Re-cabled the road bike yesterday, rolled out today and it seemed like something was wrong yep put the cables on the wrong mechs….

I put my front wheel on the wrong way round and wondered why the brake didn’t work.

Took my eye of the ball (and bike stand) when first building my BFe – ended up with my shiny new forks pointing upwards as the frame was upside down in the stand.

Once I didn’t align my valves with the tyre logos, still haunts me now.

@sandwicheater, I feel much better about myself now and importantly the bar tape is neat.

Re-cabled the road bike yesterday, rolled out today and it seemed like something was wrong yep put the cables on the wrong mechs

So you just attach cables without indexing?

Weirdo…

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away… I sheared a bolt because I didn’t know how the torque wrench worked – A Very expensive error.

And I put a tyre on back to front.

And I used the wrong compound tyre at a trail centre – it was a disaster. Hundreds died.

I was going to but there was some unexpected beer involved between removing and replacing. A quick spin up and down seemed so looked good – forgot to check this morning before heading out…

unexpected beer

!

🙂

And I used the wrong compound tyre at a trail centre – it was a disaster. Hundreds died.

That was you!!!! We lost good peeps that day 😥

@mike: I’m yet to put bar tape on successfully, always fluff it up. I don’t deserve to have thumbs.

I put a spacer in the wrong place on a cassette and spent ages trying to index the gears….

Changed a stem, and went out for a ride, bit of wobble from headset area, stripped it all back down, couldn’t find anything wrong, putting it back together I realised the top of the stem and the top of the fork steerer were flush. How I didn’t notice first time round God knows, added a spacer, and tried to forget about my stupidity

Offered to bleed a friends brakes. Syringe fitted to rear caliper, bucket fitted to front lever. Took me ages to remember that whilst I run my brakes Euro style, most people don’t.

had about half a dozen goes at truing a road wheel; just couldn’t get the wobble out

turned out to have a snapped axle

I’ll also add many years ago I decided to change a knackered brake hose 2 minutes after all the bike shops closed, you can guess how well that went – I swear the banjo fitting knew the shops were closed as it gave in.

I also tried to bleed brakes with the syringe on the wrong calliper…

Forgot to tighten up the crank arm bolts, only the plastic tentioner was holding it on. It lasted 12 miles until the crank & me hit the ground at speed whilst sprinting. Left quite a lot of skin behind that day in a Peraud stylee

I fitted 2 new tyres without checking the logo alignment to the rims. By pure bloody luck they were both within 10mm.
I should have bought a lottery ticket that day.

I took my bike in to the shop because I’d threaded my fork brake mount. Turned out I was using the wrong size bolt…

Cross threaded a bottom bracket into a carbon frame.

Shortening hoses….measure three times and still cut too short.
I ordered some cable outer for a full outer build online in a hurry, seemed cheap. Cheap when two one meter lengths arrived in the post.

Rear mech on my cross bike stopped changing down recently. After hours of twiddling barrel adjusters, stripping bar tape, poking around inside shifter with a screwdriver, turning the air blue and booting the bike round the shed a few times, realised that I had clamped the short length of gear cable that goes to the mech with the QR skewer when I had installed a pannier rack.

🙄

Plus too many elementary schoolboy error balls-ups to recount over the years.

I have no instinct for the mechanical side of bike ownership whatsoever.

Once tried to bleed a Formula brake with the screw still in the bleed port. it didn’t work well.

Building up my Ti tripster.. Cut the brand new carbon steerer too short.

Spent ages trying to figure out why the rear brake on my road bike wasn’t working only to realise that I’d clamped the cable in the stand

After taking off the mudguards, slicks and rack (from my commute) I didn’t notice that I had left my front reflector on. Been like it all week. Visited three three trail centres and no one pointed out my error. Saying that, I have not died!!

I am, however, amazed that there’s not a thread or photo mocking me on STW 😕

Over tightened a front caliper bolt and split the fork lower on a pretty new set of DT forks. Very expensive mistake, I have a torque wrench now

First ever mountain bike, threaded the pedal on the first go at putting them on. I was 10 or something. My dad fixed it by threading the pedal in from the other side. I recently used the same trick for a guest who had threaded his pedal!
First Chris King headset, put the crown race on upside down! Wore away a good bit of the bottom cup before I realised why it was so stiff!
Tightened the headset after that without releasing the pinch bolts… bang!
Blew tyre up to 90psi in my flat once trying to seat tubeless… BANG! Neighbours were trying to break the door down because they though it was a gas explosion and I couldn´t hear anything over the ringing in my ears.

Just a few that came to mind from back in the day. I´m a bit better now though and can generally fix anything without totally messing it up 😉

Two from last week. Put middle chainring on the wrong way around and spent a whole ride desperately trying to adjust the front mech to stop it jamming solid.

This was after spending the best part of an hour desperately trying to index the rear before realising that the middle (exposed ) section of the inner was trapped in the bike stand clamp…

Took the cassette off a wheel to change the bearings and left a spacer on the deck when replacing it. Did the Fred Whitton 4 seasons with no 5th gear. It was a long day.

Setting up the mtb singlespeed, put the spacers on the free hub, lock nut on and tightened only to realise I hadn’t put the cog on.

Only did it once…cut a steerer too short.

Stripped a chainset down and managed to re/mis-assemble granny, large, middle… in that order.

Only today – trying to replace a spoke in a hurry and wondering why the old nipple wouldn’t screw on to the new spoke, maybe if the old nipple didn’t have the broken thread from the old spoke it might’ve worked’

Once I replaced bearings and bushings in a pair of Time Atac pedals and rebuilt them on the wrong axles so they were backwards. It took me a while to work out why I couldn’t clip in.

put new oil seals in Marz forks, oriented them as per pics in the instructions (so I still maintain!). Stanchion a bit tough to push back in, but I persevered. The resistance and slight grinding sensation was the coil spring coming off the seal, sticking between the stanchion and the bushes, and gouging the stanchion along pretty much it’s full length.

Fitted a new chain and ran it around the outside of the seatstay- didn’t actually ride it like that though!

fitting a cassette in a hurry. With beer. It went on something like 12,13, 14,16,15. Took me a few miles to work it out.

Tried removing an XTR970 crank without first looking how it should be done.
Wrecked the threads after much brute force and ignorance was applied.

Fortunately it was a very well used example….

Mounted a rotor the wrong way round. It didn’t end well (for Teen1).

Cut a carbon fork (a little) too short. Was the omen for its theft I reckon.

Snapped a titanium stem bolt inside a nice Giant SLR stem. (I did eventually drill it out to save what would have been a rather costly mistake). Replaced the bolts with steel!

I once put a derailleur on a bike.