Stripped my pedals yesterday, cleaned, removed the pins, regreased and put the left one back together. Total numpty moment but the right pedal is a left thread. Of course I stripped the nut and the axle thread. DOH!!!! Anyways I can order a new axle for minimal cost but decided to treat myself to some new pedals anyway. Bought some Burgtec composite – bloomin’ eck they’re nice!!! Much nice platform than the Blackspires. Oh well,spare pedals when I’ve ordered the axle. Dumbass moment “why won’t this bloody nut go on”.

We’ve all done it……. Right?

Could be worse, you could have screwed them onto the cranks the wrong way round and cross threaded them which would typically be more expensive!

I mean I think we all know what’s coming….

… don’t we…

…@northwind…

I put my EBB insert in the wrong way around and couldn’t work out why I couldn’t fit my bottom bracket!

The last dance, with Deidre. Should have just left.

TV told me the M65 was closed westbound this morning so what did I do? Jumped on the M65 westbound and wasted 20 minutes of my life!

I built a fantastic set of wheels at the weekend but couldn’t work out why the spokes weren’t taking up the slack. Then I realised I’d built them 2 Cross instead of 3.

Took them all apart and started again. 2nd time round they were much better

35 years ago I stripped my Coventry Eagle right down to the frame, why I can’t really recall, then realised I actually had no idea how you put it all back together! While there was no YouTube there was Richard’s Bicycle Book and that with a couple of trips to my local bike shop to see how it should all look it all went back together.

Around 2009 I got my first modern bike, a Spesh Enduro SL, I had to replace the gear cable in the sram x9 rear shifter, I didn’t read the instructions because: “How hard can it be?”. Cue me removing the hex bolt for the thumb shifter, anyone that has done this knows that what happens next is more akin to a comedy jack-in-the-box event as the thumb shifter is propelled out of the housing on a tightly coiled spring. I literally spent about 3 hours over the next couple of days trying to reinstall it…

The first time I installed an angleset I installed the upper cup the ‘correct’ way to slacken the headangle, but the lower cup the ‘wrong’ way to steepen the head angle. I thought about trying to source a bannana shaped steerer tubed fork then just decided to reinstall the lower cup correctly…

During a fork service I’ve also put the air cartridge in the damper side and the damper cartridge in the air side. I put the lowers and lower lube in too before realising which was annoying.

Also during a fork service I’ve reinstalled the rebound and foot nuts before installing the lowers, quickly realised what was wrong.

I’m sure there’s more but these are the first that spring to mind 😀

Building up a new singlespeed at the moment. Minor but stupid error:

Fitted new chain and adjusted length to suit sliding dropouts.

Then tried to align brake, but no luck as I’d made the chain a link too short.

I can’t be the only one that’s fed a brake hose through a swingarm & frame, gone to reconnect it to the lever, and found the compression fitting still on the hose, sitting next to the caliper.

Forgot to put the yellow block in, when bleeding my rear brake.

At some point in the process – “why is brake fluid pissing all over the floor and why, for that matter, is there a piston on the floor?”

A genuine schoolboy error from when I was a schoolboy.

I had a wee business buying old bikes. I’d strip them down, regrease everything, replace what had to be replaced, flip the North Road bars upside down so it looked sporty, or add dropbars, repaint them carefully with Robbielac, and then sell them with a 3 months guarantee.

I’d been using Humbrol model paint for the small details, such as lining, picking out head lugs etc. They had a really brilliant red colour and I had the brainwave of painting a bike with it. It was expensive, but looked good and shiny.

I sold it to a schoolmate who had been showing interest in Rough Stuff, and straight after school we went for a trial run up Craig Phadrig and Craig Dunain. This was before the trail networks of the GGW, so some RSF shouldering was done, quite a lot.

It turned out the beautiful red Humbrol paint hadn’t set hard and soon it was well distributed over his new blue school blazer and his right hand, and partially rubbed off the bike.

His parents were not amused, and I ended up having to refund him for the bike and paying for a new blazer which wiped out my accumulated profits.

My attempts to weasel out of paying for the blazer did my business reputation no good (I was quite happy to refund for the bike), but from it I learned a lesson on customer relations that helped in later business.

As for the bike, it got hit with paint stripper, and a coat of Robbielac in a more conservative colour.

I don’t know if anyone here has read “Diary of a Nobody”, but I can’t read it without sympathising with Mr Pooter. 🙂