[Closed] Most frustrating mechanicing job? My vote is....

- Buy better toleranced headset/different frame

Yeah these days headsets are a doddle - unless the bearings are knackered.

Traditional headsets (and to a lesser degree cup and cone hubs) are annoying as the locknut affects the preload on the bearings, there's much more of a knack to it. And with the traditional ones the locknut NEVER stayed put on a mountain bike!

I was building a front wheel yesterday and dropped a nipple in the rim. Sometimes they shake straight out, sometimes they are a right pain and worst of all it was my own stupid fault for dropping it 🙁

Anything on a BSO.

get handlebars 100% straight!

Looks good - get on and ride - nope smidge out, get off adjust, looks good - a smidge out the other way.  drives me crackers

get handlebars 100% straight!

OK, this. Perhaps getting SPD cleats on right is harder, but even though you should be able to see what you're doing the bars ALWAYS need a quick tweak on the first ride.

Then after the first descent.

Then again when you get home.

Yeah, it's not the big jobs, it's the constant fiddling with contact points that annoys me. Bar straightness, bar angle, a couple of mm off on the saddle, a firmer saddle needing to be a bit lower, brake angle...... aarrrrgh!

Anything that "an engineer* has messed with prior to bringing it to you

*Best reply I heard to that one was oh yeah what software do you engineer ?;)

All of the above - totally wrong!  😉

Mine would be: -

- Toeing in canti brake blocks

- Fitting one of those replacement mech springs that made gripshift work more positively

- Adjusting Cannondale Force 40 break force multipliers

- Shimming the original fitting for Hope brakes to sort calliper alignment

Replacing overdue pivot bearings without a press/tool to remove the old ones.

Agreed - that’s a real trial!

Agree, anything that involves a press in bearing. pivot , wheel and the ultimate bb30

Programming Di2 using the app.

On my touring bike which I use everyday it has to be getting my canilever brakes just right for any length of time ,they will be the death of me,literally when I go too the Pyrenees in a month or so.

Post-mounted brake shoe adjustment on cantis - allen key in one hand, spanner in the other and a third hand to hold and align the brake pads! Most modern bike stuff is a piece of wee wee in comparison.

Do frame building jobs count? If so, mitring seatstays to fit the seat tube whilst also keeping symmetrical is by far my least favourite bit.

Mudguards, anything involving fitting or setting them up often involves me wanting to sling my bike across the garage.

Mine has become anything involving removing the saddle from a Reverb post. One of those curved nuts out of the sadlle clamp always ALWAYS!! gets dropped and runs and hides somewhere on the garage floor! The one thing you haven’t got anything else you can substitute, so you have to find it. I have practically been in tears trying to find one of those little bastards!

Bb30 is a doddle thats the advantage of that design.

I have just done an Octalink this morning, tool with an adaptor to remove the crank arms, threaded rod and washers to clamp the bb tool to bb, massive socket, bar, longer bar, bb breaks, repeat on other side.

Then you have to find the right new bid from a dozen sizes.

Its a good job they last a few years.

Or for those old enough, removing cotter pins from old cranks.

I used to love cottered cranks when I was a lad - there's nothing more fun than hammering one of those bastards out

Trying to replace a shimano brake lever. Getting the spring that makes the lever return to the right place is a real PITA.

Dual post

Shortening braided Hope hoses ...

And cotter pins ... they really were a PITA....

Cone type wheel bearings ....

Watching the new lad at work struggle with canti pads or adjustable bottom brackets is always fun.

For me tracking down di2 battery drain issues is my current hate job

For me tracking down di2 battery drain issues is my current hate job

Big time, there is basically no proper tech support eg voltage draw, resistance specs etc.

Internal cable routing....

Definitely mudguards ^^

Most time-consuming simple job ever, especially when clearances are tight

Finding a snapped spoke and then remembering your running tubeless

Remove cassette or disc

Remove tyre, get used sealant on you and everywhere else

Remove rim tape or cheat and puncture rim tape to fit new spoke

True wheel checking all other spokes are ok

Re tape rim or if you just punctured the tape to fit spoke then patch repair using new tape

Re fit tyre trying to save as much sealant left in it as possible

Top up sealant

Re inflate tyre and try and get it to seat on rim

Clean up rim and tyre of any leaked sealant

Spin wheel to get everything to seal up

Refit to bike

Clean up any sealant mess on floor

Forget about having tubeless until another spoke snaps (2nd one in 3 years)

Putting on foam grips.

Although I’ve been educated to a new process which I’ll use at the weekend, so that may change...

Setting a hub cone 'just right' so that it's rolls smoothly without being loose or overtight...

Internal cabling +1

Removing and then reinstalling a Cannondale Lefty fork.

Internal cabling +1

This is right at the top of my list... in fact I had to do it last night as I'd been putting it off.

On my Whyte the stupid rubber grommets always stick in or won't go back easily... the chain stay routing for the inner is pants ... even after sticking a internal cable through the routing I couldn't get the outer through and when I did it kinked the outer and scratched the outside up.  (And this was after flushing with Teflon spray)

In the end I pulled it bad out, chucked the outer (which luckily was part of 10m bulk) and externally routed the chain stay part.  Result: shifting was back to reliable.

Any bearing job when the outer race doesn't come out with the rest of the bearing.

(For example, this happened to me last week on the inside bearing on a freehub body and it was an absolute pain. In the end, it had to be carefully dremelled away and took about 30 minutes of very carefully grinding to get the thing out)

Otherwise, bearing replacement difficulties are normally inversely proportional to the kit you have in the garage and having a bit of experience. E.g. I have a proper BB30 removal and press kit and this makes them a (quite literally) 10 minute job to do. Once you start raiding the socket set, you know you're going to be in for a bad time...

Headsets are not much faff I find. Yeah there's a bit of adjust, check, adjust, check, but doesn't take long. Removing headsets is more annoying. Whacking a mallet on the removal tool like crazy for half an hour with no result, and then eventually it shoots off and sticks a hole in the wall 😀 . I try to leave headset cups alone though and only replace bearings.

Though will see how much faff it is when I try fitting an angleset to my old Nomad as aligning the cups perfectly becomes important I understand.

Frustration for me is wheel truing.

That and sticky brake callipers and lever servicing. Similarly anything to do with Reverbs.

and fitting and removing tyres on wide carbon rims without snapping tyre levers or breaking the rim with hard levers or resorting to using a metal knife etc.

Changing the pads on Avid Juicy's.

looks a doddle.

isn't.

Anything to do with rim brakes which are still present on my kid's bikes.

Mudguard fitting, though its satisfying when they're done.

Anything where there is a mystery creak.

Anything to do with rim brakes which are still present on my kid’s bikes.

Mudguard fitting, though its satisfying when they’re done.

Anything where there is a mystery creak.

Rim brakes on kids bikes used on single track are just horrible and non-satisfying ....

In order to get the reach you end up taking them in .. then you can't get the wheel out without deflating or loosening.... and any small out of true becomes a non-mystery squeak!!!

Then you do all that and you still have rubbish brakes!

Discs were one of the main must-have's when we went to 24".... at the time not so much due to stopping power (though that's required now) but I just hated dealing with them weekly...

Mystery squeeks and creaks are just PITA... similar to the kids brakes except at least when you do find it and fix it.

I vote for changing frame bearings or servicing forks. Just because of how long it takes (usually because I refuse to buy the expensive proper tools and spend a lot of time thinking of workarounds).

But none of these are as painful as setting up those Magura Hydraulic rim brakes from way back when. Still have nightmares.

Anything involving your partner's bike, which will inevitably go wrong and turn out to be a complete ball-ache. So adjusting indexing will always means a new cable is needed / the jockey wheels are totally shagged / the shifter has broken internally. Headset 'adjustment' will always mean a new headset. And it will never be possible to align brakes without an annoying intermittent rub. If you manage to fix this, it'll return five minutes later.

On my own bike the sort of intermittent creaks that can come from anywhere between the stem/bar interface right back to the rear quick release skewer, but always sound like they originate from the bottom bracket... everything else is just strightforward logic, but creaks are motivated by low, evil cunning and have a mind entirely of their own.

Loose bearing cup and cone hubs.

You need the touch of a safe-cracker to get the tension just overtight enough so you can back the cones off against the locknut and then have whole thing potentially ruined by doing up the QR. Trial and error was the only way - until they worked loose on a wet and gritty Dark Peak day and I never had to worry about them again......

I vote for changing frame bearings or servicing forks. Just because of how long it takes (usually because I refuse to buy the expensive proper tools and spend a lot of time thinking of workarounds).

I tend towards the same except this is mitigated by a feeling of reward after.

I can forgive the hassle for a feeling after of job well done in adverse conditions and feeling inventive on the improvised bearing press etc.

Sometimes however the simplest thing can be the pain... I cheaped out on circlip pliers... and I must have taken an hour to remove the airshaft...(without scratching it)... and for reasons best known to myself I'd elected to do this in the bike stand outside and it started raining after 30 minutes ...

Bb30 is a doddle

Hmmm, it's not, but it's not as bad as many make out and I certainly have had bigger problems with removing threaded BBs.