Things you only do once in cycling…

…and never do again! I’ll start with…

• Resting your calf against a hot disc rotor after a long descent.

Fall over clipped in at the traffic lights.

Ride Hutchinson Pythons in anything other than utterly dry conditions.

Forget to check the front QR is tight.

muppetWrangler – Member

Fall over clipped in at the traffic lights.

that’s my special-move!

over inflate tubeless tyres

Check your front QR is tight with your foot while riding.

Check rubbing tyre against frame with finger whilst riding riding along

Fail to reattach your v-brakes after changing a tyre at the top of a hill.

Grab the front brake hard whilst riding one-handed because you spot the unmistakable sight of a dog egg whipping around on your front tyre.

Dog shit in the face AND a OTB crash…

ride upto a small pheasant lieing in the middle of the track thinking “it will move” only to findout it’s buggered with suicidal thoughts of using your front tyre as a method of decapitcation ….slammed on but the back wheel followed through…ouch the bird was saved for the foxes

Do a one handed trackstand at traffic lights in the centre of town, whilst on the phone.
Cos you know you couldn’t manage it twice.

Try to ride with you hands on the opposite ends of the bars.

Oh and clean your savage looking Hope discs by spinning the wheels and holding a sponge against them – not me, but I do have a mate nick-named ‘KitKat’.

Ride round Learnie Red Rock, because its absolutely shite

Try to teach your daughter to signal left while going downhill towards a junction. Cue wobble, handful of right brake, massive OTB and dad in the doghouse.

In a rain, with slick tyres, in busy town centre attacking 5 mm high curb (not perpendicular to my direction) without lifting front wheel. #tarmacdiver

Try changing gear no handed going down a steep hill at speed.
Try opening a flip phone with bike gloves on next to a river.
Both end in tears.

when you are very young and technology is limited to a clicker milometer that bolts to axle and a clicker pin that needs to be bolted to a spoke and then both adjusted so they meet properly do not try to get the pin to catch the milometer by cycling along and kicking the milometer towards the pin

and oh – if you are very young and poor and have ever only seen small boring firework rockets that whizz up and then stop, if one of your wealthy friends turns up with some massive new rockets do not all get together and have a cunning plan, tie the rockets to the bike and then, top of big hill, light rockets and send him off on a top speed run – none of us had ever seen the rockets that kept going while exploding …..

leave your front wheel in the car park when driving home

Let a torx key cam out a disc rotor bolt.

*slice*

I never liked that knuckle anyway.

leave your front wheel in the car park when driving home

I know a few people that have done that.

Forget to strap your cheap Halfords bike rack to the car properly resulting in two bikes nearly falling off at 50mph. They went in the back of the car after that and the rack was given away.

Try to wheelie a laden tandem up a kerb on a wet cobbled street in front of a traffic jam in a german town.

Kick a jammed front mech to free it whilst on a fast road descent…and slipping my foot into the rear wheel instead…. ouch.

Fold your Christmas jumper over your Raleigh Burner handlebars. Jumper drops into the mags, face, meet road.

Ride a flatland bmx with chrome rims in the rain.

Try and light a rollie and change down with the “wrong” hand.

Buzz a mate’s tyre’s who’s not expecting it and it prone to panic.

Riding shirtless in nettle alley.

* I spent every waking hour of my teens on bikes, if it’s stupid, I’ve done it. At least once.

Let a torx key cam out a disc rotor bolt.

*slice*

I never liked that knuckle anyway.

This… 😆

Ride a race the first ever time you’re on clipless pedals.

Grab the front brake mid air while hopping a ditch in order to avoid barbed wire fence on the other side.

Change the bottom bracket, refit the cranks in a rush before putting the bike in the car, drive 20 miles, set off on bike and realise the left hand crank is at a right angle to the right hand crank. This was in the days of square taper cranks so not something an allen key would fix!

Turn accross the road without looking

Check the tension on the chain whilst riding then accidentally doing a half pedal. Ouch.

1 Spin the wheel while finger end is near the rotor
2 Cross the bridleway from Scarhouse to parkrash { 5 mile bog fest }

1 first time riding MTB downhill in tractor ruts.
try to just steer out from one across to the next at high speed = superman OTB.

2 leave maxle QR on top of front garden wall before driving 4 hours to weekend trip to wales = whine

Ride a race the first ever time you’re on clipless pedals.

Me too. 😳

Putting a tyre on backwards when setting up tubeless (especially if it’s a DP Minion that is an absolute bitch to get on) 👿

In a rain, with slick tyres, in busy town centre attacking 5 mm high curb (not perpendicular to my direction) without lifting front wheel. #tarmacdiver

Done that.

Fall over clipped in at the traffic lights.

Done that more than once

Let a torx key cam out a disc rotor bolt.

*slice*

I never liked that knuckle anyway.

My usual one is smacking knuckles, fingers, wrists against chainrings when loosening a tight pedal. Got scars all over my right hand and arm.

My recent one which I only just got away with was trying to go from the hoods to the drops on a road bike (for better leverage on the brakes) on a 20% gradient hill. Result was a pretty awful wobble, bouncing over a draincover I was trying to avoid and almost having an OTB which would have needed a visit to hospital.

Ride into a bear.
Fit 2.5″ tyres to Manitou 3s.
Drive to Kielder forest without wheels in the back.

Go to any trail centre on a dry weekend.

From Mrs BigJohn:

Decline my offer of swapping the brake levers over to UK sides as we started a day of uplifts on hired bikes at Austrian ski resort, Leogang.

Riding off a kerb when riding into town all dressed up and in her best stilettos. Well, they were her best…

Ride through a partially decomposed sheep at speed because there wasn’t enough time for your brain to compute what the odd looking lump was.

bleurgh.