When something just becomes completely apparent but you’ve been blind to it for ages

Today I received some bearings in the post for the Spearfish, so decided to fit them, it’s only when I twirled the new ones in my fingers and the old ones.. I realised just how completely destroyed my current bearings are…

Oops…

Then back onto bearing suppliers site for another couple of sets of various bearings I need to now replace the whole set…

“oh….right.. I see…”

Investigating some creaking from the headset. Dropped the forks out and the bottom of the headtube was so flared the bottom cup dropped out with the forks.

Bike related?

A rattle heard through the frame of my CX’er started to really get annoying and I checked everything (I thought I had) Damn if it didn’t rattle for a good few rides and I just couldn’t trace it..

Asked on here, a bloke said “cassette’s come loose mate on yer freehub”

Thought “yeah riiiiighyt” 🙄
.
.
.
It was just that..

Oh, I thought! I check it regularly now.

Whilst riding the Capital Trail earlier in the year, all of a sudden my brake lever (cable discs) felt like the cable had stretched by about an inch in one go, I duly adjusted the cable and carried on. I later noticed that the pivot for the brake lever was missing and the lever was just pivoting against the handlebar, hmmmmm.

Nice work nedrapier, good to know there’s at least some out there off this forum who ride hard (thumbs up)

Took my “steed” into the LBS as I just couldn’t get the gearing to run smoothly – thought it was maybe a slightly bent hanger?

Had a phone call from LBS.

“You’ve cracked your frame”

Yeah, that would do it…

Had a bit of an off at Cannock a few years ago. Got up and dusted myself off, but the front brake just did not seem to be working. It’s only when I got to the cafe that I realised the crash had sheared the bottom of the lever support off and the lever was just closing on air.

Which is not good for hydraulic disks.

Servicing my headset last night. I’m terrible at maintenance and agonised for ages over whether to take it to the shop or try myself. Reluctantly decided to do myself and heart in mouth started to disassemble….then took out the cartridges, cleaned, re-lubed and put back as I found it.

Total job time- 25 mins including discussing local parking issues with my neighbour.

Now I see.

The back end of my ASR5 just wouldn’t stop knocking, despite tightening bolts and replacing bushings. Numerous times.eventually took it to the shop. Cracked in 2 places, as well as the dog bone linkage.

Right then!

Took my first suspension frame into a bike shop as it had started handling really oddly, snapping from understeer into oversteer round corners

Bearings on the swingarm were a tad worn and it turned out the back end had about 2-3 inches of free movement each side

Had an irritating knocking on the front end. Put it down to the “bit o play” that’s apparent on the top of travel on pikes. It got worse so I spent a good hour trying to isolate it. In my rush to build my bike over Xmas I had cleverly fitted crown race upside down.

Couldn’t sort the gears on an orange five a few years back. A couple of frustrating rides later I took the back wheel out to find the hub axle had snapped and everything just fell to pieces. 😳

Duggan – Member
Servicing my headset last night. I’m terrible at maintenance and agonised for ages over whether to take it to the shop or try myself. Reluctantly decided to do myself and heart in mouth started to disassemble….then took out the cartridges, cleaned, re-lubed and put back as I found it.

Total job time- 25 mins including discussing local parking issues with my neighbour.

Now I see.

I’ve been putting off doing this for a few weeks now because I suspected an infrequent creak was dirt in the headset. Inspired by your post, I decided to do it tonight.

Bottom bearing (a sealed cartridge bearing) was so manky and rusted that it’s fallen apart, little balls all over the floor. Oh well, replacements ordered 🙄 My “oh… right…” moment was realising that my part of Scotland is so wet and muddy that I ought to service the headset more than once a year!

After a couple of runs down a French mountain the back end of my zesty was knocking. Did the drop test big knock, tried lateral pressure nice amount of play, was retiring the bike to the car lamenting the loss of fun when I noticed the loose bolt. Ohhhhh, right.

Easy fix.

Irritating clicking coming from transmission which after a cursory look I put down to a BB shell coming loose. Tightened it up but clicking continued. Eventually had a better look and discovered inside plate of the quick link had snapped. I had ridden 40-50 miles with half a connecting link

Riding into uni one morning the steering felt a bit vague, lifted the bike into a rack to lock it up anticipating walking the rest of the way and coming back for it later on, the fork fell out! Well, the lower half did, the upper half and stem stayed where they where as the steerer had snapped!

Turns out that the previous day I’d:
a) I’d invented the gnarmac genre after getting bored mid way round the Peak on a road ride.
b) Found the limits of the 1″ steerer tube riding down the beast!

Spent half an hour trying to find out why the rear brake on my daughter’s bike had suddenly lost all power. Aahh that will be the outer ferrule at the lever that’s not sat in the adjuster, bloody V-brakes.

Riding round llandegla a couple of months back, I was getting a ton of brake fade off the front end really quickly into braking so I thought I must’ve contaminated the pads. No worries, I’ve got spare pads in the car, I’ll change them at the hotel later that night.
Got back to the hotel went to the bike, swapped the pads, pulled on the lever as I was bent down looking at the brake just to make sure the pistons were moving ok and got a squirt of mineral oil go past the end of my nose from the over-pressure valve on the saint lever. Damn thing’d blown a valve and was loosing fluid. Pads were totally fine.

rattle noise on the road bike getting increasingly loud over the past few weeks. went over everything, repacked the saddlebag, simply could not find the source. This morning I noticed that the bottle cage was loose.

On a non bike related note, I only sussed recently that breakfast is break fast, as in breaking your overnight fast.

Fruitless hour or so spent trying to index crap shifting rear gears. Eventually the penny dropped that the bike was clamped by the top tube, partially-trapping the exposed inner running underneath.

I also recall the first time I bled brakes, Avid 7’s. I followed the Youtube guide step by step being ultra careful. Was all going fine until I tried pushing the new fluid into the system and the syringe wouldn’t budge. Took about 20 mins of faffing before I clicked that the youtube guide was america, I was trying to bleed the front brake whilst connected to the left lever.

I swapped some brakes from one bike to another & despite the forks being exactly the same model, the hose was somehow exiting the caliper at 3 o’clock instead of 1 o’clock like it did previously, making the hose a bit unsightly… (wait for it) a bit of fiddling & mopping up brake fluid later it was at a more respectable angle, bled the brakes & was ready to go – only then did I notice the pads weren’t hitting the disc properly because i’d attached the brake mount upside down… ohhh, right… had to do it all again as the when the brake was mounted correctly, the hose was pointing back at the forks instead of straight up 😕

Fruitless hour or so spent trying to index crap shifting rear gears. Eventually the penny dropped that the bike was clamped by the top tube, partially-trapping the exposed inner running underneath.

I have also done exactly the same thing as this.

After a year’s solid use, I was starting to think that the brakes (Trp Hy/Rds) on my trusty commuter bike weren’t feeling as nice and firm as they used to, with a lot of lever pull. I mentally filed this away, thinking that it’d all be sorted with a nice Shimano 105 upgrade to fully hydraulic when the drivetrain wears out.

Anyway, last month I finally get around to replacing the (unsurprisingly extremely worn) brake pads. Next ride out the brakes feel as new again.

Yeah, that does make sense…

cable in clamp +1

also the old classics of:

chain the wrong way around the tab on the derailleur cage
cables/hoses left routed wrongly after shock/pivot disassembly
tyres round the wrong way

Quicklink put back together without the roller in the middle of the link. 30 mile ride with hideous clunking sound being blamed on pedals, bottom bracket, jockey wheels etc.

About 50km into a road ride last week whenever I pedalled hard or bounced the bike I started hearing a horrible very loud, knocking/banging/creaking sound which I couldn’t diagnose. I was having a bit of a worry because I was about to hit a long, fast, twisty descent where if it turned out to be a crack it could result in a nasty crash.

After several minutes of fevered inspection I couldn’t find anything so I rode fairly cautiously down the hill to the bike shop at the bottom. Just before calling into the shop I had one last look over the bike – it turned out that the hose on my frame pump had slipped out and was rattling against the downtube.

During a 100km race I had this annoying intermittent clicking from the drivetrain. Carried on, about 50 yards from the finish on the last lap my chain broke. Inspection revealed that the clicking was the side of one link that’d bent and was rubbing on things. I’d ridden about 80km with one link only held together by the plate on one side.

Annoying click from steering end of my CX Commuter, for about 6 months.
Replaced headset which didn’t sort it. Checked Quick releases, fork for cracks. Decided to grease up all the stem bolts when I realised the faceplate was cracked and held on by a bolt less than it should be.

Never mind.

I’ll take the faceplate off the stem on the Singlespeed commuter, its the exact same stem and funny that bike has also been making a similar creak for 3 years now…

Oh right then

Planet-x superlight stems.
Light, cheap and crap. Faceplates cracked on 3 of them, and I even own a wee torque key so I know they weren’t done up gorilla tight

Tried to reinflate punctured tyre. Didn’t work. Fitted tube. Discovered punctured rim

Had a bit of play in back of bike. Tightened up QR which improved things, but not perfect and it got worse again. Eventually the seatstay completely snapped rather than just being broken part way round. That was over a year after I first noticed the play.