both pedals, one side of my handle bars bent down 3” and my bottom bracket axel bent!
My hand built wheels were still straight as a nun.

7 miles trudging and freewheeling to get home, the wheel builder was mentioned in dispatches :-bd
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Lazarus
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Lazarus »

I refuse to tempt fate or gloat with my answer
Knackered mech SS to get back is the worst

I snapped a BMX diamond back - but about 150 metres from my house
lune ranger
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by lune ranger »

Got heather in my mech and pulled the back end of a steel Stumpjumper apart in the 90’s
It was a long carry (couldn’t even wheel the bloody thing) back from the fells south of Watendlath back to Threlkeld with only 5 B&H to see me through!
If you are going through hell, keep going.
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Escape Goat
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Escape Goat »

I felt like the bike world was against me this last month or so, but it appears to be against most of us at some point.
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Specialist Hoprocker
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Specialist Hoprocker »

6 miles and about 2 hours walk back on a sub-zero night ride.

Chain snapped and flew off the bike into the void. Despite 30mins of searching I had to admit defeat when bits of me started going numb.

Returned the next day with the dog and a rake. He sniffed it out!
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by whitestone »

Just beyond Ben Alder cottage over the col and out to just before Corrour YHA where htrider rescued me :lol: I was suffering from the heat and food poisoning and had dinged my rim so badly on a water bar that tubeless would cut it. I then blew the inner tube so had no option but to walk out. The escape route was basically hike-a-bike anyway until I hit the hydro access roads near Corrour.
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composite
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by composite »

Does body mechanal count?

Pushed out for an hour and a half in the pissing rain, at night with a broken arm. Made a make shift sling with a spare tube. Spent another hour on the platform shivering and going into shock. It was a testing evening.
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by fatbikephil »

5 miles down the corrieairyack with a slashed tyre sidewall (before I knew about all the dodges to fix this kind of thing). Had a few close shaves but touch wood, nothing that I've not been able to bodge. I've taken to carrying a velo solo sprocket that bolts onto a disc mount. If your freewheel self destructs, theoretically you spin the wheel round remove the disc, bolt on this sprok and ride SS fixie home......
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PaulB2
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by PaulB2 »

In comparison, my furthest walk was fairly benign, just 5-6 miles with a broken pedal so that I could still freewheel on the downhill bits. The only pressure was getting back on time for the babysitter
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gairym
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by gairym »

composite wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 12:42 pm Does body mechanal count?
My biggest / toughest pushes have been 'body mechanicals' too.

Once, in the Ardeche, the Landover was in the garage and we needed ice cream and beer on a hot day. Me and a mate visiting from from home cycled the 15 miles (downhill) to the next town. Just as we got there he fell off and broke his arm which meant a 15 mile uphill push for me (two bikes and all the shopping) and a painful walk for him.

Another time, living in Leeds, I headed out and fell on a slippery wooden bridge breaking two ribs. After having myself a little sit down for a bit I realised there was nowt to do but get up and cycle (one handed and very tentatively) the 12 miles back home.

Ouchy!
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stevewaters
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by stevewaters »

htrider wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 7:16 pm 5 miles down the corrieairyack with a slashed tyre sidewall (before I knew about all the dodges to fix this kind of thing). Had a few close shaves but touch wood, nothing that I've not been able to bodge. I've taken to carrying a velo solo sprocket that bolts onto a disc mount. If your freewheel self destructs, theoretically you spin the wheel round remove the disc, bolt on this sprok and ride SS fixie home......
Interesting contingency plan. - Could that Velo Solo sprocket be used with an 11-speed chain or just with wider single-speed chains ?
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Escape Goat
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Escape Goat »

Crikey. Certainly some stories here that are a lot worse than my walk in the sun.
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Mart
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Mart »

Knackered pedal just before getting to Culra bothy for the night.
next day Walked/freewheeled back to the car parked at Dalwhinnie.
2924 miles per Gallon
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voodoo_simon
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by voodoo_simon »

About a mile or so, guess one of the many gods out there is looking after me :-bd

Have pedalled 7 miles or so with one pedal, thought it would have been easy (after all, everyone promotes pedalling in circles with clips) but reality is quite different :lol:
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by fatbikephil »

stevewaters wrote: Mon Aug 10, 2020 1:54 pm
htrider wrote: Sun Aug 09, 2020 7:16 pm 5 miles down the corrieairyack with a slashed tyre sidewall (before I knew about all the dodges to fix this kind of thing). Had a few close shaves but touch wood, nothing that I've not been able to bodge. I've taken to carrying a velo solo sprocket that bolts onto a disc mount. If your freewheel self destructs, theoretically you spin the wheel round remove the disc, bolt on this sprok and ride SS fixie home......
Interesting contingency plan. - Could that Velo Solo sprocket be used with an 11-speed chain or just with wider single-speed chains ?
They work with 10 speed, not sure about 11.....
Lazarus
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Lazarus »

Have pedalled 7 miles or so with one pedal, thought it would have been easy (after all, everyone promotes pedalling in circles with clips) but reality is quite different
Still riding though :grin:
I once -on my commute- put the power down for the one short sharp steep climb and immediately crashed - this confused me no end . On standing up I realised my pedal was still clipped into my shoe and detached from my crank - despite it being flat for the next 10 miles one legged pedalling is indeed hard work
Gari
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Gari »

A few years ago I was bikepacking around the south of Iceland, riding up to þorsmork on the first few days. Track was pretty(!) rough, especially on 40mm tyres, as a consequence the following day while riding out the rear tyre split at the bead!! Nothing I tried could fix it as it was right on the bead, couldn’t get a boot to work and had overlooked packing a needle/thread. So I started walking out along the track, given how remote it was i was quite surprised that no one was stopping to check I was ok. Granted a lot of them were in small rentals, which they really shouldn’t have been driving up there given some of the river crossings! But almost no one even wound a window down to enquire. After about 15km a German couple in a huge demountable/4xpickup offered to give me a lift, and as they were going east I decided to go to Vik with them, surely I’d get a 700c tyre there right(my first trip optimism!) no hesitation the guy just stuck the bike in the camper door, despite it being quite dirty already. Lovely drive to Vik, thanks you etc exchanged and off they went. Short version, no bike shop in Vik or anywhere to even get a tyre. Bugger!!
Managed to bodge a boot out of a cherry coke bottle, and there being no bus until tomorrow I decided to start riding along Rt1 back toward Skogafoss where the next bus stop and campsite was, about 35km. There was a storm forecast but that was later in the evening and I was only a couple of hours away.
All was going swimmingly until I started to descend form the high point just west of Vik, about 5km. Bit of a shimmy at the front, as I was braking to see what was going on there was an almighty BANG, fortunately I was almost at a halt. The front tyre had also gone, at the same place and as the tube bulged out of the rip and finally caught the fork leg(presumably!) it burst quite spectacularly 😳. Double bugger. So I walked on to Skogafoss, why I didn’t just double back I don’t know!! Stubborn I guess🙄😊 The storm finally caught me up and I was pushed along the road with a massive tailwind, at times so strong I could barely stand up in it, the bike made a pretty good support for most of the night. I hoped to find something to get behind, out of the wind/rain but there was nothing.
Having been there several times since, sometimes driving its pretty sobering how little cover/buildings etc there is on the ring road for really long distances. I managed to find a flat spot with some cable drums to get a little shelter from, and pitched for the night. Not much sleep but at least a bit of heater from the worst. As it was a constructed lorry park/cable storage spot it was really hard getting pegs in, and so a tight pitch. Though the flapping was a bit annoying the shelter stayed up, but being DCF the flapping in the night basically wore a slight hole in the shelter in the corner close to the tie out stitching😡
2 lessons learnt; DCF is sub standard in relation to abrasion and the main ring road is raised above the surrounding Lava fields etc with a 2-3mtr flatspot either side. Pretty much its entirety in fact I now know, so if your heading out there do be aware:)
About 30km in total.
5hrs on the bus back to Reykjavik(Mjodd actually) to pay £100 for a pair of Kenda tyres I could have got on CRC for about £30, and they were poor show!!!! Rest of the trip was great though so there’s that😄
Leerowe76
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Leerowe76 »

Bust my chain many years back before quick links were a thing, p*ssing down with rain the chain was twisted beyond repair had to walk & roll when i could back to Llandegla centre where the car was parked around 4 mile. Actually hung the chain in a small tree on the old old red trail and believe it or not when I ride the old old red the chain still hangs in the same tree in a very rusty state :smile:

One other occasion was Sept 2018 entered the BB200 only ride a local rooty section of a nearby woods not long after front wheel washed out resulting in a grade 3 seperation of an ac joint in my shoulder hurt a bit fairplay but had to ride home 5 mile, would of been about 1 mile if me ma would of been in but she wasn't :lol: Lacking in skills that day and didnt ride the BB either
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Lazarus
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by Lazarus »

Actually hung the chain in a small tree on the old old red trail and believe it or not when I ride the old old red the chain still hangs in the same tree in a very rusty state
I am not sure why you are pleased that you left your litter at a trail hanging in a tree :cry:
Do you do the same with dog poo ? Do you disagree with that one and its it just bike bits we should do this with ?Inner tubes are they fine to fling into trees?

Please take your litter home with you and dont litter nature
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UnderTheRadars
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Re: What's The Furthest You've Had To Walk Back Due To A Mechanical?

Post by UnderTheRadars »

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