Ever get 'the fear'?

richardjallen

brucey72 wrote:

richardjallen wrote:

The Second was on my Grifter which I hated so much due to its unreasonable weight. I got so fed up with it one day that I kicked the front wheel (while riding) and got my foot stuck in the spokes. My foot went round with the wheel until it jammed against the fork, bring the bike to a halt while I went over the bars. Then the bike flipped over and clonked me on the back of the head. I hated it even more after that but refrained from beating it up.

Ha ha the joys of the Grifter. I had one whilst everyone else had BMX's during the 80's. I was gutted and tried my damnest to wreck it so my parents would buy me a "raleigh ultra burner" but the thing was near indestructible. I used to send it off down hills on its own after bailing off the back of it but it probaly did more damage to the walls it hit.

Sorry this post isn't a "fear" one but it just made me laugh thinking back to my old bike

I would have loved a Burner as well. Even my brothers Boxer was more fun than the Grifter. I had to delude myself into likening it to a big police motorbike - kind of like the one they rode in CHiPs. The idea being it was big and heavy but comfortable and good once you got to a nice 'cruising' speed. The delusion was shatter though as soon as I got to a hill and had to hulk the thing that weighed more than me up the hill.

Ok, on topic. I used to get the fear, imagined hitting a pot hole or getting a flat while being followed by a bus etc.

Had a shimmy going down a hill in Newquay. Must have been doing 35-40mph I suspect. That was scary. The only thing I could think of doing was squeezing the top tube between my knees to stop it snaking about. Luckily it worked. When I got to the bottom I noticed my rear break pads had almost fallen off. I had taken the bike in to the LBS for a change of cables a week earlier. Should have spotted it earlier.

neeb

Lovely rolling route I do regularly that has short ups and downs and sweeping, cambered bends, often get to 35mph+ on the short descents. Yesterday as I was stopped to have a drink and a bite to eat before heading back, I noticed I could hear a very faint buzz when I dropped the bike onto the front wheel. Terrified I had a hairline crack in the fork or something, I had the front wheel off and was tapping the fork blades in various places for about 5 mins before I realised the noise was coming from the shifters... What most worries me though is the prospect of sweeping round a blind bend, keeping well out to avoid any gravel at the side, just as a bus is coming round the other way with its front end in the middle of the road... I've had a few overly-close moments like that.

Siechotic

I used to get "The Fear" descending at speed, I was always thinking that the bike was wobbling, in reality the bike wasn't moving at all, in fact it was just me tensing up that gave my brain the impression that the bike was jiggling about.

I've had several people watch from behind whilst I descending hills and they all told me that the bike didn't wobble or jiggle, but they did notice that I seemed to hunch and pull my arms in tight.

I tried to relax whilst descending since this revelation was revealed, and after many a hair raising/brown stain moments, I can finally descend at speeds in excess of 50 mph.

I think once I had realised that being relaxed and letting the bike just flow down the hills I became more in control of the descent. I have also found that pedalling whilst going down the hill give me more perceived control as apposed to just free wheeling down.

Perhaps it's all in my head but it what works for me!

Jazza1969

Had a real attack last year on my MTB on a steep downhill, where I locked the brakes on loose gravel on a forest track. Squeaky bum time.

I suppose I've always had the real fear of going over the bars, which for years kept me off the front brake. It's only recently I've learned how to brake properly using the front brake. Experience and practice beats the irrational fears we all get. Mind you my neighbours think I'm nuts after an afternoon of emergency stops on the street outside my house!

If the bikes well looked after and you know what you're doing, there's much less to be scared of.

However, put it in perspective. Last weekend I swapped the bike for a day climbing the north face of the Buchaille Etive Mhor in Glencoe, a sheer ascent of 2500 feet. I was petrified. Utterly petrified and shaking at times in fact. Suddenly bombing downhill at 40mph plus seems a perfectly safe thing to do

celbianchi

My main fear when descending in the UK at speed on some training runs is what if a car pulls out from the left and I plough into it.

As for a fear after the event, I reached my highest ever speed descending Ventoux at 63mph. Rightly or wrongly I had no lid on and afterwards you kind of think, I wonder what state i'd be in had my front tyre blown. Dead would be the most likely I imagine.

I also get the fear on winter training runs in the dark of badgers out in the sticks roaming the lanes. Oh and rather irrationally a fear of large cats in the fields that may have escaped from somewhere!

Peddle Up!

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

Every time I descend at any speed, I immediately think about the front (carbon) forks snapping...

I followed a guy (on the flat) where this happened. For the next half hour I comforted him until the medics arrived.

Q. How do you get over "the fear"?

keef66

my main fear is the wife finding out what the bike really cost

Peddle Up!

keef66 wrote:

my main fear is the wife finding out what the bike really cost

I laughed out loud at that. Maybe we should run a poll to see what percentage of the real price we've confessed to!

Peddle Up!

keef66 wrote:

my main fear is the wife finding out what the bike really cost

I laughed out loud at that. Maybe we should run a poll to see what percentage of the real price we've confessed to!

Iain C

I always worry about sudden mechanical failures...

Rear mech going into rear wheel...
Seatpost snapping...
A frame weld failing...
QR skewer opening...
Handlebars failing on one side of the stem...
Sudden puncture when cornering and just pulling the tyre off the wheel...

I guess some of it stems from having a very old retro road bike which was a complete heap before I restored it...I can't help thinking "just how thin and corroded are these tubes inside??"

Brakes worry me...on a road bike I worry that in a real "death grip" situation I suddenly get the sickening sensation of the cable pulling through the caliper pinch bolts...or on my mountain bike coming off and sticking my digit (or worse!!) through a still spinning 203mm Avid front rotor...

However, a swift beer soon sorts all this worry out!!

biondino

My only bad accident so far (touch wood) was due to sudden mechanical failure, of a rear sprocket - I was standing at the time and was duly hurled into the road, broke a finger, chipped my elbow and gouged out bits of knee and elbow. But I do worry about accidents quite a lot, and one element of fear I really, really need to get over is EVERY time I commute in central London I wonder if I'll come back.

Steve_F

Even if I had no fear before I would now reading this!!

After hitting a van that pulled out of a junction on a busy road sending me off the bonnet towards a bus (which was stopped and blocking all other traffic on that side of the road luckily) I still get very nervous around junctions and cars that might pull out. Used to enjoy diving in and out of traffic but struggle to do that any more. Even if I get eye contact with a driver now I still hover over the brakes.

RyanBrook

Last year coming down the Ventoux at 50mph my cleat jumped out while pedalling hard and it hit the front wheel and fortunately just bounced off rather than getting trapped.
That was pretty scary.

Mettan

To be on the safer side, I tend to check for Fork play and a few other bits before every ride - only takes a minute or two -seems sensible - I'm suspicious of that seat clamp though .

simon johnson

I got the fear when I tried to overtake one of Ken Livingstone's big red socialist buses (bendy one) only to realise that one was steaming the other way as I got to the first rear wheel on the one I was overtaking. I just had to stand there in some scary 'bus tunnel' with my toes and elbows inwards for what seemed like five minutes! This was just on the junction between Essex Road and Balls Pond Road for those that know.

Apart from that, my absolute worst downhill fear is gravel; I've had few close encounters- I just imagine the front wheel going like it's on marbles and me ending up with gravel rash. Ouch

CrookedCucumber

Peddle Up! wrote:

SteveR_100Milers wrote:

Q. How do you get over "the fear"?

Stop breathing, I imagine.

Fear is nature's way of telling you that life is precarious. Although people do have irrational fears, fear of a car pulling out in front of you, or a catastrophic mechanical failure dumping you on the ground, are perfectly rational fears for cyclists. We overcome them at our peril.

boybiker

Doesn't the fact that you can scare yourself by going downhill at 40 miles an hour just prove that you are a normal person who likes to be scared sometimes?
I would only really worry when you stop being scared because you believe yourself to be a perfect cyclist who is immune to all possible accidents.

Denny69

Had it yesterday on a quick decent doing 40+ thinking what if........it's very sobering!! Wonder how the pro's cope with it? a similar condition in golf is called "the yips"

muffin top

keef66 wrote:

my main fear is the wife finding out what the bike really cost

My fear is that the wife works out just how many hours I spend on the bike, then she equates that to how much DIY, gardening, ironing etc could have been achieved in that time. If this nightmare scenario ever plays out I have my trump card: how much time do you spend on the phone?

robmanic1

"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room",
.............or if you're a bit lardy, like when someone fat sits next to you on a budget airline plane and their fat hangs over the seat and you become entombed in their rolls like that little pet thing that Jabba had, or if you have to have a whole side of your house removed to get you out because you're so fat you're going to die unless you receive urgent medical attention like having 7 tonnes of fat sucked out of you.

Stewie Griffin

Im another with brake cable slipping or snapping phobia. The thought of having my brake levers squeezed up against the handlebars while gravity accelerates me toward the traffic at one of the junctions or roundabouts that seem to populate the bottom of every hill in London scares the bejesus out of me.

I drive on a particular dual carriageway (Neasden Underpass) once every few days now and always recall going down that in my teens undertaking cars or passing in between them (what an utter dick) at 40+mph . My right hand would now just stop that from happening

robmanic1

Denny69 wrote:

Had it yesterday on a quick decent doing 40+ thinking what if........it's very sobering!! Wonder how the pro's cope with it? a similar condition in golf is called "the yips"

Den, and how scarey is golf, exactly?????

Jez mon

In races, you tend not too think about it as too much other stuff is going on. However, On a club run the other day I most definitely got the fear, I was sitting on the top tube and tucked in nicely, getting to about 40 mph, and suddenly GRAVEL, I could feel that i'd lost all real traction, I was in the middle of the road....I was nearly touching cloth (or chamois!) I sat up, started to apply the brakes and dropped my speed to about 20.

Moral of the story, don't cycle in the middle of the road at 40 mph over gravel!

CrookedCucumber

I did actually have a break cable failure once...

I was riding to work around Euston somewhere, and I discovered too late that somebody had parked a skip on the bike lane. I pulled both brakes as hard as I could, and both cables snapped at the same time. So I hit a steel skip at about 15mph. I guess the front wheel absorbed most of the impact, as I was not badly hurt. I was badly embarrassed, as you might imagine.

That was on a bike that I believed to be in good condition

Of course, if I'd been a bit more observant I wouldn't have had to make an emergency stop

CrookedCucumber

Robmanic1 wrote:

"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room",
.............or if you're a bit lardy, like when someone fat sits next to you on a budget airline plane and their fat hangs over the seat and you become entombed in their rolls like that little pet thing that Jabba had, or if you have to have a whole side of your house removed to get you out because you're so fat you're going to die unless you receive urgent medical attention like having 7 tonnes of fat sucked out of you.

Um... if you don't take foolhardy risks, you'll end up 7 tonnes overweight? Er... the logical connection is not at all obvious to me, to be honest.

Peddle Up!

Robmanic1 wrote:

Den, and how scarey is golf, exactly?????

It's a potential nightmare. Using the wrong bat, sorry, club. Having too many/not enough diamonds on your jumper. It goes on. Be afraid...

robmanic1

CrookedCucumber wrote:

Robmanic1 wrote:

"If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room",
.............or if you're a bit lardy, like when someone fat sits next to you on a budget airline plane and their fat hangs over the seat and you become entombed in their rolls like that little pet thing that Jabba had, or if you have to have a whole side of your house removed to get you out because you're so fat you're going to die unless you receive urgent medical attention like having 7 tonnes of fat sucked out of you.

Um... if you don't take foolhardy risks, you'll end up 7 tonnes overweight? Er... the logical connection is not at all obvious to me, to be honest.

Oh so we're introducing logical connections into the forum now are we? I've just re-read it and TBH, I'm not really sure. I think Mrs manic must have put the wrong kind of mushrooms in my bolognese. 8)

Denny69

Robmanic1 wrote:

Denny69 wrote:

Had it yesterday on a quick decent doing 40+ thinking what if........it's very sobering!! Wonder how the pro's cope with it? a similar condition in golf is called "the yips"

Den, and how scarey is golf, exactly?????

Not at all Robmanic...it's a term used when you're about to hole a putt and your mind starts thinking "What if....?" As I used to play, recreationally, I never suffered from it but I've heard pros talk about it!!