[Closed] Your ignoring maintenance stories

I ignored the increasingly rough rear axle in my commuter until it seized solid. I managed to push the bike all the way to the train station by opening up the QR and letting the whole thing rotate in the dropouts... it turns out that axle nuts are harder than steel frame dropouts, so I was left with a nice gouge in the frame.

Mate taking his lovely carbon epic for one last ride before selling it, tried to avoid unnecessary expense by only changing the outer front ring and chain on a thoroughly ignored drivetrain.

Walking up every single hill on a 50 mile ride in the Cotswolds left him in no doubt that the £18.99 saving was not good vfm

I stopped riding with one chap a few years ago.
He never maintained his bike. Would ride it until failure then we'd have to stand around while he'd try to fix it, fail. Then call the wife for a lift home. Probably once a month.

The straw that broke the donkeys back was the snapped crank (went across the square taper) while on a lads trip in Scotland. Wife was 300 miles away. The crack had been pointed out a month earlier.

We pointed him in the direction of the hostel and he walked/scooted/coasted his way there. About 20 miles iirc.

I understand he only runs these days.

I posted this on Facebook and commented about my lucky escape;
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What I didn't do was throw away it's partner. Instead I fitted it to my roady (much less wear on there) and forgot about it, until a few months later when...
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When it snapped it broke the chain which in turn bent both mechs and most of the drive-side spokes in my rear wheel! Bugger...

I snapped a chain so removed a link and added a split link which shortened the chain. I made a mental note not to use both big rings but every time I got home from a ride I was to tired to deal with it so just put it away in the garage. By the time I got it out again I'd forgot that it needed doing. This went on until I decided to sell the bike, again I forgot and testing the gears I banged it through the range and locked the back wheel up, snapping the mech and banging my clems in the process. Cost me £40 for a new XT mech just so I could sell the bike.

Having 2 kids really helps with me keeping on top of the bike maintenance as if I get a bit of spare time (when the wife is out) I'll bring the bike in the house, so I can still hear the kids, to give it a once over..
It's nice going out on a ride knowing that you've done as much as you can to prevent any mechanicals.

Ignored a knocking noise on my van, didn't notice it getting worse until I realised what used to only knock on a rough track was now knocking whenever I turned the wheel.

It would have been a simple fix, tightening up a bolt on the damper. But by the time I got round to taking a look, it had worn the bolt and ovalised the hole on the wishbone, so had to buy a new bracket. Thankfully it wasn't integrated into the wishbone:

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Had a customer in a while back, very proud of how he'd got every last bit of use from his HT2 BB, he wasn't quite so happy at the quote of another £230rrp for replacing the Ultegra chainset he'd ground through the axle of.

I took a fork to TF tuned a while ago after I'd had it about 4 years
They opened it up and tipped out a load of brown sludgy, gritty water
and said "you're lucky it's a marzocchi; don't leave it so long next time"

must be about time I amused them with it again

Quite a few years ago, I had a old diesel Peugeot 306 as I was racking up 110 miles per day commuting. The heater failed but rather than addressing the root cause, I bought an plug in electrical heater.
It started to lose water and I just topped it up occasionally. Needless to say, I had a pretty good idea the head gasket had blown when it suddenly lost all power in the outside lane of the M6/in peak hour traffic.
Cost me about grand to get the gasket done (and head skimmed) but, annoyingly, the car wasn't worth much more anyway.

Worryingly, I have similar symptoms with my current car but a pressure test was inconclusive...

scaredypants - Member

I took a fork to TF tuned a while ago after I'd had it about 4 years
They opened it up and tipped out a load of brown sludgy, gritty water
and said "you're lucky it's a marzocchi; don't leave it so long next time"

When I took my first motorbike in for its first service, I went to collect it and the boy put on the counter a can of coke, with the top cut off. Inside was maybe 150ml of brown, filthy oil, visibly full of bits of metal. "That was all that was in your engine. **** knows how it's still going. See all those shiny bits? That's probably crankshaft". It did another 10000 miles before I sold it, no fuss, then got written off by a bus. Who needs oil?

I snapped a chain so removed a link and added a split link which shortened the chain. I made a mental note not to use both big rings but every time I got home from a ride I was to tired to deal with it so just put it away in the garage. By the time I got it out again I'd forgot that it needed doing. This went on until I decided to sell the bike, again I forgot and testing the gears I banged it through the range and locked the back wheel up, snapping the mech and banging my clems in the process. Cost me £40 for a new XT mech just so I could sell the bike.

My roady / commuter shifting has been bad for a month or so after some serious winter mileage. Really struggling to shift between gears and skipping despite the mech being properly set up. Finally got round to ordering a new cassette and chain.

Before fitting the new cassette I noticed the build up of gunk between the sprockets on the old one. I cleaned the cassette and shifting is perfect again. The sticky oily gunk was holding the chain in place and stopping it shifting. Glad I didn't chuck it!

This thread makes me wince...

couple of years ago while commuting into work. was just over halfway there in the driving rain when the pedals refused to rotate. chain could be heard sticking somewhere at the back. backpedalling sorted it and then about 1 minute later it came back followed by a massive crack, snap and bang.

lower half of rear mech was nowhere to be seen; what remained of the rear mech had bent inwards and the mech hanger was bent; couple of driveside spokes had snapped; and the chain had snapped.

i found the rest of the mech on the road and then rejoined the chain to create a makeshift single speed. but the chain kept climbing up the sprocket and would then be too tight to turn. then the chain snapped again. so i rejoined it and this time i pedalled very slowly so i could feel when the chain was about to shift up and then back pedal it so it stayed. i managed another mile before the chain snapped again so again it got fixed. then another mile later it snapped again. by this point i was so fed up i decided to walk the remaining 1.5 mile to work and then took it home in the back of a cab

after i got it all fixed on another commute home i went over a pothole and heard a crack/snap noise from under the saddle. i assumed it was the rails just re-seating themselves on the saddle and thought nothing more. al looked fine on inspection. then i went to llandegla the week after.
2 miles in the saddle fell off...one of the barrel nuts on the seatpost bolts had snapped and came loose.
i tried to secure it all using zip ties but this bodge lasted another mile before everything fell off.
ended u doing the rest of the whole ride with the saddle and post in my camelbak...my calves were on fire at the end of the ride 😯

Wheel with a ball bearing disc front hub arrived just a little bit too tight, but I never checked it because it seemed to run okay from new. One day I noticed the wheel tilting left whenever I braked. Rode it for a few more weeks. Opened it up, and not only was the surface pitted, the hub was so far gone there was room for an extra ball bearing in that side.