Worst Day Touring

The chips with my evening in Driumnadrochit this summer were disappointing.

Not as bad as being robbed at gun point sure but I got Guardia on tour once in foreign climes

Managed another 3 weeks shitting my self inside out at a moment's notice and losing 3 stone before I got a doctor to take me serious.

Saw this thread and realised Ive not really ever toured. Just a few nights out here and there.

TrailRats post isn't encouraging the idea either

TrailRats post isn’t encouraging the idea either

This is going to sound mad....but I'd do it all again.

I head butted a Volvo SUV on tour once shortening both my venerable 1980's boik and neck.

Free Ti enhancements courtesy of the NHS and a new custom Rourke courtesy of a depleted bank account (with some help from Aviva).

Not recommended.

Before GPS,I got lost on some small B-roads in Cornwall ,every wrong turn ended down a very steep hill at a beach/dead end.The day changed from from what should have been a 100 miler to a hard 140 ,and there was nothing but mini-mart food left when I got to the hostel.

The morning I woke up in a village in Northern Austria after riding in the pissing rain for three days to find people being hauled from first stories by boats was a lively one.

The night before we'd arrived in another village at our pension and the owner, who spoke no English, opened the door, saw us and just went "awwww". She gave us her and her husband's clothes because everything we owned was wet. They even drove us to the nearest restaurant.

We then stayed in some of the foulest hostels I've ever seen, and arrived in Vienna to find it a horrible city. We left early and arrived in Bratislava to sunshine, warm welcomes and lovely accommodation.

Most of my other shit times on tours have related to my wife having massive bennies about how shit a time she's having.

I got a group of 20 cyclists completely lost in Aberdeen.

It was before smart phones or GPS and so I was reliant on a shitty paper map.
We missed a poorly-signed turn off on a Sustrans route which would have allowed us to bypass Aberdeen.
Then we (mainly me) kept missing the various crappy signs that would have guided us through Aberdeen.
It's OK to turn around if there's 1 of you, but redirecting 20 is hard work.

As the rain started, we jumped on trains to take us to Montrose. I stayed on to Stirling.

Have several friends where a partner or tour colleague died on tour.
I've only had to deal with a suspected heart attack in remotest Wester Ross. The lass was fine and so I put her into a B&B for the night with a friend.

Most of my other shit times on tours have related to my wife having massive bennies about how shit a time she’s having.

😁

(Although I can relate 😞 )

We missed a poorly-signed turn off on a Sustrans route which would have allowed us to bypass Aberdeen.
Then we (mainly me) kept missing the various crappy signs that would have guided us through Aberdeen.

Wouldn't feel bad about that it's still terribly signposted around here

 

"never a bad day's touring".... Right?

Nothing particularly bad has happened. I did once get lost cycle touring in Slovenia and ended up spending the night at a nudist camp in Austria. Never has a campsite been inhabited by such ugly people!! Had a nice restaurant with Snitzel

Shat my pants a few miles away from San Pedro de Atacama. Riding those last few miles with shit in my shorts wasn't so bad, it was then having to find and check into a hostel when all I could think about was the mess/smell trying to escape from behind me.

Would still happily do it all again though!

Hungry, tired, taking far too long fixing a puncture by a busy roadside on the way to Dartmoor , in July, in the snow.

After 8 days of rain, storms and gales as part of a two week tour of the western isles my wife was getting a more than a little fed up. Climbing up the last hill on Lewis before the ferry to sky and a massive gust came along and blew her front wheel out from under her, dumping her on the floor. MASSIVE sense of humour failure, fair enough, it really wasn’t fun anymore, just about pursuaded her to get up and ride to the ferry. After which we hired a car and did the rest of The tour round Skye and to fort William in a hire car 😁

Under cooked lasagna, spent over 24 hours on the toilet or in bed in a guest house in Ireland with the poor old dear who ran the place knocking on the door every half hour asking if i needed anything, while my girlfriend at the time caught a bus into town to taste some whiskey... At my insistence!

Spent the following day stopping every 5 miles to dig a little hole...

Another time i got to the bottom of the last mountain on the last day of a tour, extra long day because reasons.

The pass was closed due to a massive crash.
I had two choices, 2 smaller mountains (and an extra 40 km) then a train or a dirt track with an extra 500m of altitude (actually the old mountain pass) but that was only an extra 8km.

Was a long day.

Have several friends where a partner or tour colleague died on tour.

taking the mantra "what goes on tour, stays on tour" to a whole new level

Missed our ferry back from Rotterdam once.

It was King's Day, we had a pleasant pootle round the improv street market and parties in Delft, mooched around Den Haag and had a super lunch on the pier at Scheveningen, all very pleasant and were plied with Jenever by merry locals along the way. Afternoon comes and we set off towards Europort for our evening ferry, not far, a quick ride to Maasluis, ferry over the river and tootle down the port, should have an hour to spare, easy.

Get to Maasluis, ferry parked up on other side, lights out, nobody in sight. Not ideal, if we weren't getting the ferry we needed to head up towards Rotterdam for a bridge/tunnel and the long way round. We hit the phones for a taxi, but 8pm on King's Day isn't the best time. It's getting dark, cold and icy, and we're a bit drunk and lost, and my mate's ebike is down to two bars, but needs must, off we set, using roads instead of bike paths for speed.

Dutchies don't like this much and blare the horns at us and point and wave at the bike paths. My mate gets more than a bit flustered at one of these and slides out on a bend, twisting bars and levers, all fixable but game over for our ferry. We hit the phones to confirm we've missed it, and book for tomorrow, then (for some reason neither of us had mobile data at this point, couldn't work out why) phoned home for wives to take the piss mercilessly and deservedly so they could hit the net and find us a hotel for the night.

We roll round to the hotel, 250m from the ferry, port side, and find a bar. As we recount our woes to the barmaid, she takes pains to explain (as Dutch do) the ferry has been running all evening, but due to it being a holiday, switched to half hourly instead of continuous, everybody knows that, signs up in Dutch too. So we drank a lot of Guinness in an Irish bar in Holland, run by a guy from Drogheda in a huge party to celebrate the House of Orange, and limped back the next day with slightly sore heads. Marvellous, must do it again soon.

After 8 days of rain, storms and gales as part of a two week tour of the western isles

I can relate. We arrived in Tarbert, Harris. Raining. After a pint, still raining. So we set off. My wife isn't really a cyclist. After a long time in intermittent showers and me telling her it was over the next hill/round the next corner we arrived at the hostel in Leverburgh.

Only to find the owner had messed up the booking and it was full. So it was a tent on a slope in the hostel garden rather than a bed. I get reminded of it every so often.

This thread was a bit more serious than expected but the title brought back memories of fast and light JOGLE which ended up on with some roadie friends years ago. Their idea was long days, chaingang riding, no bags or change of riding clothes and as many climbs as could fit into the route. All type 2 fun but a proper adventure and plenty of daft decisions and scrapes along the way but the last day in particular sticks in my mind.

Was constant rain and one of the group got fed up of damp kit so decided to use the microwave in the hostel for some speed drying for the final day through Exmoor and down to Lands End so could finish the tour in comfort. He overestimated the timer and ended up turning his bib shorts into a holey mess and even worse the chammy into a lump of crusty plastic. To his credit he stuck with the riding but we made him keep to the back of the line! needless to say got plenty of funny looks and required some careful photos at Lands End to be able to share with family.

Nothing too drastic to add. Riding about 20 odd miles and 1000M climb to cross from Albania into Kosovo, only to find it was a locals only border post was irritating 😅.
We were turned back to ride back down the hill and then miles along a motorway hard shoulder to get to the proper crossing.

Riding the main road into Tblisi earlier this year was terrifying, worst ten miles or so I've ever experienced.

We were cycling across the states relying on paper maps. Actually a road atlas with route plus 2 inches up and down torn out pages. Think it was Nevada, hot flat and desert, knew we were in for a big day as nothing on map for c 200 miles. Early start, just flat plains and awful side wind.

So cycled all day dreaming of a decent hotel and all u can eat dinner. Arrived to find a cluster of 3 houses and a shop that only had cheesy whatsits left.

Camped in an Indians garden. Made us some hot drinks, all I remember is a storm with us in a tent probably only being held down by our body weight.

toured for 40 years.
hand on heart, i can honestly say i have never had a bad day.

had wet days, cold days, windy days, days getting lost, days fixing broken bikes, day comforting a angry teary wife, days order food and drink in french, when in norway.

but never a bad day.

Generally when things go wrong it just adds to the adventure but the most serious for my friend and I was when he became quite ill in the Czech republic.

We arrived in Prague after two hot days. He was knackered but we didn't think too much of it. Went out for food and drink but he didn't drink any beer - which is completely out of character.

Next day he was determinded to cary on so we continued south, it was very hot and annoyingly hilly. At one point we took a long descent to the river to cross by ferry only to find there was no ferry - so we had to go all the way back up. He was really struggling now, something was obviously wrong. We filled our water bottles from a shower head in a campsite. We got to a campsite in the middle of nowhere - managed to get a room in a closed hostel when someone rang the owner for us.

There was nothing for it the next day but to continue. We were really in the middle of nowhere. Friend is really struggling now - pushing up anything like a hill (and there are lots of hills). Decide to abort and head for nearest town we think has a train station. Death march, through forests and over rivers. Find train station in coutryside - abandoned and in ruins like in spaghetti western. No idea if train line operating. Friend pretty much collapses and vision goes. Train arrives - yay. Two trains later we arrive in Ceske Budjeovic (home of budvar)

Friend goes to hospital. Acute kidney failure. Your staying here mate. Phone wives - interesting chat. I have to buy him some underwear. I drink budwieser.

So they decide after 6 lites of saline he's on the mend and will likely be released in 4 or 5 days - to be put on a taxi to Prague and home with easyjet. Friend and his wife decide I should continue on my own and after some thought I agree. He gets repatriated after a few days and I make it to the adriatic on my own.

Turns out my phone wasn't getting data so he acts as satnav via text.To book accomodation I'd text him and he'd sort me out something online like some personal assistant. He was pretty bored so got me:
a) a hotel in Passau way out of the league of a typical cycle tourist (photos of Gorbachev and Tony Blair on the wall)
b) a room above a random mexican restaurant in Spittal an der Dau.

Once we realised he wasn't goning to die it was back to being an adventure. He's OK now. We've done 3 more trips since then.

As ton says maybe bad days isn’t the right term.

A low point for was standing on a col in the dessert in Tunisia with the sun setting and no road or path in front of us.

We weee the end of a 50 mile day where we have been attempting to navigate with a 1 in a million scale Michelin map. The track we had been following had been getting harder to follow . Farmers have ploughed right across it in places. We had enough sense to have some spare food and water with us but it’s wasn’t looking good. No sleeping stuff or tent. The next day we really needed to catch a train so we could fly out early the day after.

The wife is cheery and calm. It’s me who can’t cope. “What are we going to do?” i wail. We have seen one person about 25 miles back and no sign of habitation for longer than that. “It’s ok” she beams “I heard a dog bark a couple of miles back”. “How does that help?” i mope”. “Well the dog will have an owner and the owner will look after us”

She was correct. We spent the night in a cave with an old man and a girl of about 6. We had no language in common. But he cooked for use and lent us blankets. The next day we gave him a watch and some cloths. We found the correct route the next morning quite quickly and all was well.

Overall the week was brilliant. A perfect 1 week pocket adventure. We stayed in the cave hotel where they shot the bar scene in Star Wars a new hope. Stayed in a grain store that would go on to be Anakin Sky Walkers House. We did bottle spending the last night in a 5 star hotel. We just couldn’t face wheeling out bikes through the Lobby

It was the 90s but we spent under £150 between us over the week

"The chips with my evening in Driumnadrochit this summer were disappointing."

The one beside the new Co-op? They are normally pretty good, maybe having an off day...

My 2nd day on the Hebridean Way. Mid June. First day was lovely. Light cloud, sunshine, light winds.

Camped the first night and it was very, very windy. Woke up in the morning and the weather was still ok. Set off for the ferry...

As soon as I hit Harris things turned bad. Dark black clouds, biblical rain, gale force winds.

Stopped in Harris for lunch knowing the first biggish climb was coming. Set off and as the steep climb started, I reckon my bike was about 60lbs and the wind and rain on the climb forced me to a standstill. Had to get off and push. Eventually it levelled off a bit so jumped up and ground out the rest of the long climb at walking pace. Eventually I could see the big descent and was looking forward to it.

Turned the corner into the descent and was stopped dead in my tracks by the wind. Then the hailstones started. I had to hide in a ditch at the side of the road while the wind, rain and hail battered me for about 40 minutes.

Eventually had enough so jumped on and had to crank hard all the way down the descent just to keep momentum.

Limped into Ballalan absolutely drowned and miserable. No way I could face camping. Used my phone to find the nearest hotel but they had no vacancies. Limped through the village and saw a B&B sign with vacancies. Pushed up the hill to the door and the wee wifey answered and took me in. Don't think I've ever been happier to be indoors.

As I'm standing dripping in her hallway she cheerily told me Harris was the wettest place in the UK that day.

Had something to eat, crawled into a lovely warm bed and slept for 12+ hours.

Certainly gets you out your day to day experience. I ended up one evening at an outdoor bar at jetty on the bank of the Missouri River.
I was sitting round a table (a slice of log) with three locals having a beer. The conversation up until then had been about the tour, where I was from, and the history of the Missouri area. The others came from families that had been in the local area for generations. Then, more or less out the blue, I was asked when I thought the world would end. Without giving it much thought I replied I supposed we had a few million years before we had to worry. The female at the table then expounded her theory that the end of the world was not far away. The sign of this was that in America and all over the world the different races were intermingling. Not like when she was young when they were kept separate. She claimed that the various races were created by god and that mixing them was against god's will. This was either a sign the end of the world was coming or would even cause it.

The oddest thing of all was that while this white woman was saying all this she took no account of the fact that one of the four people at the table was black. He had been slowly shaking his head and rolling his eyes as she spoke.

Must say this was very much the exception . The day before I had spoken to a guy outside a diner asking about the bike. When I later went to pay my bill he had already paid it along with his as he left.