So, fitting shiny new vee brakes to the CX bike requires some slightly longer outers, but the inners are plenty long enough. Ordered some nice Jagwire outer from th’bay, and tonight, enjoying myself finishing it all off nicely.

Until… The almost instantaneous (but milliseconds too late) realisation that when cutting the outer to length, it’s a bad idea to still have the inner inside it. <grumpy Muttley muttering> so that’s the morning ride out, off to the bike shop instead. Bollox.

What instantaneous realisation of idiocy things have you done? Bike related or otherwise; it’ll make me feel better as I sit here and mutter grumpily.

Angle grinding an old frame in half to build a Frankenbike, I neglected to hold the front end being cut away.
I watched in slow motion as the now liberated front end fell, bounced & dented the top tube of the lads shiny Islabike.
😥

My mate dropped his newly unpacked Intense Carbine whilst carrying it to his shed to build.
It landed on a step, the corner of the step cracking a hole in the down tube.
He phoned the dealer in desperation, to get a price for a replacement.
A week later Intense, as a gesture of goodwill for his honesty, sent him a replacement, free of charge.

Just a few weeks ago I very carefully put the lowers back onto my forks after servicing, and only when attempting to fit them to the bike noticed they were on back-to-front.

Go back to square one: take off foot nuts, drain (new) oil, etc.

The realisation yesterday that I was about to slice into the end of my thumb with the bread knife but then carried on and sliced into it anyway!!

Sorry op but that made me laugh, I bet you were jut as annoyed as when I did the exact same thing. Frustrating isn’t it.

Cutting a brand new carbon steerer too short on my Tripster. I still can’t quite figure out how I managed to not engage my brain whilst measuring and then cutting without double checking..

I have a total inability to stop leaving things (new frames, tubs of filthy oil, glassware, …) balanced really precariously “just for a second” while I go to get/do something

How many **** times do I have to do it before I learn ?!

My neighbour (fortunately not easily offended) says I always shout the same thing when I do it) 😳

I finished a bike build the other day, popped a set of pedal fingertight on to test it out, looked down carefully as I rode gently forwards – axle staying put…. rode 2 m further forward [and past several old hands in the factory] – the RHS pedal drops out ruining the chainset threads.

FFS

As a kid, I was excited to receive an xmas Sigg bottle like the cool kids had at school! Legged it up the stairs to show my dad annnnd…. tripped on the steps and slammed it in to a step to break my fall.

Looked like a crushed drinks can after. That was that.

Oh goodness me, @scaredypants – you’re me :O

THis thread needs that picture from NW

Nah.

I hadn’t ridden my Ragley for a while so when I took it out for a testride before selling it, I wanted to check it all over. Took me a surprisingly long time to figure out why I couldn’t get the shock pump to thread onto the fork. Something to do with the coil conversion.

Building up my current bike, had bought myself a nice high quality set of gear cables and outers. It’s a bit too long of a loop on the RD so I undo the clamping bolt on the RD, pop the outer free to get access to cut. Admiring the perfect cut I notice I didn’t pull the inner back through so ruined that one snipping it far too short to be useful.
Ended up having to dash to halfords before it shut to find they only had some cheap POS inners left.
Probably psychosomatic, but the RD never shifted smoothly with that cable in

Re-assembling the roadie, forks held in with the friction from the headset top bearing cover, turned around to get the stem, and looked back to see the forks sliding slowly (it’s always slow-motion, isn’t it?) floorwards. Forks now have a chunk of paint missing from the end of one dropout

I just found my cable cutters by my greenhouse completely rusted up! They’ve been there six months through a pretty wet winter! That made me swear yesterday…

Just last night finishing building the OHs commuter. bar tape on everything looking good. Go to set brake blocks on front brake. Nothing happened, much confusion, tried again still nothing. Yep brakes set up European instead of uk. Took 5 minutes to sort but bar tape will never hold now.

Put a wrap of electrical tape on first but sticky side out.

Cutting chain to length and using big-big +2 links approach to measurement. Switched brain off and cut at -2 links. Only realised this a considerable time later as I battled to get the a new derailleur/cassette combo set up 😈

“Took 5 minutes to sort but bar tape will never hold now.”

why not ? find someone who can wrap it proper. Sticky backed bartape is for people who cant wrap bars 😀

Agree about bartape.

Is it Northwind who has a photo of his upside down fork?

Last week I was putting new hoses on the brakes. Both the old ones had chaffed being transported.

I measured twice. Cut once. Then realised I’d cut the length for the front out of the longer piece for the rear!

Using a knife to cut through a cable tie and sawing it from underneath upwards, with me leaning over looking down. Knife eventually slices through with the inevitable speed of light acceleration into my FACE.

It was only thanks to it being a rare day I was wearing my glasses that the nose bridge stopped me slicing my skull open.

Idiot.

Is it Northwind who has a photo of his upside down fork?

Yes

i once fitted a shimano xt hollotech crank using a torque wrench and the correct torques – in the correct 1-2-1-2-1-2 manor till they were both the desired torque.

The crank fell off on the first ride

I went back to doing it by hand till they were snug.

I did this after a service a few weeks ago.. except I ended up with the crown round the wrong way. I claim I was testing to see how the bike would handle with a super-short trail geometry..

I was knocking a headset out and when I finally got the cup out I caught it and let the copper tool drop. It sliced straight through the sidewall of my £65 new tyre that was setup tubeless on the bike next to where I was working. About 2cm! 👿

joshvegas – Member

Is it Northwind who has a photo of his upside down fork?

NO.

Balanced molgrips (the tool not the ECU fettler) on my saddle while working on the bike.

Leaned bike over to gain access to rear mech. Molgrips fell off, so I instinctively went to ‘catch’ them with my foot and they landed squar on the end of my toe.

Couldn’t swear either as I had a bunch of the wife’s family round so I just had to hop about pulling a face while it throbbed like something out of a tom and jerry cartoon.

Quite a few years ago I’d just fitted a brand new front tyre. Clearance seemed fine at first but it rubbed on the fender all the way down the first descent. So I got my swiss army knife out to cut the zip ties, slipped and shoved it straight through the sidewall.

I still sweat a bit when cutting steerers on pricy new forks.

Put on bike, spacers on, stem on, mark the steerer.
Have a think.
Measure everything just to be sure.
Measure again.
Take apart.
Measure against old forks.
Have a think to make sure nothing has been done wrong.
Build up again, chaeck the mark is in the right place.
Add 5mm just to be sure.
Measure the headtube again.
Study everything carefully.
Leave the shed for a another cooling off think.
Approach fork with confidence and a fine toothed hacksaw.

Chop.

Stop just before the cut gets too deep.
Measure everything again.
Carry on chopping. 🙂

I’ve also done the inner cable still in while chopping outer thing…..

i once fitted a shimano xt hollotech crank using a torque wrench and the correct torques – in the correct 1-2-1-2-1-2 manor till they were both the desired torque.

The crank fell off on the first ride

I went back to doing it by hand till they were snug.

When I got my shiny new Lauf forks I used the correct torque on the axle and it came loose during the first ride. Thankfully I noticed it before any damage done 😕 Nipped it up to what felt ‘right’ and has been fine since then.

Then I got a second set of Laufs, these being shiny and new, I used the torque wrench again, two different ones just to be safe.
Battered it round Laggan black and the axle was (scarily!) finger tight when I got to the bottom 🙄 No more torque wrench for me…

My mate asked me to ride his bike as it felt “funny” he had put the cranks back on at completely the wrong positions.

g5604 – My mate asked me to ride his bike as it felt “funny” he had put the cranks back on at completely the wrong positions.

I put my cranks on at something like 12 and 7 o’clock positions, I blamed the odd feeling on the oval chainring (which I’d not yet fitted) for a good 10 yards before checking.

Bought a second-hand tag-a-long for my youngest a few years back. It was grey and pink and very ropey looking so i thought i’d treat it to a new paint job to match my 456SS. I had it prepped and ready to paint but it was a little windy out so i propped open the shed door to hide it from the wind, hung it off that and began spraying. Several coats of candy apple red and large helping of glittered lacquer and it was looking good. Contented, I left it for the rest of the day to dry in the breeze. Later that evening i began to build it back up and flicked on the shed light to get some tools only to reveal a giant home-made geode. The wind assisted over spray had lightly coated everything withing eight feet of the door. It was very pretty 😀

were you ever in the navy “thepodge”

Not bike related, but I had my brand new kayak on the roof of the car. Had untied it, then realised I needed something out of the boot – not windy at all so kayak was happily sitting on the roof, I left it and opened the boot. When boot lid opened it lifted the kayak off the roof bars from where it rolled off the side of the car, hit rudder first which bust the rudder and put a hole in the kayak. To put it in context, this kayak cost more than most bike frames. Oh, and I’d driven for 1.5 hours to get to the sea for the trip I was planning on doing – not the most fun hour and a half drive home. I never have done that trip.

Aligning my front caliper, undid bolts and gave wheel a spin. For reasons unknown then decided to stop the wheel by sticking one of my finger ends in disc. Sharp pain. Some blood. Couldn’t look. Had to get my missus to check I’d not cut the end off, thankfully the nail had taken the brunt of the force which came off a few weeks later.
RM.

Is it Northwind who has a photo of his upside down fork?

Not that one?

Stripping parts off my eldest’s new bike to sell on. Not used crank puller for ages, so made sure I started on non drive side just in case…

Screwed puller onto crank – seemed to go on easily. Few less turns than I remember but it’ll be reet. Give it some welly with long allen key, lots of resistance then a nice moment when the crank starts to slide off…

Except it didn’t. I’d slightly cross threaded the puller onto the crank and it’d stripped the top turn or two of thread out.

Took it to the bike shop this morning!

The steerers on all my bikes are hideously excessively long for a good reason. I could never trust myself to do it right.

That sounds about right for you Rich 😛

Mind you forgetting to properly tighten the faceplate bolts on a new stem on my CX bike, resulting in a OTB into the undergrowth on the first little drop should have taught me not to finish bikes off after lots of red wine.

Another one. New spd’s purchased mid ride – different make to what I already had meant different cleats so I was a bit unsure about alignment.

My youthful brain persuaded me it’d be ok to do the bolts on the shoes up finger tight to check alignment. So I did just that, jumped on the bike and clipped in. And then couldn’t clip out as the cleats just spun around.

So I rode round and round a park bench trying to figure out if I could fall off/prop myself up/balance/whatever to get out. Thank the lord for velcro straps! After a couple of minutes I just took my shoes off.