Study: Men safer in the saddle than women when extremely drunk

You go faster with a few drinks in you.

Not according to "measurements" or "science" or "facts", admittedly… but it feels faster.

I have a hazy memory of cycling through Manchester after a night out. Nearly got flattened by a bus. On another night, I left my cycle and walked home, saying goodbye to my bicycle as I set off - needless to say, it was the last time I saw it.
I remember doing a ride and we stopped for a couple of beers. Never have I felt more dreadful than on the hilly ride home across the hills around Hebden Bridge. All this early to mid '70's.

Never mixed the two activities since.

Drunk? Me?
Have another.
I feel a bit sick
Ooops, fell off

What a load of tosh.

Your headline claims no women can cycle when extremely drunk - the study finds 37 women unable to ride when blotto.

'Having a few beers and riding home from the pub is one of life's greatest pleasures,'

indeed. Although I do recommend bike jousting the night before national championships, after an Absinthe bender. I have felt better during a race, granted.

'Also 41 men and 37 women is not a big enough sample size to be statistically relevant. '

Without seeing the power calculation it's hard to say, but that's a decent sized sample. n=20 would probably be small, but n=78 sounds fine for most stuff.

I belong to a cycle club with a drink problem.
Every Thursday we cycle out across the Fens near Ely.
Last night we did 38 miles 6 pints and a bowl of chips.
We had 1 puncture as well.
We have been doing this in the Summer months for over 13 years.
We have 3 rules, now I understand why no ladies...
No Lycra
No ladies
No lager
This is a fine combination.

I'd have loved to have taken part in that. I don't usually cycle when drunk, but I'm quite happy to do it on occasion. It's usually a case of consciously going slower and more carefully than usual. Also avoiding busy junctions is advised.

I'm surprised that there's such a difference between men and women as my wife has done the odd drunken cycle with no incidents. Maybe it's due to the particular participants they selected.

I'm not advocating cycling whilst intoxicated, but I'd love it to be an Olympic sport.

P.S. The only incident I've had cycling whilst intoxicated was trying to unicycle home after a pub crawl -
I managed to scrape my hand against a wall at one point.

its all about the dedication and practice us men put in.

I conduct this experiment every Christmas on our club festive event!

Dare I say multi-tasking!

There's a sportive in California that winds its way through wine country. Stops are held at a series of vineyards along the route with riders then having tasting sessions. A friend of mine does it most years. He says it can be quite amusing towards the end.

From my understanding men cope better with alcohol because men have more of the enzyme gastric alcohol dehydrogenase in their stomachs - women drinking the same quantity as men absorb about 30% more alcohol into their bloodstreams.

Also 41 men and 37 women is not a big enough sample size to be statistically relevant. Some men are safer than some women, would be more accurate.

I'm just going to leave this here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcP3TTSWnTE

Interesting study. I wonder if it showed (as several others testing driving skills when drinking have) that riding skills actually improved after the first drink?

I would never advocate riding in an impaired condition - be that alcohol, drugs (legal or not) or even overly tired. But the facts are that everything we do after we get out of bed carries some risk, which we have to accept, or -as most people do - ignore. You could argue that a road bike is potentially less safe than a hybrid, for example (riding position affects visibility, narrower tyres, higher speeds, etc.)

Surely drunk cycling is preferable to drunk driving. Speeds will be lower and therefore the risk to other vulnerable road users (i.e pedestrians) is much less. In the country (where this is more likely to happen, given the lack of public transport and longer distances to services) there are probably very few pedestrians to begin with.

Riding when you're pissed is pretty easy.

Until you start to slow down or have to stop, then it all goes seriously, seriously rogue.

Having a few beers and riding home from the pub is one of life's greatest pleasures, though I wouldn't advocate getting wrecked up and taking on the rush hour.

I've very occasionally ridden home after a beer or two at a friend's house. It feels weird. I'm not keen.

Haha, brilliant.

I've been testing this theory for several years. I am a man. And I have found that on the whole it is better not to be completely slaughtered before piloting a bicycle around busy roads with fast moving traffic.

I now know that I am wrong. Bottoms up, bikes out.

Why didn't Road.cc have the registration for volunteers? This sounds like something I'd be happy to assist with.
I think the biggest reason I wouldn't ride a bike after more than 1-2 pints is how frequently I've needed to be able to react quickly to other people on the road.
Maybe a belgian race with beer stops for the riders (like some cyclocross type events have) would make very entertaining viewing, especially with the very low BMI that a lot of riders have, it wouldn't take much alcohol to see lots of chaos...

The Angel says: The limit for cycling should be exactly the same as for driving - zero. If a drunk driver and a drunk cyclist collide, you can hardly blame one more than the other, both lives (or worse) are potentially ruined.

The Devil says: Nothing beats stopping off at a country pub on a long, leisurely summer ride for a bite to eat and a really nice ale.

You'd never guess Road.cc is run by men.

Would love to see some of the footage. Presumably, for all the same reasons, we should be much better at drink-driving too. And drunken-surgery.

That study sounded like a fun way to spend a day

Where do we start? Irresponsible headline, daft study... Are you guys really this desperate for news?