Blocked sink so take off the waste trap. Need somewhere to pour away the junk in the waste trap so pour it down the sink which now has no waste trap!

Oh I’m amongst friends here 😉

– on a straight head tube somehow fitted the top and bottom bearings the wrong way round. Worse still didn’t notice until some kindly soul pointed out the cause of the knocking.

– Forgot everything. Wheels, Axles, seat posts, pedals, shoes… and once a mate I’d promised to pick up. To drive to Scotland.

– Extremely hungover on a boxing day Gap ride forgot my helmet. Ended up with buying the only helmet from the only shop open in Crickhowell. Which was a kids helmet. Luckily the dog ate it a few days later.

– Spent two 12 hour shifts making copies of a master floppy disc.- remember those? – only to find I’d put the master in the copy drive. I didn’t really enjoy that job anyway 😉

– Thought I’d booked a plane ticket to San Jose, California, but somehow ended up in San Jose (I think it was a long time ago) in central america and being robustly interviewed by gun toting drugs officers. They genuinely could not believe I’d been so stupid. Luckily I was able to convince them that I was in fact an idiot.

There are so many more. I like to think it of learning life skills. If I actually learned anything…

Got home Christmas Eve many years ago from a VERY boozy lads Beano to our newly finished renovation project cottage. Last job before the whole family comes round for the grand unveiling and a slap up Xmas dinner is to put up the curtain above the front door.
Mrs S “darling, would you mind awfully popping up that curtain pole”
Me “I think my liver is broken”
Mrs S “it’s a two second job you lazy arse get it done”
me “I’d rather just curl up in a ball and die if you don’t mind”
Mrs S “GET THE **** CURTAIN POLE UP!”
Me “yes dear”
I wobble up the steps and make the first unsteady probe with the masonry drill. At which moment there is a loud POP! and all the lights go out.
Me “**** my life”

Blocked sink so take off the waste trap. Need somewhere to pour away the junk in the waste trap so pour it down the sink which now has no waste trap!

Fitted a new bathroom one bank holiday weekend with a mate, him “taps are working on the bath mate”, me, “oh, did you do the waste already?”, him “oh, shiiiiit”
Next weekend spent replastering the ceiling below the bathroom.

Was building up a brand new Kinesis Tripster a few years ago. One of the last jobs was to cut the fork steerer.
I was now kind of rushing and wanting to take it for a spin.
Quick measure of steerer.
You know the old adage of measure twice cut once… well i didnt do that and cut it too short.

Where do I start…

1) French motorway, 4 bikes on the roof, Peage, restricted height lane. You know the rest.

2) Drove from Manchester to Hawes early for a ride. Put the front wheel in, pushed the bike forward and squeezed the front brake just as I remembered that I’d forgotten to put the new brake pads in. Instantly I heard the locating pin (old school Hayes Nine’s) snap off the piston as it hit the disk. Turn around & drive home.

3) Persuading a seized bearing out with a hammer & chisel. Bearing exploded and a fragment of metal embedded itself in my eye. Cue a trip to the eye hospital to have debris cleaned out with a needle.

4) Helping my dad lash some sheet timber to the roof bars of the car, only to discover that we’d roped the car doors shut.

5) Not me this time, but in the 80’s my uncle used to be a director of a shipping brokers in London that had recently taken on a new bulk carrier. The original crew had just been replaced by a new Greek team, and after an apparent breakdown in communications, the team in London received a rather embarrassing message to say that 2 days after setting off from Portsmouth en-route to St Petersburg in Russia, it became clear that they had actually set a course to St Petersburg in Florida.

I remember a ride once with the OP – up Hollingsworth Lake way i think? – where @binners got home, got out of the car and said “I’m sure I put two bikes on the rack before we set off”

He had.

Oh god! That was one of the most ill-advised ‘WTF are we doing?’ Rides ever. Bonfire night up at Rivi in torrential rain and life-threatening gale force winds.

Drove back in howling winds and as we got to the end of the M60, looked in the mirror and realised we were a bike short.

Immediately phoned the police and I was told that it had been run over by an artic and there was nothing left of it.

Thankfully (for me) Jo had put her own bike (Stumpjumper) on the rack, not me, so it wasn’t really my fault. Still felt really, really bad about it though

I’ve asked a lady on a treadmill when the baby’s due: “I’m not pregnant”

&

So sir, will you be coming along with your mother: “she’s my wife”

🙊

1. Managed to put one of the conical springs from the front QR in the wrong way round so the front wheel wouldn’t sit properly. Thought I’d broken something in transit (southern Spain, flight bag had been damaged on the way out). Very miserable until local bike shop took a look, and grinned and pointed.
2. Left prescription riding glasses at home, found this out at the meeting point an hour’s drive away from home. My regular prescription glasses weren’t at all suitable for cycling with.
3. Left both pedals at home, finding this out after 2 days travel to southern Spain. Fortunately local bike shop were able to sell me new pedals and shoes.
4. A week long trip to the TdF in the Pyrenees cycling to a different place every night with luggage support. Discovered that I had only taken one cycling jersey for 5 days, and it was one of the early rapha nice and warm smartwool jerseys.

Not really our fault:
Helping mate rewire a couple of rooms, dead easy as stripped back to brick.
Check power off, yes. Sure? Back down to basement all switches off and pulled the fuses to be sure. Back upstairs. Absolutely sure? Back down to basement check, look for other sources, make sure, yep all off. Back upstairs.
Start on first plug, sizeable pop and a quick superman across the room.
Turns out that plug was wired into a different ring, well, next doors ring to be exact.

Getting married

I vaguely wondered what it would feel like to point the jet wash at my finger.
In the split second it took my brain to activate I’d drilled a hole in my fingertip and partially inflated it.

Lost coffee again and need a new keyboard now.

Was once on work experience at a plastics firm who had bought a ‘new’ delivery van. Boss asked me and the other youngster on work experience to clean off the residue of the previous van owner’s company stickers etc. Cue hot soapy water – no joy. Cue hot soapy water and scrubbing brush – still no joy. Cue brillo pads and hot soapy water – by jove we’ve cracked it!!! The delivery foreman was less than impressed by the river of white paint running down the drain…

I went into a junction at a fair speed, the kinning park(Glasgow) junction that leads to the on ramp end of Scotland St,for the motorway so always busy with traffic moving into it from 3 directions. Thunk think think from the brakes and no stopping worth a damn, a bit scary really. Made it across and stopped using the foot brakes.

Forgotten to replace the safety pins on front and rear brakes so the pad holding pins had come out and the pads were no longer there 😆

Not me but a close friend. Back in our early twenties we’d arranged to visit another friend in Portsmouth. My friend Adam didn’t trust me or our other friend to arrange travel and took it upon himself to book train tickets. For days he badgered us like our mum “make sure you’re at the station on time” “no drinking the night before” that sort of thing. To be fair my other friend and I were a pair of utter space cadets and notorious for being late.

Anyway, we got to the station nice and early only to find out that Adam had booked tickets for the previous day. Our friend from Portsmouth had to drive up to Huddersfield to collect the three of us, turn around and drive straight back. He forced Adam to make sandwiches for the journey and we still rip him for his mistake twenty years later.

Two travel related ones from me:

Car full of climbers arrive in Dover en route to the Alps for the annual Chamonix all you can eat 4000m buffet.
‘Bit early for your crossing aren’t we sir?’ said the nice man at the port.
‘Well an hour is OK isn’t it?’ said I.
‘These tickets are for tomorrow…’ said he.
I’d booked them as well. Bolleux…

‘Nuther trip, ski mountaineering in the Alps. Planned to meet chums based in Saudi in Geneva Airport, pick up the hire car, 2hr transit to our base.
Ring ring ‘We’re just coming through Customs, we’ll meet on the other side’ said one of my chums
‘Oh’ said I stood in my kitchen having just come in from a road ride. I thought my ticket was for tomorrow and had missed the flight. You can pay handsomely for a full fare, last minute BA flight to Geneva apparently. Who knew…?

Very early morning drive from North East Scotland to Southampton to catch ferry to France. Carefully lock the bikes to rack. Place key in a safe place. One overnight arrival later at Campsite in France all eager to go for a ride I look for the key and it’s no where to be found. Saw through lock/ chain with leatherman. Go to get something out of safe place in van. Find key. 🙄

Lovely hot day in the lake District, running jump off torver jetty into coniston water. Realised too late that my week old -£250- varifocals are (or were) pushed up on the top of my head….

@Binners do you want me to see if your axle is still there? I’m Keswick based, PM the details if you like.

Not me, but sort of related.

My brother in law, on a camping trip, went for a jolly in a sea kayak wearing his expensive prescription sunnies, which of course promptly vanished into the ocean.

We now, perhaps 10 years later, post pictures of found glasses in random locations on a shared family WhatsApp camping group, saying things like “Look, I found your glasses, yukyukyuk!”.

This is either a joyful celebration of shared experience via. the medium of good-humored ribbing, or a decade of bullying. Not entirely sure which.

1) Less than 50 jumps into my skydiving career and out in Algarve jumping Alvor. I can see the clouds coming into the dropzone, but still get on the plane. First load gets out at 10.5K feet and there is still visibility over the dropzone. By the time we get to 15, it’s borderline, but the first pair go out and I follow them about 8 seconds later. I turn to look back at the plane and see another jumper follow me out.

By the time I turn around to look for the dropzone, there’s just a blanket of white below me. I spend the next 40 seconds trying t make my eyes work in radar and hoping I am still over the flat bit. I finally see something I recognise below me and head for that, open up early to avoid the cloud and then start dropping through cloud under canopy from about 5k to about 1500 feet. Landed safe after a really brief, no messing about approach.

But, that moment when there was nothing below me… Well, you can’t get back on the plane.

2) This last weekend when I went to collect my motorbike from the winter storage and got a message to say my helmet ws still in the cupboard at home. I now have a spare helmet…

Flying out on holiday. Arrived at the airport nice and early for my crack of dawn flight, checked bags in, got boarding passes. Went to security and the boarding passes would not let us thru. Our flight is tomorrow!. Had to rush back and retrieve bags which caused huge confusion.

The challenges of modern technology: not once, but now twice, driving out for a mega ride out, unload bike, ready to ride, jump on bike, click up the gears, nothing…. AXS battery in the charger at home!!!! bugger!

To add to the various glasses ones.

We were on holiday in Macedonia, sitting on the beach. I’d been reading for a bit, then went for a bit of a swim. Came back to where we were sitting, dried off, though I’d do a bit more reading. Go to put my glasses on. Where are my glasses? Dawning realisation that I’d been wearing them when I went in for the swim. Bugger.

My fabulous wife says that she’ll try and find them, as she has goggles so can see under the water. So, she begins swimming around and diving down, doing her very best, whilst I stand about knee-deep in the water trying to direct her to where I think I’d been. After about half an hour of this I happen to glance down. There are my glasses, on the seabed, right by my feet.

Had a vaguely similar escapade up in Malham back in 2009. Out for a walk up Gordale Scar – when the water levels are reasonable you can climb up the scar, hopping over the waterfall as you scramble up. I hung back to watch the others go up and take some pictures, then hurried to catch them

As I hopped a distance of maybe 3 feet from one rock to the next, I realised I’d misjudged. I wasn’t going to make it. I was going to fall. It was inevitable.

It happened. I landed off balance and slipped to my left, falling into a pool of water about 2 feet below me, managing to twist my body so that I landed on hands and knees. The water wasn’t deep and I was wearing waterproof shoes, trouser and jackets so I was almost bone dry when I leapt out of thw water. However when I landed I felt my glasses go. My brand new Quiksilver prescription specs with ultra slim lenses that cost me just shy of £300 and which crucially had “skull grip” arms, which mean they’re straight and rely on gripping the head, rather than curving back down behind the ear. When I landed, then, and nodded my head with the impact, not being anchored by my ears the glasses just carried on down into the pool. The pool I’d then leapt out of. I was now essentially seeing like Mr Magoo – I’m longsighted and can see large shapes reasonably well, but seeing spectacles on rocks at the bottom of a pool? Ain’t gonna happen. All I could do was roll up my sleeves, plunge my arms into the freezing water and feel around hoping to grab the specs before my arms started to burn with the cold.

crap ending, but I actually found them pretty quickly and was able to catch the others up. I was barely even wet. still felt like a prize pillock though

Lots of stories of people forgetting their shoes/helmets/whatever. I’ve done that too and have twice bought new shoes and cleats from a bike shop near the trails so I could save my ride.

Not me, but another rider turned up to the start of the Highland Trail 550 in Tyndrum having left the whole box of his riding kit at home. He borrowed some shorts and a helmet and bought some tourist tat plastic waterproof and some wool gloves from the Green Welly shop, then set off for a 900km ride! Kudos!

My mate bought a Whyte E Bike, I read a review on it and it got marked down by the tester out of spite because the battery dropped out on his toe. Just told him to warn him. So he put the bike in his stand to practice. Got 2 Allen bolts off but battery wouldn’t budge. He noticed another bolt turned that and voila battery fell on his toe 😁
Here comes the best bit, he thought that bloody hurt dropping from about 3 feet I’m going to take the bike down and turn it upside down. Tried to put the battery back in jiggled it a bit and it promptly fell on the same toes 😂😂😂😂😂

Not me, but another rider turned up to the start of the Highland Trail 550 in Tyndrum having left the whole box of his riding kit at home.

I once turned up at the start of the Bealach Beag in Sheildaig having left the end nut of the front QR at home. That’s a long drive for no ride…

Not so long ago, I decided that it was a good idea to swap the 11 speed Shimano on one bike with the 11 Speed SRAM on the other bike the night before a big day out.

Which after some snip-snipping and quick removal of cables ended up with me having two non-working bikes due to my ‘stock’ of gear inners not being long enough to reach the mech on my 29er and the internally routed gear outer I snip-snipped out the hardtail being unreplaceable due to to that roll of black stuff at the bottom of the box being brake house not gear outer.

9pm Friday night. Big Saturday ride cancelled. Idiot.

Oh and the past few times I’ve been out I’ve had to ride with the in-soles of whatever trainers I was wearing in the car, inserted into my 5:10s, as they presumably are still on a Radiator somewhere drying out from February.

I probably should go find them.

I once heated up some frozen rice in the microwave, but wasn’t sure if it was hot inside or not so I stuck my finger in to find out. See if you can guess the answer.

In response to chrispo to the reply of ‘getting married’. Ha, this surely wins!

I have been asked by the ticket inspector on the gate if I had forgotten my bike. Off I clip clopped in my road shoes back to the train… In my defence I was absolutely knackered and barely functioning.

Last Friday I was in a hurry to start work in my van, 5 minutes down the road I noticed in the wing mirror something bounce in the road. At the end of the day I discovered that thing was 2 keys to my house, 2 other house keys, the works lockup fob and my car key. Currently looking at £200+ for replacement. I wouldn’t mind but £165 of that is the key for a Renault Modus – if I claimed on the insurance it would probably be an uneconomical write off 😂

Blocked sink so take off the waste trap. Need somewhere to pour away the junk in the waste trap so pour it down the sink which now has no waste trap!

Yup, done that!

Oh, I also once locked my bike, spare clothes and car keys in the car after the one Triathlon I ever competed in. A few of my family had come to watch me, but had already gone home. Stood in running trainers and a damp wetsuit rapidly getting chilly. Luckily it was an old Nova so a borrowed welding rod and 15 seconds of fishing in the door sorted me out.

My mates were going to get t shirts printed with Muz, glasses! As i constantly left my riding specs everywhere we stopped.

Best was at the top of broon trout at glentress. Ran up to get them, ran down (still with the Garmin on) and got a strava pb 🙂

0

Getting changed after a muddy ride. Throw the whole outfit into a plastic bag, after removing my phone and car key, which I place on the boot lip, so I don’t lose them or bury them in the dirty clothes bag.
Fully changed, I stand up, pick up the obvious white phone, shut the boot.
Hear the clunk clunk as the boot has squashed they keys and in the process, pushed the lock button, trapping the keys.

Luckily already had my warm and dry clothes on, and had the phone. Still a cold and miserable wait for a smug girlfriend to come and rescue me.

One day I was putting my bike onto the roof rack of the car, when two of my offspring picked that moment to have a fight. After sorting them out, I got in the car and drove away, forgetting that I had not tightened the frame clamp. Went over a pothole and the bike fell and was left dangling by the straps holding the wheels. Both wheels were taco’d and I had a nice gouge in the roof of the car from where the pedal scraped across it.

Another time, I had just bled my brakes, when I got distracted before I had tightened the hose into the lever. Forgot about it until about 30 seconds into my first ride when I pulled on the brake, only to see a jet of fluid squirting out of the lever and no deceleration.

Oh, I also once locked my bike, spare clothes and car keys in the car after the one Triathlon I ever competed in. A few of my family had come to watch me, but had already gone home. Stood in running trainers and a damp wetsuit rapidly getting chilly. Luckily it was an old Nova so a borrowed welding rod and 15 seconds of fishing in the door sorted me out.

A friend of mine finished the Brighton Triathlon and decided, as it was quite nice weather, he’d go for a final swim in the sea before heading back to the car, changing and driving home to London.

Off he went for his swim, then he walked up the beach and across to the competitors car park. His car key, which had been in his wetsuit pocket was now somewhere at the bottom of the English Channel. Virtually everyone else had gone home but he managed to borrow enough money to get the train home (still in his wetsuit), get home, get the spare key and then (having changed into normal clothes) get the train back to Brighton to collect his car.

He did say that the one upside of it was that no-one sat near him for the entire train journey – apparently being dressed in nothing but a wet triathlon suit and a pair of trainers marks you out as a bit of a weirdo. 😂

Driving under the low barrier at the carpark in Mousehole with the roof box on.

The Wife: “Will we fit?”
Me: “We’ll fit.”

BANG!

I have been asked by the ticket inspector on the gate if I had forgotten my bike. Off I clip clopped in my road shoes back to the train… In my defence I was absolutely knackered and barely functioning.

That made me laugh. Sorry.

Oh, I also once locked my bike, spare clothes and car keys in the car after the one Triathlon I ever competed in. A few of my family had come to watch me, but had already gone home. Stood in running trainers and a damp wetsuit rapidly getting chilly. Luckily it was an old Nova so a borrowed welding rod and 15 seconds of fishing in the door sorted me out.

Been there…. Lucky it was a MK3 fiesta where just about anything flat and metal would open the driver’s door…… One teaspoon later and we were back in.

A trip to Ibiza with my old raver mates, paid for by a guy who had done pretty well for himself, not in finance or banking but doing a real job selling actual things. Anyhow turn up at his house about an hours drive away, he says ‘right o everyone got there passports?’ Jokingly of course. I’m the ****, ‘er no’ he’s like, come on let’s go, I’m stood frozen ‘fuuuuuk’. Consider options, mate brings it on fireblade, I go later on Ryan Air and meet there. I’m proper annoyed to say the least but mostly cos we’re going in a private jet. In the end he gets it to land at Kidlington where my mate drives my passport down. Cool as… ended up being a fun start to the holiday.
Never flown in one since and it’s been a couple of years since we’ve spoken so I’m guessing it’ll be my only go in one.
QUITE A BOAST