[Closed] Your daftest bicycle tinkering/servicing fow-pax? 😉

What the hell is a fow-pax?

faux pas 🙂

Ha. At Mr Barnes .
I ****ed up my pro 2 axle yesterday ,I was only supposed to be (quickly)changing a cassette.ffs.
Hub Bearings felt tight and drive side end cap seized . Just a quick tap with a hammer ...new bits ordered and "parked" it .bastid.

used to be possible on octalink cranks to set them up at something like "5 past 5" - that made pedalling quite interesting

err, apparently 😳

I nearly put my forks on upside down.

I mean, I didn't. Who'd be that silly........

built a wheel not so long ago with the valve in the wrong place, so no "open" space above it. Can still get a pump head on it so it's staying as is

God damn it. I build trails, but do they call me Northwind the trailbuilder? No. I get kids into university, but do they call me Northwind the educator? No. But I install [i]one[/i] little fork upside down...

PS,

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CaptainFlashheart - Member
I nearly put my forks on upside down.
I mean, I didn't. Who'd be that silly.....

... but not uploaded a photo !
"hat" to ventnord for that one

I've fitted chainsets the wrong side a couple of times too

Fitting tyres and tubes to new wheels......

And forgetting the rim strip. Doh!

First time I bled my avid brakes I diligently followed the you tube tutorial . When I got the bleed the syringe just wouldn't budge. Took me 20 mins to finally realise I'd been following an American tutorial and connected up the rear brake to the front lever

Working late after work doing my own road bike before a Sunday ride.

Put the brake cable through the brake lever then ran it through the gear casting and connnected the brake lever to the mech and not the calliper.

Have up went home and used beer bike for Sunday's group ride

Who hasn't exploded a badly fitted inner tube?

😆 @Northwind

Sorry.....

Not sorry. 😉

built a wheel not so long ago with the valve in the wrong place, so no "open" space above it. Can still get a pump head on it so it's staying as is

No way, uh-huh, I've done that once and had to strip it down and rebuild. I'd be thinking about it every time I rode it otherwise!

Measuring where to cut the steerer tube on a set of forks without the stem fitted then cutting it to that length. 😳

Pre bonded steerer tubes thankfully.

Rebuilt my tricross after a few years of it being set up for the wife as a flat bar hybrid.
Decided to treat it to a new cassette ,mech and chain.
Spent ages trying to get the gears indexed and eventually took it to a local mechanic to change the brake as I couldn't get the V brakes working perfectly. I asked him to look at the indexing incase I had bent the hanger etc.
Phone call later that day asking why I'd fitted a 9speed cassette and chain to a bike with 10speed shifters.

I once fitted a tyre without lining up the valve and logo.

Cutting cable outers too short, why always me...

I had a set of bombers where the footnut was spinning and wouldn't tighten... impact wrench did it, shame I didn't ease off before the internals exploded

I learned an important lesson yesterday while building my first internally cabled bike.

Don't start by fitting the headset and forks. For the second one, I shall pull all housing and hose through the frame first.

seadog101 - Member
Cutting cable outers too short, why always me...

Not just you. I really hate it when I cut a front hydraulic hose a bit short though...

As a resourceful, skint, dirt jumping child I wanted to slow the rebound down on my marzocchi mx comps. Was told thicker fork oil would help with this.

Having found no fork oil in my parents garage I decided bisto was a suitable replacement - because you know it's thick and stuff.

Worked a treat for the ride from the house down to the dean, then totally seized.

Mates still don't let me forgot it nearly 16 years on.

Put the brake cable through the brake lever then ran it through the gear casting and connnected the brake lever to the mech and not the calliper.

Did it work?

Trying to get a brand new DHF Minion to seat tubeless on an awkward Bontrager rim, I pumped it up to 60psi. Then 70. Then 80. Then 90. Just as I leaned down to let some air out, BOOOOM, right next to my head. Couldn't hear for 5 minutes afterwards, tyre bead was ruined.

I think tynemouthmatt's fork gravy story is my new favourite, though, that's something very special. 😀

Broken (9s) chain out on a ride. Oh goody, I have spare links in my camelbak. Not realising the links were 8s for the ss. Lasted the rest of the ride but broke on the way to meet people on my next one, at which point I realised what I'd done.

Accidentally added the oil to forks twice leading to complete hydraulic lock

Building up a brand new Cannondale CAAD10 Disc frame, installed fork with headset and stem in place and marked where I needed to cut the steerer with a sharp knife. Cut steerer at mark, only to reinstall and find the headset had made an identical score line a good 5cm below the line I should've cut at. It was a Black Inc frame too, so Cannondale couldn't immediately supply a replacement fork. I ended up buying a second frameset for the fork, and selling the rest on eBay. That was my most costly bike servicing mistake.

I ESTABLISHED THAT CONTI GP 4 SEASONS MOUNT TUBELESS TO KSYRIUMS AND BLOW OFF AT JUST OVER 100PSI.

I didn't ride them and won't. Road tubeless is strictly for tubeless tyre beads. And I sprayed the dining room with Stans.

Building up a brand new Cannondale CAAD10 Disc frame, installed fork with headset and stem in place and marked where I needed to cut the steerer with a sharp knife. Cut steerer at mark, only to reinstall and find the headset had made an identical score line a good 5cm below the line I should've cut at.

Ouch.

Have put the cranks on at same angles before, but never made it out onto the drive like that... and the forks upside down, but generally you realise your mistake before it's too late.

Used to fix my bikes up as a kid often without really knowing how, and I do remember once fitting a front brake cable to a canti brake, but I only had the inner cable - no outer. It went straight from lever to brake (literally a straight, taut line!) That never worked very well. But I remember at the time being as bit confused as to how it was meant to be, so I just rolled with it like that for a while...

Once fitted the front QR skewer-lever pointing downwards. I lived but it felt weird riding it and I still get after-cringe.

Cutting a XT brake hose at the banjo end.

Spilling hydraulic fluid on the same calipers new pads without realising, until yesterday's ride.

mark90 - Member
I once fitted a tyre without lining up the valve and logo.

Delete your account.

Having found no fork oil in my parents garage I decided bisto was a suitable replacement - because you know it's thick and stuff.

This is incredible. Bisto! No wonder your mates won't let you forget, I wouldn't .

I changed a stem and, without realising it,rotated the fork through 180 degrees before fitting the new stem.I then took the bike for a ride round the block.I never realised a simple change of stem could have such a dramatic effect on bike handling,and it took 30 minutes before I realised what I had done 😯

Having found no fork oil in my parents garage I decided bisto was a suitable replacement - because you know it's thick and stuff.

This is incredible. Bisto! No wonder your mates won't let you forget, I wouldn't

That wasn't his only bodge....

I changed a stem and, without realising it,rotated the fork through 180 degrees before fitting the new stem.I then took the bike for a ride round the block.I never realised a simple change of stem could have such a dramatic effect on bike handling,and it took 30 minutes before I realised what I had done

Like this? I wondered why I'd suddenly got toe overlap!

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Exactly 😀

Measuring where to cut the steerer tube on a set of forks without the stem fitted then cutting it to that length.

Pre bonded steerer tubes thankfully

Post bonded steerer tubes. D'oh.

Couldn't be bother to dig out the torque settings for the bolts on a set of cranks. Read the label off a set of shimano on another bike figuring they'd be the same. 5mm bolt on Shimano. 4mm bolt on the Pinion cranks. Quite different torque.

My mate was having trouble with the cranks on his hack bike coming loose.
He asked if I could get them welded in place (really basic bike with some sort of scaffold poles for cranks)...yes, I said so got the welder at our place to do it after I'd screwed it all together...both pointing the same way 😳

Fitting a new chain, I counted the links on the old chain to size up but forgot that this had been connected with a quick link and the new chain would be connected with the connecting pin. Split the new chain the length of the quick link too short. Didn't realise until I nearly ripped the mech off in the stand testing the shifting and going into big-big (probably could've done with an extra couple of links really). Could've left it on but wouldn't trust myself to never accidentally shift to that gear, so ended up going to Halfords to buy another new chain. At least it was only 10 speed, not 11.

The other day I was putting together a bike for one of my friends, put the crankset on the wrong way round.

Couldn't get the bloody front derailleur to fit, figured that it was the derailleur... Bought another one, still didn't fit.

Finally dawned on me when I started routing cables and the cable guides were on the other side of the bike.

Bloody hell.

I have installed the cranks on the wrong sides. That was quite dim of me...

I once upgraded the rear mech. Looks the old one off, put a breakaway bolt into the new one (what a faff that was). Got it all fitted nicely, tinkered for ages getting shifting absolutely spot on, best fettle I'd done for a long time.

Then I realised all I'd done was the off the old mech and refit it again (including the breakaway bolt!)...

Measuring where to cut the steerer tube on a set of forks without the stem fitted then cutting it to that length.

Pre bonded steerer tubes thankfully.

Building up my new Cube frame, everything went on fine, I left the chain until last.

Threaded the chain on, joined it, and turned the cranks, que a very horrible grinding noise.....

I'd threaded the chain round the outside of the seat stay and it has acted as a chainsaw on the lovely new white paint.... I threw a right paddy at that.

Many, too many.

The most recent one:

Bleeding brakes - bottom up, push the syringe, push some more, hose pops off the CLOSED bleed nipple and brake fluid ends up all over the garage floor and me.

Put an Anything Cage bolt into the bottom of 3 mounts on a pair of Salsa Carbon Firestarter forks. the bolt came out the other side. That was an expensive "one last turn"...
But I have made a new friend who carries out composite repairs... and isn't doing much at the moment...

Last friday I was fitting a new set of disc brakes on my townbike.
Cut the hose at the lever to fit the hose through the guides, fitted olive&insert and on to the lever and was about to bleed the brake when I realised I haven't even shorten the hose. Did that twice with front and rear.

Most expensive was fitting a new chain in the dark...
I'd just stuck the 11 speed cassette and rear mech on in failing light and figured I've swapped chains so many times I'd do it by feel... as I wanted it done and the bike packed in the car for the Saturday morning.

Somehow I put the chain the wrong way round the rear mech guides ... didn't check the next morning and 5 mins into the ride I ruined a 11 speed chain and damaged the rear mech... rear mech is since "mainly" repaired... but I ended up buying another at the time so I could ride Sunday...

Back when Campagnolo made MTB rims, early 90s, they had angled spoke drillings. I proudly built my first wheel with each spoke coming out of the rim pointing the wrong way then bending. Worked, until I buckled it trying to do 180 degree bunnyhops, then put huge tension in one side to straighten it, then continued my attempts and completely properly tacoed it about 45 degrees.

Re chains - always sized the old chain against the new one, quick job like a pro. Only if you buy a larger cassette, there's a flaw in the idea. Half way round an epic ride I shifted to big/big and it locked, but backpedalled half a turn and carried on. Some miles later I discovered I'd bent the frame 🙁

Cutting cable outers too short, why always me...

My standard one - I've done this at least twice - is to thread a new inner into the outer cable which needs cutting to length (to make sure it's as short as possible, but not [i]too[/i] short) , then work out how much outer I need to trim. Then - of course - forget to pull out the inner, so I snop right through the outer AND INNER at the same time, so now I've got a perfect-length outer cable and an inner cable that's about 2 inches short 😳

fit a new Hope headset and bearing, then tightened up - Still some play, so i tightened up a bit more but no, still a bit of play. So I went back online, downloaded the install guide, check spacers, bearing orientation, etc...it's all there and in the perfect order. Not sure if it's just me but i was not able to sleep because i was just thinking about that play. I finally got it after 2 days - the bushing of the rear shock was knackered. Once i changed it, the play in the headset disappeared.

Possibly not my fault this but - Pace RC36 forks, my first ever sus forks - the air piston and the damper rod became detatched - no damping. I forgot to (or couldn't, or didn't need to can't remember now) let the air out of the damper leg. Removed circlip from the damper as per the instructions and the now un-tethered damper shot across the room with a fairly spectacular blam. Highly dangerous, I was lucky to come away with a face full of damper oil like some kind of bike nerd bukkake ritual.

Mate had a Yeti ASR, it was creaking, replaced BB, Headset, Shock bushes and the frame bearings, still creaked! 1/8th of a turn on the mech hanger bolt....... silence!!! Guess what I always check first now!
Oh and watching Bob undo the top caps on his Shivers! As soon as the second one released the forks sagged and deposited a pint of oil all over his front brake then the kichen floor!