How Far Have You Had to Walk a Disabled Bike?

[Variant_S]

I've had a few double-flat rides, especially when I didn't find the microscopic shard of glass still stuck in the tire from the first flat. I carry a spare tube and a patch kit.

Longest walk was supposed to be 9 miles. I had a sidewall blowout and did not have a spare tire. I walked for about a mile until I remembered my Boy Scout days: Put a $1 bill inside the tire over the hole, pumped about 25 lbs. or so into the tube, and carefully rode it back to the car.

 

[dadto2]

I ripped the derailleur hanger off once when a branch got stuck in there, ripped out a few spokes too. I was able to shorten the chain and wrap the broken spokes around the other spoke so I could ride out of the woods as a single speed, but it would have been about a 5 mile walk.

 

[Jack Watts]

I'm afraid to even type these words, but in over 100K miles of riding--never! A couple of close calls and memorable incidents:

-training with a teammate and got hit head-on by a car. His bike was destroyed, but his front wheel was fine. My bike was fine, but my front wheel was destroyed. I grabbed his wheel and rode to get a car to pick him up. Amazingly, we were both mostly OK.

-broke a chain on my mtb in the middle of nowhere, mid-week. Somehow, my chain tool migrated out of my bag. Amazingly, ran into one guy on the trail, and he had a chain tool (this is the ONLY time I ever needed a chain tool, despite carrying one 99% of the time..go figure).

-triple-flatted 12 miles from home, had one tube... rode 2 rims, on wheels I just built. Stood almost the entire way so I didn't destroy the back wheel. Legs were wrecked for days.

I did disable a couple of bikes in race crashes, but those were times I ended up getting conveniently transported via ambulance...

I will say my willingness to ride the rim have a lot to do with the fact that I haven't been stranded. Since I've been running tubeless, I don't even bother carrying a tube unless I'm going on a long ride. It's been over 15K miles since my last flat that didn't seal up on its own.

 

[MRC01]

A year or so back, I got 3 flats on the same ride, over about 50 miles. That was on Vittoria Corsa G+ tires. They were fast tires but fragile, like racing road tires from the 1980s. When I got home I swapped them with Conti GP5000 tires. They feel just as fast yet much more robust.

I carry a spare tube, patch kit with thin film inserts that can fit between the tube & tire to prevent a slashed tire from splitting under pressure so it is ridable. Among other tools & stuff. Ironically, the only time I had to walk out due to flats was on my tubeless MTB, when I got a flat that tore a 2" gash in the tire, sealant spewed everywhere. No way to fix it, no way to patch it. Even the spare tube was useless cuz the tire was so catastrophically torn.

 

[CR94]

This won't be the longest distance claimed, but maybe the longest for an incident that occurred this week. Monday the chain-tensioning spring in my rear derailleur snapped. I walked most of the next ~3.5 miles, the uphill parts.

That derailleur lasted only about 82k miles, compared to 145k on the previous one on the same bike before its shift spring broke. That time I was able to ride back, but with no shifting.

 

[MRC01]

... That derailleur lasted only about 82k miles, compared to 145k on the previous one on the same bike before its shift spring broke. That time I was able to ride back, but with no shifting.

Did you ride all those miles? That's about 50 years of bike riding at 100 miles per week!

 

[CR94]

Did you ride all those miles?

Yes, plus more miles on two other derailleurs on the same bike, plus more miles on other bikes.

 

[Jim K]

This guy walks his bike everywhere .

 

[wander2039]

About 5 miles.. derailleur decided to let go on some rough ice. Good thing I was on ice since the tire locked up, those studded tires would of put me over the handlebars. Pushed it some and rode it down the hills some. I have been picked up a couples times.. killed one bike it wasn't going anywhere, and another time got a nail clear through the tire and rim.