@Sir_Brian_M you reminded me of the time I was about 18, riding flats on an old mountain bike. Riding with no hands, I rear ended a parked car, slid off the seat, feet came off the pedals and I slammed my balls, with the full weight of my body on the top tube. Good thing I was a lot lighter then 
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Is it ever!
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It is interesting that most of the stories involve crashes, mine is a little different.
About 25 years ago, when I started to take cycling more seriously, I went out for a long ride. I did not have a power meter, but I did have a Polar HRM which was not that common in those days (more about that later).
The temperature was about 97 degrees, and the relative humidity was about 95%. That means, of course, that there was not much capacity in the air to absorb my perspiration, and the efficiency of that absorption was not going to be good.
But wait, thereās more - I only went out with one water bottle.
In fact, there is even more - I did not have any cycling clothing so I went out (drum roll please) with a corduroy shirt and blue jeans.
For the first hour, no problem, my heart rate was good and steady, but I had no more water.
Soon thereafter, I did not feel so well, and my heart rate started to fluctuate wildly as it was desperately trying to cool my body down. I got off the bicycle, went into a store, and bought two large bottles of water. I downed those as if I was doing whiskey shots.
Heart rate stabilized a bit, so I continued to ride, but the fluctuations began again. I sat down by the side of the river in the shade to rest. I threw some water on my forehead and my heart rate stabilized. A cardiologist I knew told me that I had ādiscoveredā the primitive diving reflex.
The fluctuations returned, so somebody called an ambulance. The paramedic took my pulse. He had never seen an HRM before, but was amazed by its accuracy. He told me to just stay where I was for a while.
Since the fluctuations continued, the ambulance was called again. The same paramedic saw what the HRM said, and did not ever bother to take my pulse. They took me to the hospital.
I got intravenous water and was released. The emergency room doctor, who was a runner, told me that it was brutal out there, but I was lucky to get my workout in.
After that I purchased some cycling clothing. I also got clipless pedals, but that is another story.
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I have one rather short and dumb to share and it was as recent as just 3 months ago.
Not involving a crash or bonking but rather a rookie maintenance mistake.
- Bought a new bike at the end of April 2023 (still yet to share on this forum in the New Bike Day thread)
- Decided to wash the new bike after a couple of outdoor rides
- Took out the rear wheel to clean the cassette
- Attempted to fix the rear wheel back to the bike but fail
- Repeat #4 for like 5 times to no avail
- Decided to break the chain when there was a quick-link somewhere in the chain
- Fixed the rear wheel back successfully (obviously)
- Ran the chain all the way around the drivetrain
- Realised there already was a quick-link on the chain
- Attached a spare quick-link onto the chain
- Laughed at myself for my stupidity and ignorance
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YouTube is great for basic bike maintenance and repair and the Park Tool Vids with Calvin are brilliant.
E.g. before I started doing my own minor maintenance and repairs, I never knew that to remove the rear wheel and to be able to put it back, it is easiest if it is in the big ring up front and smallest cog at the back.
Now, lets see a pic of the new bike, Sir!!!
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Agreed! I learnt most of the home mechanicās kind of bicycle maintenance from YouTube and not just limited to Park Toolās videos but some of the GCN Tech videos too.
I guess I havenāt done as many dumb things on/to the bicycle yet. Hahaha
Gotta head over to the other thread then 
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Just give it some time. One theme that goes through all these stories is that we did not think it was dumb when we started. None of us said, let us now do something stupid.
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Got another one. For the glory of a pic for Strava, showing how much of a badass I was riding on a windy day across a bridge that was closed (flooded on the other side) I leaned The Red Baron (not even yet a year old) against a barrier only for a gust of wind to blow it over and chip the paint at the chain stay and near the bottom bracket.
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Exactly. I was sooooo mad, at myself.
No no, itās the windās fault. 
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Once I rode out the door, going down a cobblestone road I realize I didnāt close the brakes after swapping wheels. I used EE brakes at the time. They are fantastic, but when open, they do not brake at all and I doubt you can close them with one hand when standing still, no way while accelerating down a hill. So I unclipped, sat on the toptube and Flintstone-braked with my road cleats bouncing over the cobblestones. That was so loud. Scared the heck out of some bystanders and my riding buddy. Took me a solid 30 meters or so to stop, but I kept the rubber side down, fortunately.
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Love this thread!
Hereās one of mine:
Decided to take the bike and visit my parents - they lived 180km away at that time.
As it was a flat route, I figured I could do it in under 6 hours at 30km/h average. It does mean you need to keep tempo - even in build up areas.
Didnāt see that lady on her bike coming out of a side street. I had right of way, but obviously traveling way too fast.
Crash was pretty spectacular and the ambulance was called before I even knew what happened.
Luckily the lady was fine, she fell over, but didnāt really hurt herself.
My backpack took the majority of the impact energy. I did however tore some ligaments of my collarbone and left a load of skin and lycra on the road.
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Okay, this is against my better judgment, but here we goā¦
This is my stupidest, dumbest, most idiotic thing because it was both my best/coolest and worst/most humiliating day on the bike everā¦
1997, I was stationed in Germany and a couple buddies and I got on with a local amateur club in southern Bavaria. Every year at that time in the spring was the Rundfahrt Bayern, a multi-day pro/am stage race on the UCI European calendar, but that year they also opened up one of the stages as the Bavarian amateur club championship or something.
They laid the stage out so the pros did something like 240km and we did 179km (THAT I remember). Everyone started at the same time, just from different towns. The route took us peons through the foothills of the Alps (Mangfall River valley, for my German freunde) - the pros went into the bigger mountains.
STUPID #1: The evening before the race the club held anā¦ummmā¦āteam dinnerā (if you know anything about Bavaria in the spring, post-Lentā¦letās just say there wasnāt a lot of ādiningā going on!). Suffice to say I wasnāt in my best condition and blew up fairly early in the ride, after we hit the hills. Ended up on my back, staring at the sky for a few minutes. Eventually got going again, did a recovery ride until Iād gathered my wits about me.
Near the end of the ride - maybe halfway for the pros - the two routes converged for about 20km before separating again. Somewhere in there I was puttering along when I heard riders coming up behind me like a freight train (I can literally still hear the sound of these guys and their bikes huffing along in my head). Next thing I know this @#$% TEAM CAR just screamed by me like I was standing still, followed by five of the fastest human beings Iāve ever witnessed.
Turns out (I assumed) Team Saeco-Cannondale had sent a group of 5-6 guys up to run Rundfahrt as a final tune-up for the Giro in a couple weeks. Also turns out that - as an American cycling nerd living in Europe in the late '90s, I just so happened to be riding my Team Saeco Cannondale replica bike that day (think Cipollini and Ivan Gottiā¦man I miss that bike!).
GLORY/FUNNY: Team sees me and (Iām assuming) has a good laugh, then the last guy in line waves to me to latch on. For maybe 2-3km Iām killing myself holding onto the last wheel as we go through this town. Where there are barricades. And a cheering crowd. And an announcer. All I hear is (auf Deutsch) āPut your hands together for [blah blah blah blah Italian names] andā¦number 277?ā (or whatever I was - something like that).
Immediately out of town the road rises again and these guys justā¦rode away from me. Like I was standing still. Didnāt even lose any momentum. Last guy waves to me, still laughing (Iām assuming). Just a training ride for them.
STUPID #2: Right about then, as I was slowing down and resuming human tempo, I realized that I had somehow missed the army guys manning the checkpoint where the pro/am routes diverged again, and I had no @#$% clue where I was - aside from out in some empty Bavarian fields. CERTAIN that I knew the area like the back of my hand, having lived there a couple years already, I figured I could just cut some farm roads to rejoin my course. Maybe 20 minutes later I see signs for a town I recognized, that was IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION from our finishing town. I was a good 50km off course.
STUPID #3: As Iād gotten so off course and so far behind, figured Iād just cut my losses and ride home, which was closer than the finish, and I was again feeling like hot liquid death. Coincidentally, the end of the amateur route went right by my house, to finish in the big town down the road. Unbeknownst to me, my wife and some of her friends had made up big signs and had all lined the road (by themselves) to cheer for me when I rode by. When I DID NOT in fact ride by, friends gave up and went home while wife got in the car and drove 20km to look for me at the finish line. So I arrive home to no wife, locked house, neighbor tells me about my cheering section and that wife had gotten in the car and left.
So incredibly long story short: one impromptu 20km later - on dead legs - found wife at the finishing area and went home to collapse. She has never, EVER let me forget about that day.
cāest fini
[P.S. Ivan Gotti went on to win the Giro that year for Saeco. Iād like to think I had some small part in his victory. 
]
[P.P.S. I was also likely the only one in that peloton NOT doped out of my mind. 
]
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If any of us had better judgment, this thread would not exist.
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Fair. 
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Im familar with that ride, although i didnāt ride it in the mid-1980s. I had a lot of fun getting lost in the woods and ended up at the no longer existent Hockenhiem Ring (F1 test track). The āfunā part was figuring hiw to ride the 40km or so back to where i lived so I could go to work.
So itās not just meā¦
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I even had a forest route map in my jersey pockets. I just went out wandering. Lived near Heidelberg at the time.
Ooh, where the Forest (capital āFā) is. Yeah, we had nothing like that in Bavaria, other than a big nature preserve across the border in Austria. Just farms and fields. And Alps. Always Alps.
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