I’ve ridden an entire 1-week MTB stage race in the Himalayas with my chain as per the OP 😮 No wonder the bike felt draggy and noisy.  I finished 3rd in that race, I wonder if I could have done better with a drivetrain as it should have been 😀

Cheers, Rich

ive done the ‘just one more turn before stripping a bolt’ thing more time than I care to remember. the torque wrench was a sensible investment

had a puncture at bpw, turned the bike upside down and fixed a non existent puncture on the wrong wheel, didnt realise until i turned the bike back up the right way

Tried to service a long-neglected hope Ti-Glide. Couldn’t get the axle out at all, so idiot gorilla here set about it with thor. 20 minutes of bell-ringing din later and the hub explodes with pretty much every non-drive side spoke hole departing from the hub. I then lost my presence of mind, folded the dead wheel up into quarters and dropped the whole thing down my flat’s rubbish chute. I kept finding shrapnel in the carpet for ages afterwards.

About 5 years later I get talking to the hope guys who said that they could’ve unglued the hub and put a new non-drive side in pretty easily & probably for nowt. AAARGHHHH

About 5 years later I get talking to the hope guys who said that they could’ve unglued the hub and put a new non-drive side in pretty easily & probably for nowt. AAARGHHHH

It’s ok, I stood on a pair of expensive Oakleys while trying to squeeze into a wetsuit and reduce them to debris. I chucked them into the shop bin in disgust, but it was only when I got home that someone mentioned to me that Oakley would probably have just replaced them for a nominal fee. Doh!

I once fitted a crankset to the NDS. Realised, took it all apart again and refitted it with the crank arms at the same angle ..

Dunno what was going through my mind…

Thought I’d be a good Samaritan at CyB years ago. A couple of blokes were looking at a bike with a broken chain not really knowing what to do. I didnt have a power link but did have a chain splitter.

So went over and offered my services. I got them to hold the chain as i rejoined the links. All sorted nice and bonny, till I realised that the chain wasnt on the bike.

Many years ago I did some work on my old Cannondale series 3.0. It was fitted with Shimano biopace oval rings.

I’d finished whatever I was doing, held the chainstay close to the chainrings and gave the cranks a massive swing. What I’d forgotten was the oval chainrings which when they came around to their high spot the teeth dug right into my hand and punctured my fingernail.

I’ve done the syringe on the wrong brake lever thing twice now while bleeding Shimano brakes, trying to push fluid from the caliper end and wondering why it’s just leaking out the nipple/syringe tube join instead of making its way up to the lever end…!

My BIL once cut the steerer of a brand new, never ridden forks too short.

Worst I had, which still makes me feel a little sick now. Week before first ever trip to BPW, giving my Spesh Enduro (’04 model) a once over before putting it away, spots chainstay weld with a crack in it. Bugger! Never mind, swapped EVERYTHING over onto my HT frame and alls good. Forwards to the day at BPW, rear disc pads seems to be wearing faster than I’ve ever known. Get back to the cafe after a couple of runs to swap the pads out, notice that the rear wheel isn’t actually in the dropout and the pads had two huge lips on them where only about 2mm of disc were contacting the pads. That could have been nasty!

And that was after putting the quicklink on pointing the wrong way so it jumped on the 11t…

Hang on they have a direction?

I’ve done the “threaded the mech wrong” thing so many times, but when I upgraded my bike from 2×9 to 1×11 I forgot to thread the chain back through the mech after measuring the length.  Wouldn’t normally be a problem but this was back when 11-speed quicklinks were rare and I was still waiting for one to arrive, so I had installed a pin.  Stood back with a big satisfied grin before it dawned on me.  So much for that evening ride.

We may have put the cranks of a mates bike in parallel outside a village hall whilst he was inside and hid round the corner until he tried to pedal off.

We were at a race HQ and had tools in the car.

Done the chain through the mech thing – took me days to work it out, was only when I replaced the mech thunkthi it was knackered that I realised what I’d done……

Also put foam grips on my lads bike when I built it – soapy water and let it dry – stuck really well. Then realised I’d forgot to put the brake levers on…….

I’ve done the chain through the mech wrong, but to my credit, it was blindingly obvious there was something badly wrong so it was rectified before I rode it..

Umpteen rounded bolts, still keep doing it. Did one yesterday, trying to rush in the car park in the rain and made a hash of it. Ruined a CK rear axle.

.

Most irritating was spending hours and hours with an internal gear cables on my Plasma TT bike, finally got the ends of the cble through, connected them to the mechs. Front shifter/rear mech, rear shifte/front mech. Two minute job on normal bike took a day.

I once fitted a tyre with the logos and valve misaligned.

Not really servicing but recently thought Id have a go at using Cushcore, went to work on the rear wheel and after some huffing and puffing, plus going to incredible efforts to make sure I put the tire on the right way (measure twice cut once etc), I got it all up and running.

Later that night, while looking at my bike I did have that strange thought, why is the logo the wrong side of the wheel.

Cue another hour of trying to get it off and then back on again the right way.

Back when I was very new to this I tried to knock a hearing out of a 20mm hub by simply hitting the end cap on the other side.

Hang on they have a direction?

They were some cheapskate make, Clarks I think, and have a curve in them. Which needs to be on the outside of the chain, it seems.

smugly chuckling at some of these…until last night.

Bleeding brakes, pumping lever and seeing fluid level dropping down and thinking ‘must be a lot of air in there’….dripping noise reminds me I’ve not wedged anything in the caliper and pistons have popped out and fluid is now p*ssing out onto the floor.

Another day, another cock up.

bought a lovely trek 29er from a local hire fleet, looking a quick profit

finishing off a full service, refit fork, tighten star nut… pop… star nut is rusted to death. In a rush so Knock it out with a socket and bit of bar only socket bizarrely gets stuck half way down (it’s a straight steerer) no amount of hammering will shift it, and at one point the bar I was using gets stuck in the socket as well.

Eventually get everything out and the bike rebuilt  apart from the socket which will forever live in the steerer tube.  2 hours of my life lost