i always see great ideas that people have and i look a numpty when i have a go.Less than ingenious would be the title on my grave stone,so what have you done to get round things…
Bruce

Arrived in the Sierra Nevadas in a small mountain village in the middle of nowhere to discover the stupid bleed plug on my Hayes brakes had fallen out in the bike bag.

No front brake and no local shop or garage.

Drained some DOT4 fluid from the rental car and all sorted 😀

used a bit of ball point pen spring for a pawl spring in a hope freehub

did that run ok steve?

Yeah worked perfectly! only swapped back to the normal metal solution as it muffled the sound somewhat and I liked the preferred the loud clicking!

Had one of a large batch of exploding Panaracer Smokes blow it's sidewall off the bead about 8 miles into the old Karrimor, re-fitted it to the less loaded front end, pumped up a new tube to a size slightly larger than the tyre, and wrapped it with Elastoplast from the first aid kit to prevent it expanding through the split. It got me through almost the entire route before giving up, I always carry a large square of damp proof course now.

Stuck a bit of inner tube inside the clamp of a 31.8 mech to make it work on a 30mm frame… just done that today actually, works a treat.

used a zip tie to join a snapped chain -got me home (15 miles)

Currently running the band from an Orange OEM seat-post clamp with the lever and cam from a posh Hope one as I was too cheap to buy a new Hope clamp to fit the new frame… works perfectly (8 weeks of Alpine guiding so far!).

Bike bits, but not a bike bodge.

Used a stack of pieces of old inner tube and a drywall expander bolt to plug a hole in the thermal store of our (oil) combi-boiler. Kept enough pressure to have showers etc for a few weeks until we could get a new boiler fitted.

Had about a quarter of the rim peel off an old rim brake front wheel once. Used a series of zip ties wrapped straight round the rim and tyre to keep the tyre in place and enable me to ride the 4 miles or so back to the car.

The V-brake noodle retention thingummy on my Ti SS sheared on my first lap at 24/12 leaving me with no front braking. A quick rummage through my tool-kit produced a bit of chainlink and a couple of zip-ties which did the job and are still in-situ. I'm glad I decided to take the tool-kit with me when I went out on the course 'cos I very nearly didn't 🙂

The old inner tube sling trick allowed me to ride back to the visitor centre at Whinlatter with a broken wrist two weeks ago.

slugwash – that is brilliant

a fairly well known trick in the bikepolo community. this is not mine but mine is identical. Two brakes from one lever. [IMG]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f48/Pablowoof/4438950899_ea0d3602ea-1.jpg[/IMG]

Rode about 10 miles on that, only 1/3rd worn through.

This one is a mates bodge.

slugwash – that is brilliant

Cheers for the complement. I'm not brilliant at much but was proud of that one, hence the photo 🙂

My most labourious/tedious bodge, which I was forced to do whilst cycletouring in Northern Spain, was to make a replacement derailleur cable clamp bolt (middle one in this picture)……

from a bottle cage bolt by filing it down and into shape with the nail file blade from a Swiss Army Knife. To make things more difficult my bored cycling companion chucked a rock through the carcass of a decomposing wild boar lying by side of the road releasing a putrid, gut wrenching stench that hung in the air for miles around. Anyway, the filing took fookin' ages but it worked and got me upwards and onwards towards the stunning scenery of the Picos de Europa 🙂

I used to have a bent bit of spoke acting as the hinge for the noodle-stop bit of my front V-brake, and the lid of a biro acting as a spacer for a dmr top chainguide that I attached to a different seat tube mount. My seat was pretty much entirely made out of duct tape and bits of foam I'd scavenged.

My current bike has a 1.5" steerer and I couldn't find a headlock type device that would fit it, so I bought one that nearly did and added a couple of bits of brass tube and the end bracket off a curtain rail to the bottom so it was wide enough.

Fixed an exploded gear cable (ie plastic had worn through, so no support for the outer wires) on a friend's bike by wrapping with insulating tape and zip ties.

On a very similar theme to a couple of others on here, fixed a worn rim brake rim which the pressure was bending by wrapping tyre and rim with plaster tape from a first aid kit – given I was rather lighter than the owner I got to ride his bike standing up for 10 miles or so (was a rear wheel, and trying to load it as little as possible given the low air pressure used).

A friend lost one of his rear wheel nuts on the first run of a two week holiday in Morzine. None of the shops had a nut with the right thread so out came the zip ties 😀

Added a new one to my list today.

Crank arm felt loose on my HT II cranks. When I went to tighten it, I discovered the wee plastic pre-load thingy had sheared. Borrowed a QR to pre-load the cranks before tightening the crank arm back on. Worked a treat, but with the QR off they soon came loose again.

So I took the QR thingy out of my front Maxle and used that, then just left it in for the rest of the ride. Cranks were great, but checking the front wheel was still in place every 10 seconds got a bit old!

lol.

so you risked losing yer teeth over yer balls,steve? what a dilemma!

I wanted to convert my hope bulb rear hub to run a 10mm bolt through DT swiss axle. Could only get a 12mm bolt through kit for a bulb rear and didn't want to spend loads of cash on a new rear wheel. So I fitted the 12mm axle kit to the hub and then for less than £3 I got a 1 metre long piece of 12mm outer diameter, 10mm inner diameter aluminium tubeoff ebay. I cut it to the same internal length of the axle and it works spot on with my DT swiss 10mm through axle. Saved a fortune.