Real Life Stories – A Helping Hand
Cyclists are a helpful bunch. We recently asked Cycling Weekly readers to tell us their real life stories of when they had been helped by a fellow cyclist. We received many replies, and present a selection of them here.
Cycling through Glasgow in July I suffered a puncture and my repair kit had no patches left. Standing staring at my useless bike, a kindly OAP came sauntering up to the lights on an ancient boneshaker like my granddad had. “Need a wee hand, son?” he asked, smiling. Had me back on the road in 10 minutes. Legend. I felt like an idiot with my carbon missile of a bike and rescued by a man on an antique. What a gentleman.
Diarmuid Griffin
Forgot to unclip at the lights, couldn’t un-wedge myself, so a driver with about £4k of bikes on the roof stopped and detangled me.
Dan Travers
I did the RideLondon 100 in 2015 and while making my way back to Canary Wharf, I was looking at Google Maps on my phone when two great people stopped and asked if I was OK. I told them I was trying to get back to my hotel at Canary Wharf so I rode back with them — they went past their home to show me the way back to my hotel. They even put £20 on my Just Giving page.
Mark Robinson
Got a double-puncture hitting a pothole on the descent from Hindhead to Tilford. Got to a small clearing at the side of the road and started to change out both tyres. A large pick-up truck with a fat bike on the back passed by turned around and came and stopped by me. Bloke jumped out with a track pump and chatted with me while I changed the tubes and pumped them up. Meant I could finish my planned ride instead of limping home.
Rupert Englander
