Cycling while drunk

i used to cycle around shitfaced all over brooklyn. the only time i fell off my bike was when i was standing still, though!

The one time in recent memory I drunk-cycled, I was pretty drunk but I felt totally in control, and not unsafe at all. I know that's kind of a dickish thing to say, sounds a lot like "hey I drive just fine when I'm drunk!", but if I've had a couple of within-the-limit drinks and get behind the wheel, I really feel the effects, so generally I don't drink and drive at all. I dunno - maybe a couple of drinks affects motor skills but not confidence, but when yer fully hammered you're cocky, and also don't notice your poor motor control.

I guess I'd have to drive hammered to test that hypothesis...

I've never NOT remembered how I got home, but I've been amazed I made it without mishap, partic drunk in the rain. I prob drunk bike a a few nights a week, at varying levels. I'd never go out if I had to take subways to Williamsburg/etc, and the bike is keeping my fitness up/weight down, and riding to social events is my incentive to work out. Plus it's beautiful at night, and crisp and sobering. No accidents yet.

Wait I take that back, I fell against a parked car once over the summer, but as cutty says, I was basically stopped at the time. I think once yr moving the physics of the bike does half the work for you.

Things I can't do on a bike after beerz: look behind me without veering into the curb/into the other lane.

I cannot ride a bike while drunk. can't stay balanced. once, i got on my bike from the right side, got it to an upright position, and then fell flat to the ground on my left side. i don't think i traveled more than a couple feet forward.

never done it.

I cycle every time I go to the pub as my bike is my sole mode of transport. I find I cycle much faster than normal, which is proof enough that I probably shouldn't be doing it. My crash in the crash thread (Saturday night) was the first time in years I've done it while really hosed though, and I've realised it was crazy and won't be doing it again. I was smart enough to walk the bike the rest of the way home.

The worst thing I've ever done on a bike while drunk was completely total a suit in my first year as an undergrad. I was struggling with the combination lock and shouting the code into the night sky and a friend (also drunk) undid the lock for me and sent me on my way, only to watch me cycle in an increasingly tight circle and then wipe out on a traffic island. Trousers and jacket ruined.

Got pulled over by the police a couple of years ago while pretty drunk (capable of holding a conversation, but certainly not safe to drive) but they only gave me a ticket for no lights (yes, I am a smart person). It must have been clear that I wasn't sober. I think police in Oxford just have a tolerance for this on deserted roads at 3am. It's very, very common in here. The pubs and clubs have bike racks outside them and the undergraduates all drink like crazy and go everywhere on bikes.

But yeah, the gyroscope effect of the wheels means its actually pretty difficult to come off a bike on an empty road if you're going at any sort of speed.

So yeah, classic.

http://eblogx.de/Besoffen-Fahrrad-fahren-7766.html

Worst ever drunk cycling moment was coming home from the work/the bar and breaking the left side pedal off while climbing up a steep two-block hill... the worst part being when my balls hit the top tube.

leaving this indie rave i went to last year @ 4.30 in the morning, this guy comes up to me and tells me his flatmate had gone home and left her bike outside the venue, could i follow him back to his place on it? god, so inadvisable. but it was cheaper than taxi fare so i did it anyway. came close to collecting some mooks straggling across the road through chinatown, right near the end of the trip, but artfully avoided them. dropped bike off at what looked like abandoned building w/ absurd 12ft-high door, never saw dude again. classic.

But yeah, the gyroscope effect of the wheels means its actually pretty difficult to come off a bike on an empty road if you're going at any sort of speed.

is this the thread where i get to be a pedantic prick and say that the gyroscope effect has nothing to do with it?

World's first zero-gyroscopic bike (foot of page):
http://www.losethetrainingwheels.org/default.aspx?Lev=2&ID=33

Another nutty professor with an anti-gyroscopic device:
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyrobike.htm

I've done the drunk thing a few times, I used to go on mountain bike rides out to various country pubs with a bunch of biking folks, we'd get a bit merry then all ride home again afterwards. Straight lines are okay, deserted streets at two in the morning are okay, riding up hills is totally impossible, and singletrack is just plain weird. Your steering gets slow and your braking gets a bit heavy and deliberate, but you're also quite relaxed so you can still ride a lot faster than your mind can think. Falling off is half of the fun anyhow though.

The one time I hurt myself was when a friend and I decided to take the long way back and ride a few of the local trails with only our little commuter lights and the moon to see by. Even when it's quite dark, you can sort of do them by feel and memory anyhow, but I got taken down hard on this one corner where the trail swoops up sharply round a tree. Right at the point you need to get out of the saddle and give it a bit of oomph, a rabbit or a badger or something had just dug this massive hole. My front wheel went right down it and the little burst of power I was putting in just got transferred to me totally piling my gonads into the stem (why does drunk crashes always hurt balls?).

Best thing was on one ride back up over the Downs, I think I was quite a bit drunker than everyone else and I got left behind, I couldn't ride straight, and didn't have the energy to push so I just lay down to die in the long grass instead. Then I saw that the whole meadow was full of glow worms, you wouldn't even have known they were there unless you were sprawled out pissed among them. Amazing sight, just me and the glow worms in a field, being drunk.

This is the worst I've been I think, it was ages ago and I was way, way over the line. I don't think I could even find my bike, let alone ride it:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/birdnestsoup/retro14.jpg

ahh i do this, probably more than i should but not anywhere near as badly as i could. if i have had up to 3 drinks over the course of the evening it's fine, any more and i'm a bit sketchy. it does feel like i go faster than usual, although if i'm cycling home at midnight or whatever and i have drunk 0 alcohol i go faster than usual anyway, just because there's less traffic, fewer peds and red lights. probably around 5 times i have been really stupid and rode home properly drunk. nothing terrible ever happened, and nothing at all that involved anyone else. the worst was when i was sailing down the road by the side of the canal at like 1am with no one else on the road, and forgot the road goes bumpy for a bit, hit one of the bumps and went flying, bounced down the road a bit. somehow got bruises *everywhere*, inc places i really can't work out how i hit them. i was more annoyed that i needed to realign my brakes though tbh.

I am, on ocassion, a pretty bad sinner in this regard. It's not big it's not clever. There's a few times like last saturday where I can remember how I got home and I must have got round kings cross somehow. Although now I come to think about it I remember going down midland road for the first time since it reopened.

Sometimes it just happens. If I hadn't taken my bike to the gig on saturday, I would have been late. Poor excuse I know.
Probably not going to stop doing it either, which is odd because I won't get behind the wheel if I've had more than a half every hour.

is this the thread where i get to be a pedantic prick and say that the gyroscope effect has nothing to do with it?

schooled!

http://eblogx.de/Besoffen-Fahrrad-fahren-7766.html

I laughed.

OK, I did this again last night. I will never learn.

and I'm OK with that.

I ride drunk fairly often (all my favorite bars being within 3-5 miles of each other/home) but - I like to tell myself - it's justified in that by the time I am actually drunk enough to be a hazard it's 4 am and no one is out anyway.

Also, it's fun.

also most likely you will only hurt yourself--godspeed!

http://gothamist.com/2007/11/18/accidental_turn.php

Oh shit. In traffic, that's some risky stuff on bridge grates and etc etc etc. The Mttn Bridge bike ramp/stairs are SUPER hard to find on the Bklyn side, tho. Thought the Manhattan side was clearer...?

Oh I see: construction. That is some sadness.

oh that's awful :(

the bridges downtown today were HAIRBALL with wetness/slime

I am a writer doing a story on drunk cycling in nyc, and my friends and I have done it, but i need anecdotes. Please email me.
thanks.

I don't think so.

NARC?

all my anecdotes involved getting on the bike and falling off before i'd even started pedaling--like i said upthread, once i was rolling along i always managed to get home safe and sound. not even a c0c41n3 heart attack.

fukkkn classic

it is like the driver who says 'i'll just go home the back way to avoid the police' except if you make it to the bike path you really are home free!!

friend of mine (bike mechanic and ex-messenger) visited me for the stupor bowl last winter. we were at the bar, he was ~housed~ and it was time to leave. managed all two blocks of street just fine before getting to the bike path, which was drifty with snow and a patchwork of ice. rode a brakeless, skinny-tired track bike for 4 miles through a MN February with absolutely zero problems.

get to my house, and can barely hang onto the railing to get up the stairs to my apt, and then proceeds to puke on my floor.

so, basically, sadly, drunk drivers are at least slightly otm: there is something state-learned about drunk biking. this dude had ridden drunk so many times (and i have, too) that biking itself wasn't an issue (on a bike path, mind, not on the road), but walking up a single flight of stairs was.

basically this is otm in my personal experience:

all my anecdotes involved getting on the bike and falling off before i'd even started pedaling--like i said upthread, once i was rolling along i always managed to get home safe and sound.

ditto.

also: biking while w33ded is totally awesome

Classic!

Skateboarding drunk = how did the pavement jump up to my face so fast? Dud

I'd popped out for a 'pint' once and ended up in a late-night whisky session. Last words I heard my friend shout to me as he staggered off was 'Don't ride that thing home you idiot'.

I saw him the next and his first words were, 'Fuck, what happened?'

Basically what had happened was that after I had replied 'What do you think I am? Stupid?' I pushed my bike along for a bit, then decided it would be quicker if actually I cycled and I felt okay anyway. Then a parked car came out of nowhere and crashed into me.

I must have gone down like a sack of shit, because I dimly heard gasps and shrieking and felt people turning me over and asking if I was all right. I said of course I am, not really noticing people's horrified expressions, and nonchalantly pushed my bike home.

Next morning I woke up in bed and it was like that scene from The Godfather but without the horse's head. Blood everywhere. Pillow was soaked in it, most of the sheets as well. Also my cheek had partially healed to the pillow in the night, so I had to unstick my face from it.

Went into bathroom. Looked in mirror. Haf found horse's head.

So incoherent were my reflexes I must have broken my fall with my face. Took ages to heal. I was going to a fancy meal that day as well, so I just dressed up really smart and pretended that there was nothing wrong and no one was staring.

I also ended up in a ditch once while cycling in the dark down some country lanes while drunk.

Oh, er, dud. If you crash. Otherwise it's fine. Great fun. Makes you powerfully invincible as well.

I saw him the next day.

Thought it would be a good idea last night to mount a kerb by cycling straight at it. THUNK. idk how the wheel is now...

Ouch. I did that while sober once, and went sideways over the handlebars.

I would give cycling while drunk a thumbs-up except I did it while kind of run down last week and ended up getting a sinus infection. I biked to the bar, had at least two drinks too many for a weeknight, then jumped on my bike when it started lightly raining -- so as to get home before it started pouring, of course. I was also wearing glasses, which I don't normally do. So I'm biking home in the rain, in the dark, with one light on the back of my bike (luckily) and my feet occasionally slipping off the pedals. I actually was still energized when I got home and answered a bunch of work email.

Outside of how I felt the next day, it was awesome.

still do this on occasion. nagl

answering work email while drunk c/d

workmate came in with nasty road rash on cheek one morning - he was drunk ridin home and had the front wheel come off at the bottom of rather steep hill, went over bars head-first

same bro had drunken crash while workig in al!c3 spr!ngs, broke collarbone, got home and tried to 'sleep it off' only to be woken by horrified housemate in the morning - "why are you covered in blood??"

classic

wow!

i did this last night. shared a bag of chips on my way home with another random post-pub cyclist.
was more buzzed than drunk tho.

i may have done a lil drunk ridin on sat nite from party to party - think i arrived @ destination about 15 mins after the taxi w/ the others got there, despite wrong turn at one point!

it's the feelings of completely in control whilst on the bike vs losing balance & clearly still hammered once off it, that are hard to reconcile. a sensible person might say the first is an illusion but i want independent scientific tests.

Is that related to the feeling of powerful and healthy on the bike vs. spent and useless once you get off it?

I've ridden drunk before, and I think I probably did have much more awareness and control while I was riding, if only because I was taking in more oxygen.

Ok though, here's a story. Old roommate, was a waiter. Rode his bike about 6 miles to and from work every day. He doesn't remember the accident at all, because our brains are kind to us -- they do not remember massive trauma. He remembers riding along his usual route, and then he remembers walking his bike home with his face turned into hamburger, and someone stopping him and calling an ambulance on their cell phone. Apparently he looked like a Rick Baker effect. He mostly healed, but not completely. He has a few permanent scars. And he wasn't drunk in the slightest -- he was way coked up.

I don't know what that story is about, except that shit happens.