What is the stupidest, dumbest, most idiotic thing you have ever done on a bicycle?
Perhaps depending on the number of likes, we will compile a list of finalists, and have a vote. Maybe @Glen.Coutts can influence the Wahoominati to give the winner some points.
Multiple entries are allowed.
Hehe. @Heretic, the wahoominati award you 2 SUF points for simply posting what I’m sure will be my favourite thread for years to come.
I don’t expect to win anything here but this was memorable.
A couple years ago, I was doing a gravel ride/race and on particularly challenging descent I found my self and my bike in the middle of what was essentially farm road tractor tracks. 2 clear tracks on both sides and an overgrown grassy section in the middle. I was going pretty fast and remember thinking, I have no idea at all what I am riding in or on and as soon as I get a chance I’m gonna hop on to one of those tracks. Needless to say, given the thread title, I never made it. Front wheel dug into something and I flew over my handlebars landing squarely on my left shoulder. It took 2 people on either side of me, to walk me out of there to a more proper gravel road where an ambulance was called as I could not lower my arm without excruciating pain.
Took me to the hospital where I could, several hours later, lower my arm but needed it in a sling. Nope, not a broken clavicle but a Type 2 AC joint injury. Basically a completely severed AC (Acromioclavicular joint) ligament/tendon where I now have a permanent “bump” where the two bones ought to be connected. Was out for the rest of the season and still am unable to do certain things with my left arm (eg push ups) 
Lesson: don’t ride in or on something if you can’t see it. Such an idiot.
I modified the original post so that multiple entries are permitted.
Sprinted for a stop sign on a group ride to “keep the average high” in shoes that should have been replaced about 2 years prior because they were too large and stretched out. Cue foot exiting said shoe on the up stroke, loosing balance, and left shoulder hitting pavement somewhere north of 28+mph. The two titanium plates along with the 10+ screws holding everything together remind me of the dumb things I’ve done.
Had a no pedal race with mates down a local big descent (wide, safe, smooth etc) and ended up smashing it past the hubby who driving down the hill on an errand. He was doing the speed limit, I was nudging 100km/h. Needless to say I got an earful when I got home.
No, I only came in 3rd 
I’m long overdue for my “it’s when, not if” and have done some stupid crazy stuff.
Part A: This was not ON the bike, it was just on a mountain bike ride with a buddy. Stopped at a leaning tree hung far up on another but barely hung enough to stay there UNLESS we helped. Told my buddy, “I think we can dislodge it from there and it will come down and not block the trail anymore.” He agreed.
Me being “more experienced” with moving trees off trail numerous times, I cautioned him about how once we had it loose to CLEAR OUT and let it fall.
So we both got hold of the base of this very dead, very naked of limbs, but fairly tall tree, and we lifted the base and slid it away from the tree that was holding its top end.
By the time we knew it had come clear, it was already plummeting to the earth. He leaped uphill and away and I turned to go down and away but the upper end of the tree was landing in a wide creek bed with a high bank, so the end closest to us levered straight up like a seesaw on a hinge, and it CLOCKED ME in the side of the face as I turned away.
I heard a LOUD EXPLOSION in my head as it connected!
My buddy is an ear-nose-throat doc, so he checks me out. I could FEEL the click in my jaw every time I opened and closed my mouth. He wasn’t sure it was broken, but tried to be hopeful, I think, that it wasn’t.
I just KNEW it was. He offered to write a prescription for painkillers if I needed. It was a Saturday, so nothing was going to happen till Monday anyway. ER would send me to an oral surgeon anyway. I chose to wait.
Monday came, went to my dentist, referred to the surgeon an hour away. I drove down, had a choice of scheduling surgery and getting a plate put in and super fast recovery time, OR get my jaw wired shut for 6 weeks.
I chose the in-office, immediate fix with lower price tag but long time of recovery. I’m tough.
Hmm. 21 needle jabs by a former IRAQ war doc who wasted NO time. Felt every jab and every surge of pressure of the numbing agent.
Wiring your jaw shut is an experience your life isn’t quite complete without, but I hope you never get the pleasure. It’s a LOT of yanking and tugging, with you as the playtoy!
He warned me the hardest thing about healing was getting enough food in. Told me to make SURE I got my nutrients. Anything that could go through a straw could filter through my closed teeth and get in.
I PROMISE you I ate like a king! My days consisted mostly of preparing and eating meals. I’d be done one and have to start thinking about and preparing the next, or so it seemed.
Did you know that you can eat LASAGNA with a straw???
You can do ANYTHING with a blender and proper thinning agents! Milk, juice, soymilk, and anything else you have on hand.
By 2-1/2 weeks, I had to go back to him and he had to tighten the metal loops holding my jaw again. Not too unlike a strong twist-tie on a bread bag.
At 4-1/2 weeks, a loop totally broke. This time, as he was about to make a new loop and start twisting again, I suggested maybe he could just take it all out!
He looked at me for a minute as if looking at a mischievous imp, and then said, “OK! You’ve healed up well!”
Then he said, “You just better NOT GO OUT AND WRECK ON THAT BIKE or I’m gonna be so mad! And then you ARE going to have to have surgery, and a plate put in”
MAN, was it good to eat solid food that night!!!
Part B. The REAL STUPID, DUMB, IDIOTIC THING I did ON a bike came a week and a half later… on HALLOWEEN DAY, 2007.
Went out on a ride with a buddy from his house, hadn’t gone more than 2 miles or so, riding side by side on very rural INDIAN DRAFT Road…
I’ve got a loud squeak that keeps happening on my bike that day, every time I shift gears… Driving me crazy! What IS THAT NOISE???
Warren says, “Dale, I think it might be your cable where it goes down under your bottom bracket.”
Hah!! I think he’s right! So I chirp up something like, "Hey, maybe I just need to lean down and spit on it every couple miles to lube it, like, you know, the way the cowboys used to do that trick-shooting, under the horse’s neck, shooting at Indians?"
I REALLY shouldn’t be so DEMONSTRATIVE… but I am…
So AS I SAY that to Warren, I ACT IT OUT!
I lean down over the right side of the bike, make a gun with my right hand, finger pointed forward, and STICK IT RIGHT THROUGH THE FRONT WHEEL UNDER THE DOWNTUBE at 20 miles an hour!
EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD COMES TO A SUDDEN STOP when my hand IN the wheel spokes reaches the fork. I’m launched like a rag doll tumbling down the road, my bike sailing up and bouncing again as it releases all remaining energy and comes to a stop.
I’m laying in the road, not unconscious but not sure what just happened.
Warren comes back, keeps me there in the road, yells to a nearby house where someone has come out to see what happened. 9-1-1 is called and we wait for an ambulance.
I can feel blood coming down the side of my face, and it feels like it’s from my ear. (It wasn’t from inside, thankfully, just a nick in the skin nearby.)
My wife works an hour and a half from there and has to leave come to the hospital ER. Less than happy with me at this point!
No broken bones. Miraculously! Spine and neck are okay.
Side of my head/face took a hard lick, shoulder has a patch of skin gone that will never tan again.
Helmet sure did its job this day!
Damn. 
Yowsa
Yep. This thread is NOT disappointing!!
It wasn’t hard coming up with my Halloween costume that night! 
Nothing like loding it on the Tuesday coffee ride couple of weeks ago resulting in a couple of broken ribs. Silly me RODE about ten or so miles thinking “This is just bruised ribs” as this is the THIRD time I’ve broken ribs and both of the prior tones i couldn’t breathe well. So, I’m not going outside to ride for the third weekend in a row. BTW, massive bruise in the hip and several others around my body. No helmet contact though. Oh, the cause? Too high tire pressure and debris on the multi-use path i was on doing a sharp left-hand turn.
I used to purposely get to the back of the line for turns in group rides because I always took corners slower than what they wanted to for this reason. They’d go ripping thru at 18-20 mph with sand and gravel all over the road, no thank you.
Group ride in Tucson as part of a cycling tour my wife and I were on with about 15 riders. Came to a red light at a busy intersection where all the cyclists were waiting to make a left turn together. Pulled up beside my wife and took one foot out of the pedal, but, demonstrating my supreme athletic coordination, started to lean to the wrong side. Came down in a heap, knocking down my wife as well, and narrowly avoiding bringing others down. Big spectacle in front of all the other riders! No serious damage done besides a bit of strain to my shoulder, but a massive embarrassment. Mainly due to forgetting before we left for Tucson that week to lube my old pedals, so I decided as I was approaching the intersection to unclip on the opposite side to my normal because I was having trouble that week getting the usual side unclipped. I’m definitely a creature of habit with my clipping and unclipping!
My teenage son and best friend wanted me to lead them out one night on the way back from the velodrome. I was on my fixie, it was 9pm and we had no lights, and it was over a bridge where it was hard to see what was up ahead. I did avoid killing a pedestrian but broke my shoulder rather badly.
Welcome to Tucson. I did the same thing at Pima/Swan in a group ride with friends. Down i went. But instead of slowing my fall, the gap opened and I hit the road.
I was riding north in Andersonville in Chicago when a pristine baby blue 1967 Mercury Cougar was coming south. I rear-ended a brand new Cadillac CTS that had pulled into the bike lane ahead of me. Didn’t even see it coming. The guy gets out, we exchange the following words, “wasn’t that a beautiful car?” He let me go, with a big scratch in his bumper.
Another time, I was texting on my bike, to let my wife know I was headed home from work. I rear-ended a taxi.
Final submission, following the guidance of rule 64, I was riding on the Des Plaines Trail, crushed limestone, on my old Fuji Gran Fondo road bike (23mm tires) averaging 20mph when I come upon a “gentle” curve that was actually a 90 degree turn.
I hit the brakes, trying to dump speed as I slid straight off the edge of the trail. The front wheel sunk into the marshy grass and the bike flipped over.
I ended upside down, laying on my back, still seated, grasping the hoods and the bike upright above me. It’s amazing how difficult it is to unclip when upside down! Took me a few minutes to extricate myself, and get back on my bike.
I had just started riding again when a group of cyclists came the other way. Glad nobody saw what happened, but I’m swearing you all to secrecy. If nobody saw it, did it really happen?
Ouch!!
