On Sunday, May 24, 2020 at 8:20:03 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 5/23/2020 6:07 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Have any of you been on a ride where you've bonked to the point that every single pedal stroke no matter how low a gear you're in or how calm the winds are, feels like it's all you can do to get that crankarm past the 12 0'clock position?

If so, how long did it take you to recover so that you were able to ride at your normal pace again?

If you ate soon after bonking, how long did it take you to then recover enough to ride further?

Cheers


Yes. It came on suddenly with severe fatigue and darkened
vision I could barely stand once off the bike. Riding
partner was in about the same state, 80~85 miles into a cool
wet windy century. We sat on the road for a couple of
minutes, then walked over to the field corn, ate some of it
raw, and were both just fine some ten minutes later.


Gak. You can break your teeth on field corn. My most colorful bonking story was riding back home from Santa Cruz over the mountains, absolutely running out of gas and stopping at the CalFire (then California Division of Forestry) station on Skyline and begging the resident fire fighters for food. They gave me some carrot stubs left over from something they were cooking up for dinner, which was enough to get me the 500 meters (or so) to the long down hill into civilization. I still had to ride back to SJ, but stopped for a sustaining chili dog at Happy Hound in Los Gatos. I don't bonk much these days. I just run out of gas, which cannot be fixed with a gel pack or chili dog.

-- Jay Beattie.