Getting the bike out of the cellar this morning, I was in my usual clumsy, headless-chicken morning mode. Whip the bike round KLANG, SNAP, CRUNCH TINKLE. The early morning, more expensive equivalent of the breakfast cereal.

I'd swung the bike round and lamped the rear mech on the door. Result: one XT rear mech with the cage snapped in half. D'oh!!!

Your moments of stupidity please

that's why you commute on a singlespeed 😉

Removed my 10 month old SID Teams to send off to TF for servicing, only to find that the crown race had been loose and had rubbed a groove into the steerer.

They are a right off.

Not really my fault as such but the occasional check may have helped.

I normally do fella. The idea was to go straight out for a ride after work though as the suns out so the 'proper' bike came out. Ho hum. That'll learn me

i reversed my car over my last helmet…

At the end of a big day's riding in the Alps, I was gently pedalling out of the saddle down a road towards the chalet. Top of leg armour caught on X0 shifter trigger…snap. That'll be £30 for a new trigger please sir 😯

Got angry with my stuck Avid Juicy piston so tw4tted it with a big screwdriver. It crumbled, DOT fluid went everywhere.

Oops.

I now have easier to service Elixirs!

Fumbled my L&M Arcs while putting them on. No ride for me that night, just a $160 bill for a new bulb.

I was hooning down the spiral ramp into the car park at work this morning and found out that High Rollers don't corner on concrete very well.
Deep scratch on the top tube, torn saddle.

****, and in the past five minutes I've just put a finger through my icebreaker merino top 😥 .

bike – putting pedals onto a brand new xt crankset a few yrs ago with a brand new Park Tools pedal spanner that was a good bit longer than my old one – nip it up, a wee bit more……bang – crank arm thread fecked.

non bike – about 15 yrs ago – left house in a bad mood, reversed my company discovery too fast, bang, straight into the back of wife's car – was a ford escort – need new tailgate, glass etc etc.

Brought new crankset, got lazy fitting pedal, brought another new crankset 😳

One of my SRAM shifters jammed on a ride. Not that stupid in itself.

Opening up a shifter at the side of the track to try and repair it, that was pretty stupid.

Opening up the wrong shifter, that was really stupid 😳

years ago over jumped a double by so much I landed into the face of the next jump then had my mate who was following me landed on me,
result a brand new set of Rockshox so bent the wheel would go round in them and not being able to walk properly for a couple of weeks.

If you want really stupid and dont mind OT, I once unloaded 30 cases of eggs on to a pallet behind my lorry, jumped in the cab, and, seeing someone had parked in front of me, reversed straight over the lot.

i pulled the stans valve into the rim at the weekend.
i'll just tighten that valve, it's a bit lose i'll tighten some more, it's getting loose not tight, lets keep turning the collar so it pops into the rim and you have to pick the rubber grommet off with a scalpel to remove it.

it wasn't even losing air, should have left it alone. ****.

Brother (yes, truly) has wrecked two rear mechs on his bike because the light board he uses constantly bangs against the rear mech when he uses it.

Does a motorbike count?

I was riding along and got really annoyed with the front brake squeaking like mad so I grabbed the lever and pulled it really hard, that'll learn it.

Cut a full length shifter cable on the bike to make it easier to replace, then watched the fluid dripping out the end…

Many years ago the end ferrule on the throttle cable came off on an mx bike. No spare cable, so I bodged it by tying the cable end into a knot through the piece of the housing with pliers. Felt a bit sticky, but I though it would be ok'ish. Second gear start in the next moto, throttle stuck wide open, bike looped out, I went out the back, bike went down, still in second at full throttle, wheel hit the ground and threw the whole bike about 10 feet in the air. When I got to the thing and dragged the clutch in even the kill button seemed to take an eternity to stop the engine. Damned lucky it didn't land on me, or hit anyone else.

The classic, cutting down the gear cable outer….with the inner still inside, cue new inner.

Not bike related, about 20yrs ago Just after passing my class 1 hgv got some work in a big dairy, 40ft trailer full of crates of bottled milk, got to the distribution centre unhooked the air lines pulled the 5th wheel pin, got in unit and pulled away, forgot to wind the legs down
I can still hear the sound of smashing glass on quiet nights 😳

Cut some "seized" XT cranks off to discover that i'd been using a park CP4 not a CP6 and therefore were never seized at all.

Edit: …And to add insult to injury it took bloody ages because the saw was blunt.

we should get together for the worlds most ginormous ommelette 🙂

Straightened bent titanium rails on a seat post with a hammer.

Reversed a fleet car into a bollard at work once (they kind of deserved it banned us from using taxis to save money and "self-insured" the cars) but that might not have been such a bad idea had just thrown my hat into the ring for VR.

On a lighter note, working for the local council as a vacter/jetter unit operator we were called to a house with a blockage in the sewer pipe only to be confronted with mr angry moaning that his drains were blocked and the council are responsible for clearing it and he would sue if it wasn't sorted asap, we got the hose in and after much pushing and pulling we found the blockage, a 6inch black dildo and a full set of female Rigging
"we've found the blockage sir" 😆

I knew my forks were slightly bent so I wasn't sure what prompted me to jump a mahoosive double flight of stairs… it ended badly… very badly.

Once locked my keys in my car …the engine was running at the time.
Once turned up to do the high street with a mate and forgot to put a chain on my bike and realised when we got there
Rode lee quarry in the dark and kept catching knee pads did not realis ewhy. Next time there three days later saw the main pivot /shock bolt had snapped so hot it back in with a rock and used duck tape to secur eit. Jumped the whoops/double to test it was working [ what was I thinking off] thanksfully it was and i did not test any further
Binners I have a normal XT mech if you want it e-mail me …for money obviously not a gift 😉

Hope Hed Doctor – "maybe just another 1/4 turn…."

Once turned up to do the high street with a mate and forgot to put a chain on my bike and realised when we got there

I bet you shouted and swore the sky down that day! 😥

Bike related: – Far too many… Notables include:

Overtightening the end cap on my new Hope Headset, the resulting "Snap" from the sheared bolt was also the harbinger of the news that I needed brand new bearings too.

Managing to bodge a RH pedal into an LH crank. The cranks are long dead, but nothing will extract the pedal axle, which has claimed two allen keys and broken a vice. Blame beer assisted cycle maintenence.

After fitting brand new SLX/XT shifters and mech to my Enduro I couldn't get the barrel adjuster quite right. Turns out I'd left the last loop of outer cable three inches too short. That'll be a brand new inner please…

Somehow snapping the 12mm axle on my bolt-thru Bulbs in three places. In truth this may be a manufacturing defect, but it's too cataclysmic not to brag about here.

Non bike related breakages:

Destroying three bottles of spirits, their optics and assiciated wall fittings whilst attempting to keep a tray full of glasses from falling to the ground whilst working behind a bar. Thankfully, the landlord's daughter fancied me and duly sweet talked my way out of that one.

The best thing I have seen is a "friend" trying to get stuck seatpost out of a frame. He wedged it between poles and tied a rope onto motocross bike. It ripped the frame right in half ha ha.

Junkyard. Luckily my previous acts of stupidity have left me with a fair old collection of Xt mechs in the garage. I'll definatly be able to salvage a cage off one of them. In fact there's one with a straight cage but the actual body of the mech is sheered clean in half. I managed to do this on the footpath on the way back from the pub

Ruined the start of a crank thread on my GF's bike by trying to fit the wrong pedal. After realising, I managed to get the right pedal on – "plenty of good thread left". 5k into the next ride the pedal fell off as the rest of the thread had worked though. She not happy.

How many times have you rushed to fit a new inner tube but failed to remove the thorn the popped the old one?

So many… but breaking a saddle with my testicles was something I'm not keen to repeat.

I broke my new chainwhip tool that I bought just to do my friends wheel, I tried using it on his screw on freehub and it broke.

I fitted a crank & square BB to friends bike, told him he would need to tighten it up after about 10 miles (he never did despite me telling him everyday).. 3 weeks later and nearly 200 miles we were at ashton court and he complained it didnt feel right. I got on his bike pushed down and the crank arm fell off. New crank & BB needed!

Surely everyone's done the pedal on backwards thing?

In my case (fortunately on my shopping hack) I threaded a LH pedal into the driveside crank. As the cranks were a non-standard size (38T outer – anyone remember Shimano Altus ca. 1995?) this resulted in not only new cranks, but a new front mech as the old one was an E-type & not tall enough.

Fortunately, the pedal was fine.

Andy

Laptop + Coffee = Oops.
Thankfully the hard drive was undamaged.

Hed Doctor bolt just 'nipping up' the headset

Thread on a pair of Manitou Blacks just 'nipping up' a calliper

I now have a torque wrench

Top of tramway road in Brecon, Stopped to take in view, stumbled as I got back on, banged knee on handlebars, realised I'd snapped the downshift lever off the rear shifter so it was a 3 speed from then on..

Top of tramway road in Brecon seat bolt snapped, saddle fell off. Back to camp site to try to sort out new bolt.

Before we set off to go up the tramway road, just checking out the bike. nipped up the cable clamp bolt, the bolt head sheared off..

I've got a thing about Brecon….

Shopping for a few items last week in Carrefour French supermarket I dropped 2 cartons of milk on the floor resulting in a big white puddle. Noone saw so I left quickly with no milk 🙁

5 days later, same supermarket chain different branch, I nudged 2 cases of red wine with my trolley causing 12 bottles to smash on the floor and a vast, vast red lake for the lady in the sit on Hoover to clear up.

Clumsy.