THE BONK
YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST TIME.
It didn’t happen on my first long ride, but years after I started cycling. It wasn’t even a mega-ride — just a classic Box Hill loop of three hours.
Before that ride, I had done a Park Run with my friends. Then we changed gears and went for our Saturday spin. I tried to eat regularly (my personal rule of thumb was one bar per hour), but it wasn’t enough. On the way back, we started to push a bit harder and, all of a sudden, my energy switched off. My vision got blurry, I felt like I was passing out, and my energy indicator fell to empty. I was cooked.
A little uphill road that I usually didn’t even notice suddenly felt like climbing Alpe d’Huez. I zig-zagged left and right, with the lowest cog I had on my cassette. My friends flew past me. I reached the top, minutes down. When I got off the bike, I was still shaking, my heart pounding at a high speed.
“Oh, man, I don’t know what happened!” I told my friend Colin.
“You bonked!” he replied.
You bonked. That was the first time I’d heard the word in English. (the hunger crisis). I had always avoided it with my one-bar-per-hour rule. However, when you ride at a higher intensity, and you don’t eat enough, not even bars will save you.
