I am interested to find out what trail repairs you have all been through and how you have fixed them.

My best bodge was an inner tube tear with no repair kit or spare so stuffed the tyre with grass-needless to say it was rubbish!

so what goes wrong on your rides?

topped up leaking rear shock with a co2 canister at the start of last Sunday’s ride, was very impressed that my ride wasn’t ruined

Faced with an unevenly worn Superstar brake pad, I drew inspiration from STW and fixed it with a rock (found a nice flat one and sanded the ridge off).

I taco’d my front wheel once pretty bad deep in the woods miles from anywhere.

Having spent time trying and failing to get it straight by more elegant means, I had to resort to brutalism. Luckily there was a wooden bridge across a stream nearby with gaps between the slats. I was able to let the tyre down, slot the wheel in between the slats and bend the wheel back straight enough to turn in the fork without rubbing and (gingerly) continue the ride and get home.

At one of the Brownbacks races last year I went OTB on a steep gully, taco’d the front wheel to the pint where it wouldn’t turn.

Took it out of the fork, lined the most bent bit up with the ground and smacked it down, straight enough to carry on and get 10th place.

Nada.

We tried the “filling a tyre with grass” trick once, it was RUBBISH. The grass turned to mulch almost immediately and the tyre just spun round on the rim, made a right bloody mess.

Used a pair of pliers to mend a chain cos neither of us had a chain tool, amazingly that worked quite well. On another occasion we zip tied a mangled chain back together and then the rider just ratcheted the pedals to get home.

Best trailside bodge was using a load of zip ties to hold together a cracked suspension linkage – that was on the Porcupine Rim descent in Moab. Amazingly it held together for the rest of the descent although the rider said it was quite flexy. 😯

On another occasion we zip tied a mangled chain back together and then the rider just ratcheted the pedals to get home.

That is pretty good thinking. 8)

Not all personally mine, but among the club I used to ride with..
Broken free wheel bodged with twigs and zip ties to make a fixie.. Snapped full sus frame bodged with metal tyre levers and zip ties.. to make ride-able back to car.
Slashed tyre bodged with toothpaste tube and…… zip ties..

There’s a theme developing.. (I carry a lot of zip ties!)

Lots of broken mechs removed and single speed conversions made trail-side.

Jeff

Used a zip tie to fix a rear puncture on my cross bike. Just folded over the bit where the hole was, and then folded again at 90degrees and pulled the zip tie over, cut the excess of and squeezed it into the tyre. Managed to hold about 40psi and was still inflated 1 week later!

Unfortunately i then flatted on the front and had to walk/run 5 miles. Blimmin hawthorn infested tow paths!

Ah zip ties! My best zip tie repair was an exploded rear mech on a friend’s bike in the middle of nowhere in Wales. The parallelogram had come apart – two zip ties and a pebble in the middle and he was fine for the rest of the ride. The mech was fixed over the middle sprocket but he could still use 3 chain rings.

We had an xtr spd part company with the axle yesterday near patterde and perseverance paid in that we tracked down a local who had an old set we bought off him. Not quite trail side but no bike shops and ride saved!

5km into a ride yesterday and chain ring bolt fell out, and chain popping off.all bolts were loose and one missing.got home mate had a bolt but it was longer,now I have cut a washer down to spacer out. Tempted to go out for a spin!!
Must remember to check bolts more often.
,

Punctures when i’ve run out of tubes. Cut tube at puncture site, tie two knots in tube, refit to tyre, pump up hard finish ride. Works really well.

We met a bloke carrying his bike as he had broken the rear skewer and the wheel wouldn’t even stay in when pushing it. We tied it back on with some webbing. Should have been strong enough to ride on the smooth bits but no idea if he tried it. At least he could push it.

Tried the grass thing without success. Tore the valve on my tube and spare in quick succession.

I’ve had a V-Brake rim peel off for around a quarter of the wheel circumference and managed to zip tie the tyre to the wheel enough to be able to ride back to the car again.

I also had to clean out the thread on my mate’s mech hanger half way down the Pleney, when his saint rear mech literally just fell off. I screwed the bolt in from the opposite side until there was enough clean thread for it to bite again from the correct side, then put it all back together again as it had all survived intact. He never had any more issues with it at all.

I was pretty chuffed with my fix when the tensioner on my old SS gave up the ghost, mid ride, and I was able to fix it with a stick and some zip ties:

I once had to try and sew a pair of shorts up I ripped on my seat clamp.

I used some grass and thread off my camel back. Needless to say as soon as I put any pressure onto the pedals it re ripped. And to make things worse i wasn’t wearing an under layer (boxers were on by the way) so I Had to hide in the trees and limp back to the car to avoid being arrested for indecent exposure. My RD had allready given up so I couldn’t even take the quick way back so I really was limping

I think i need to start taking a lot more zip ties out with me!

Half way round the Tour de Ben Nevis last year …. After a couple of miles getting very confused by a chain dropping off a single ring, eventually it got so bad I finally spotted the chainring flex. Had one sound chainring bolt left, one falling out (thread stripping) and two missing completely.
Got a full size motorcycle bolt and nut and ratcheted that through one hole(the sort of coach bolt you’d use to bolt a vice to a bench), put the remaining good one opposite. Zip tied the broken one in so at least something was filling another hole and zip tied the other hole. 20 miles later having zip tied another one as the last bolt failed I got to the end. I carry chainring bolts these days 🙂

Reassembling a pedal that had completely fallen apart and come off its axle and really needed an 8mm long narrow hex socket to refit.
After help from a fellow cyclist in -5C got it back together again and went riding in the hills.
I carry an 8mm socket when riding a bike with superstar pedals now.

A guy I used to ride with split his tyre, so we fixed it with a zip-tie. Fine for the rest of the ride. Next week he turned up with the same bike, same tyre still fixed with the zip tie haha. Fine for that ride too

Trimmed zipties with a Leatherman to make replacement pawl springs for a Hope Pro2 rear hub when I lost all drive. Not only did I amaze myself and all others present, but I rode it for the rest of the week. Sent photos to the usual mags but got no response… Probably didn’t want to insinuate that a British Made product could fail.

TroutWrestler – Member

Trimmed zipties with a Leatherman to make replacement pawl springs for a Hope Pro2 rear hub when I lost all drive. Not only did I amaze myself and all others present, but I rode it for the rest of the week.

Last time someone posted about this fix, I remembered I’d had a bit of ziptie in one of my Pro 2s for months. TBF it seemed no less durable than the original springs. Not a case of “hope springs eternal” 😉

snapped the chainstays off my bike at les arcs, lashed it back on with an inner tube, carried on riding it for days!

No you didn’t, that’s taking things too far!

Yep. I carry pre trimmed zip-ties for further repairs.

Dropped my bike and snapped my handlebar light bracket 1/4 way into a winter commute home. No zip ties or helmet light so had to make do by tying the light on with one of my glove liners. Cold hand but at least I could see.

Riding round Avoriaz last yr after the PPDS, one of the guys had an off and resulted in his bars hanging off the stem where 2 of the stem face plate bolts had sheared. Spun the face plate over, bent it back into shape as much as poss, managed to get 2 bolts in enough to hold the bars and just taped it back up with duct tape and a few zip ties. Held out for the ride home all be it a bit slower

Done the tacked wheel repair using a boulder and jumping on it enough to clear forks and get back to base.

Knackered freewheel fixes using cable ties, farmers bailer twine and others using BT blue rope(not good for spokes)

Tyre repair using puncture repair kit box and old fashioned toe clip removed from pedal. V-brake had to be disconnected and only front brake available for rest of ride.

I carry a selection of bolts suitable for bikes. Random uses have included replacing disc brake mounting bolt and on the stw Verbier holiday in’05 a steerer clamp bolt someone had lost when building bike up post flight.

Best “fix” may have been when riding near High Borans a fellow riders bars broke. We found a set of road bars in a skip. Some coke cans to space out and enable mate to ride back to Ambleside 😆

I used my pants once- the insulation tape i was using for rim tape got all brittle over time and i had punctured both tubes, one after the other before realizing the problem fully.
Nearly out of patches i sacrificed my pants (they were in my bag as i was off-road commuting) and used the elastic to bodge a rim strip. Hacked up with my keys and teeth obviously as i had no knife, in the pouring rain. All very John Rambo, honest!

I think thats fairly creative.

bland – Member

No you didn’t, that’s taking things too far!

yes i bloody did!

i’ve got photos somewhere…

A friend’s rear mech disintegrated in a massive puddle. We couldn’t find one of the pulleys so made a makeshift one from a few links of spare chain. Worked a treat.

Was riding ‘that’ Torridon ride with a friend who managed to get about a trillion punctures. Got to the top of the descent into Annat and just as we started down he heard the dreaded hiss. We had no patches or tubes left. Arse.

A couple of walkers came by and we shared our predicament with them – they gave us some compeed which we used to patch a tube and it held until about 100m from the end. Day saved!

Camelbak bungee cord to fashion a rear mech cage return spring on a mates bike(still working months later when he gave up riding).The usual robbing a stem top cap bolt to replace a snapped seat clamp bolt.Removing a snapped gear cable, and locating the nipple in the mech’s barrel adjuster to enable indexing of a low enough gear to ride up hills(not so easy on Shadow mechs, damn you Shimano). My personal favourite, Panaracer sidewall/bead parted company for about 4″ at the start of Herman on the Karriomor trail.Swapped tyre to front, so less weight on it, inflated a tube, and wrapped it in a roll of sticking plaster to prevent expansion, and rode on until a few hundred yds short of the centre,when the tyre let go good and proper.

Repaired a broken carbon handlebar with a branch once. Mate had an off and snapped the bar at the point where the shifter was bolted on. Managed to find a branch that would fit into bars so hammered it in with a rock…got him home 🙂

Done the conversion to single speed after breaking mech hanger and zip ties for springs in Hope hub a couple of times. When the nut from a rear wheel quick release gave up the ghost, I used the nut from the seatpost qr to get me home with the seat dropped jump bike stylee.

ahwiles – Member

i’ve got photos somewhere…

broken bike:

fixed bike:

and rode it like that for days…

Best trailside bodge was using a load of zip ties to hold together a cracked suspension linkage – that was on the Porcupine Rim descent in Moab. Amazingly it held together for the rest of the descent although the rider said it was quite flexy

What is it about porcupine rim. Mate’s truth split on the chain stays just behind the weld right at the top (and I mean the top when you take the bus to the highest point way about the jeep track) so we ‘fixed’ it with a couple of spanners as splints and loads of cable ties. Got him down, but he was taking it quite easy!

Broke a seat clamp once, whittled down a stick to slide down the seat tube and go inside the seatpost, that worked nicely.. Bit short though.

Bent a chainring into shape by jamming it in a crack in the end of a fence post.

A mate managed to bleed his brakes during a 24 hour race using nothing but four inches of tube cut from his camelbak hose.

Discovered I’d lost one half of a pivot bolt on my anthem just as I set off on a ride. Lashed the chain stay to the rocker with a couple of zip ties and gave it a go. It held fine and even survived a couple of smallish jumps and drops