Went to clean the bike yesterday after leaving it after the ride the previous day. Noticed the retaining pin from its hope brakes sitting on the workbench where it’d been sitting whilst I was riding, instead of in the caliper.

Bugger.

The retaining pin that holds the pads in?

Yes. The pin, you know?

Always thought they were unnecessary

Ok I was fibbing. With luck like that you need a lottery ticket this week.

On the topic of the thread title. I would say I’ve had as many of these moments as the ‘oh bollocks’ ones. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t be around to type this post!

It doesn’t provide the reaction against braking force, but they aren’t fully secured without it. They were quite skewiff when I checked and one piston was stuck at an angle.

I didn’t quite thing it qualified for ‘oh bollocks’ – since I only discovered after I returned home safe.

‘Yes. The pin, you know?”

Oooh, feeling a little precious at all? I was just asking, dahling.

I take my wheel off to change my pads, no way of removing them with the wheel in place.
Better system?
Having discs with *sufficient metal in the braking surface means that pad changes are very infrequent, mind.

Pulled a wheelie away from my house once, down the path, and then stopped to investigate what I thought was a loose headset.
Handlebar and half the stem came off in my hand due to a crack in the weld of the stem.

*any takers for this theory?

I found one of those pins during a dog walk at the bottom of a rocky decent.

Didn’t see anyone out riding and always wondered if they ended up in a brake related mishap on the trail.

Changed brake pads in a hurry with a 2yo running under my feet. Later, top of a flat-out descent, looked down and thought something wasn’t quite right…

I’ll not laugh at photos of Tesco BSOs with the fork on backward again 😳

You were lucky it was just your brakes, I had a similar incident with a hand grenade*

*this may not actually be true.

Went to drop my Mum’s Mothers day card off a couple of years ago, parents have probably a 20m long straight driveway on a slight slope. Park my wife’s Golf, go up to the house, have a brew, head back down to the car, it’s gone!!!!
Thinking it’s been nicked, get that horrible sick feeling as I reach for my phone ready to inform my wife, I look up to find it has rolled out the drive, straight across the A15 up the kerb over the pavement and reversed into the house across’s garden wall.
Not only have I not killed anybody (it still to this day gives me the shivers when I think how lucky I’ve been!), but the car passed perfectly through 2 concrete gate posts, with about 20cm either side of the wing mirrors. The kerb must have slowed it down before it hit the wall.
Result? One smashed rear light cluster and a slight scuff on the bumper. Nobody had even seen a thing or even come over to the house to tell anybody and I must have been in the house 10-15 minutes? I started it up and drove away, nobody any the wiser.
I always leave it in gear now when I park.
This is how I know I will never get a lottery win.

While using a circular saw and felt a prickle in my eye. Went to the mirror and a ruddy great wood chip was embedded into the eye and stick out.

Pulled it out and carried on working but with goggles.

In a similar vein to redted, sat in a queue of traffic with the OH and her niece & nephew in the back of the car. Traffic moved off, and as I moved forward something caught my attention in my mirror – a car had rolled down a steep drive, shot across the road through the space I was just occupying and rolled into the field next to the road.

The errant car missed everything and everyone despite rolling over a very busy road. I suspect it wouldn’t even have been damaged, save for a bit of kerbing, as it landed in a nice soft field.

Phew!

Bloke next door to me blacked out whilst riding up a dual carriageway last week. Woke up with the driver of the first car along parked next to his shoulder blade and visibly shaken.

sbob – Member
“I take my wheel off to change my pads, no way of removing them with the wheel in place.”

Oh yes there is, i’ve see the results of hope pads coming out.

Hit a patch of black ice doing about 50, yawning ditches and trees either side, executed a perfect 360 without leaving the road and was able to change down and carry on. I’d normally credit my awesome skills, but I had no input whatsoever apart from a bit of a death grip on the wheel.

I was working on the motorbike in my freezing garage, not really enough space to move so kicking things around the floor… Heard a hissing sound, looked over, and I’d kicked the petrol can right in front of my fan heater- it’d heated up and swollen up enough to inflate the plastic can like a balloon. Kind of glad that didn’t split!

Hit a patch of black ice doing about 50, yawning ditches and trees either side, executed a perfect 360 without leaving the road and was able to change down and carry on. I’d normally credit my awesome skills, but I had no input whatsoever apart from a bit of a death grip on the wheel.

I had something similar on a little back lane, except the lane was only just wider than the length of my car with raised verges.

I somehow ended up side-ways on in the road and had to do a 1,953,762-point-turn to get facing the right way again.

Total damage, a bit of the grassy verge stuck in the fog-light cavity…

Got to the bottom of a few descents to see a wobbly QR, swinging loosely in the wind. Particularly on my old spesh wheels, their QR was a POS.

Had my front wheel collapse on the Eastern side of Breasty Haw descent on the steep fast bit after the switchback catapulted into the air and as the gound is falling away at a similar rate to that at which I falling I kind of run throught the air for a bit as though on those kung-fu flying wires (if that makes sense) bike catches on camel back, smacks me on the head a few times as it bounces along i go head first into an big patch of super springy moss and the bike goes sailing past without touching me but as it’s still attached to the camelbak spins me round and dumps me on another big springy patch of moss. Get up up totally unscathed.

I had some Bontrager Aeolus wheels with tyres that were a loose fit. I used Hutchinson Fusions, which were a bit of a loose fit…

Out on a ride I got to the bottom of a 40mph descent to find about 4″ of tyre bead sat on top of the brake track. Deflated the tyre, reseated, barely pumped it up and gingerly rode home. Replaced tyres

I’m an airline pilot, and take my bikes away on trips. Atlanta is a favourite cycling destination of mine, but I’ve had 3 bad ones there.

1. Coming out of hotel Carpark, I duck under the security barrier. Security guard sees me and kindly raises the barrier – which has caught on my Camelbak, and catapults me across the Carpark!!

2. Riding out of hotel, I turn into the road. Bars turn, but not wheels, as I didn’t tighten the stem bolts when reassembling my bike!!!

3. Coming down the ramp from the hotel to the main road, I apply the brakes, but there’s nothing there!! I put both feet down and skid, but it’s steep and I ain’t stopping, so I aim for the hotel shrubbery!! I hadn’t flipped down the brake adjusters after putting the wheels back in.

I check my bike much more carefully these days!!

Please can you post up regular updates on which flights you’ll be piloting ?

Ta.

😉

😈

last few miles back into town on a group ride horrible winters day. Look down trying to sus out the tick tick tick assuming it was a leaf catching the very fine tolerance (crud catcher racers on roadie) mud guards. Stop to find a 1.5 inch piece of metal stuck in the tire, b0ll0cks! go to take it out…………no hissing no nothing…wait a bit..nope no puncture. Must have gone in at such a shallow angle. Not very rock and roll I know but amazed me all the same.

sbob – Member
“I take my wheel off to change my pads, no way of removing them with the wheel in place.”
Oh yes there is, i’ve see the results of hope pads coming out.

To add to this, yes it can happen with Shimano brakes too. I grabbed a handful of brake at a race once, and nothing happened. Was only a flat corner, and the back brake, so nowt happened. Forgot the pin, went back and found my pads on the trail 😳

Back when I was young and had just passed my driving test I was approaching a junction with a main road from a side road. Stopped, looked right, saw nothing, looked left, road was clear, went to pull out and stalled.

As I moved my hand to restart the car a motorbike went NNNNNNnnnnrrrrrr past the front bumper from the right.

Hadn’t seen it at all. It still shivers me to think what would have happened if I hadn’t accidentally stalled at exactly the right moment.

I had travelled about 250 kms of a 500 km highway trip when I finally decided that the banging coming from my front tyre/wheel was not just something caught in the wheel well. I couldn’t see anything, so drove it to a garage in the nearest town. The guy checked and came out to see me.

“Who last changed the tyres?” he asked.

“Me,” I responded. “I switched over from winter to summer tyres last week.”

“Well you didn’t tighten the lug nuts. At all.”

😯

Ok, I give in, that brake up there. I can’t see it.

Edit, NOW I see it, crikey.

It took me a while. The shoe is fitted backwards AND there’s no retaining pin.

Riding locally I managed a major over the bars moment, landing on my back. Lying on the ground slightly winded I go to roll up, only to find I’m smack bang between 2 metal spikes, both about 15cm long and firmly dug into the ground. I now take that section MUCH slower.

Commuting back from uni last term I go to apply the brakes coming down the biggest hill on campus, only to realize I had unhooked the wires on both cantis, flying around the 90 degree corner at the bottom I had to swerve between a parked delivery van and oncoming bus, shoulders touching both sides at some point in the maneuver. I now always check my brakes as I get on the bike.

Whereabouts was that?

Commuting to work down a very steep hill I saw a car coming up the hill. At this point hit a massive patch of black ice, hit the deck and continued to slide on my back down the hill towards the car. Its a narrow lane so i’m convinced i’m going under the wheels. I manage to sit up while still sliding and bounce my back down the off side of the car before coming to a stop. a few metres behind. I’m not sure who came closer to death, me or the old dear driving? I had some some good road rash but she went very grey and I thought she was going to have a heart attack.

Whereabouts was that?

Oxfordshire (Stonesfield to be more specific), not up in loughborough

Back in the days when I had QRs front and rear, I used these lightweight Superstar ones for a little while, which turned out to be a mistake.

I was leading the junior category in a Thetford Winter series race, and hammering it down the ‘moto’ section, which is a flat out, straight ish bit of trail with loads of pumps that you can double up if you’re going fast enough.
I did this, and as I landed I felt big thump from the front end, and the steering went really vague. I hauled on the stoppers, and as I came to a stop, the front wheel fell out!
I’m just glad it stayed in until I landed…

njee20 – Member
sbob – Member
“I take my wheel off to change my pads, no way of removing them with the wheel in place.”
Oh yes there is, i’ve see the results of hope pads coming out.
To add to this, yes it can happen with Shimano brakes too. I grabbed a handful of brake at a race once, and nothing happened. Was only a flat corner, and the back brake, so nowt happened. Forgot the pin, went back and found my pads on the trail

Yep, happened to my SLX brakes a few weeks ago at Afan. I’d just gone into Sidewinder when I heard a clattering from the back, tried to slow and guessed what had happened. Found both pads and the spring. Forgetting to put the pin in is a really stupid thing to do!

Does nobody know how to footjambrake any more? One of the great riding arts of our youth…

Halfway through doing up an old Raleigh stepthrough for a commuter my GF, I needed to head into town for something. Went to jump on my commuter and it had a flat. Rather than sort it, I’ll just take the Raleigh and give it a shakedown of the stuff I’ve done so far (changed gear cables and sorted indexing, but not yet done the brakes, the front stops well even though the rear hardly does anything).

Anyway, heading down Parkstreet, the fairly steep and long (and busy) hill in the middle of Bristol, I was stuck near the top behind a car indicating and moving very slowly, trying to make its mind up to park or pull in or turn left or something. Quick look ahead and plenty of room to let off the brakes, spin up to speed, jam them on again and dive back into the lane.

So I let off the brakes, cranked up to speed, jammed on the brakes, remembered the rear wasn’t working too well but the front does most of the work and should be fine. Distance to the large bus coming up the hill would be a lot shorter than planned though…

At which point the rusty cable for the front brake snapped.

Still accelerating, not being any good at the footjambrake thing, I went for a gap between the van ahead of me in my lane and the bus I was heading straight towards. Narrow handlebars meant I just brushed first the bus side then the vans mirror, miracle number one. Number two was that the road was totally empty at rush hour on my side of all cars, people, bikes etc, the lights halfway down were green, and I managed to scuff shoe brake to a stop by the time the hill levels out. My face went white, drained of blood, and heart was at a million BPM. Then casually jumped off the bike and leant it up, pretended to fiddle for a moment before walking off with it. Not sure anyone even noticed, maybe the bus driver!