Volunteer to be the guinea pig when river jumping on the first sunny day of the year. Firstly, just because it’s sunny doesn’t mean the water’s warm and secondly, if the bike doesn’t float, it’s your duty to try and find in in almost freezing water.

Bunnyhop a wall outside a train station with a heavy, but not very secure, rucksack on your back (unless you actually want to frontflip onto your head in front of all the passengers)

carry on riding your singlespeed commuting hack after the handlebars have snapped and you’re riding along steering with the left hand and braking with a dangling half handlebar held on by the brake cable in the right hand. Not a lot of control…

Cut a steerer tube too short

Nobody put their buckled skyways in the freezer to straighten them?

Reach forward and squeeze the front tyre to see if its a bit low on air when you are actually freewheeling steadily down a gentle hill

Try and ride no handed and no footed down the school drive whilst being followed by you design teacher. You invariably look round, bars do a 90 and you land 50/50 on face and shoulder.

Trying to adjusting rota while slowly spinning the wheel..
Result black finger nail for a few weeks.

Think to yourself when you look at the front tyre going flat, I’ll stop when I get round this bend and sort it out……as it rolls off the rim as you go round said bend and you fall off!

Also try to bunny hop something high(something that you’ve done before with no problem on your play bike) whilst learning to ride in spds on a xc bike. Cue front-wheel hitting the front of said obstacle and your sack tearing on your stem. 5 hours in A&E waiting to be stitched up

I’ve done so many of these more than once, I think I must be retarded

Forget to drop down a few cogs after crawling up very steep hill and then on the way down the other side nerf the rear mech which is still on 34 cog into rear wheel at 20+mph. Luckily Mavic Crossmax ST’s are very strong so I managed to stay on bike and stop but…. Every spoke was bent, rim was pringled but hadn’t jammed in frame so…
£180 for rebuilt wheel, £65 for new rear mech, £20 for mech hangar and a change of underpants later I resolved not to do it again

Try and bunny hop a wall with the back brake on- escaping a security guard whilst car park racing. I hit the wall, OTB, landed on my arse, jumped in the air and back on the bike so fast.

It only hurt later:(

Jump on a strange bike and riding without checking break lever orientation

Think that the Skate park looks like a laugh when riding home from the pub…..

Phone wife (whilst riding – I blame the convenient location of the phone pocket on the Camelbak) to tell her I’ve done all the dodgy bits of the ride and am just on the flat cycle path, home soon. Then decide to use my left hand to change gear on the right shifter, but, you know, without holding the handlebar and getting the crossed hands thing going on, cos that would be really really silly.

Put bidons on my road bike that didn’t match the bottle cage colours. Oh the humiliation. 🙂

Use youthful bravado to persuade your dad that you are:

> Fit enough to join him in the Saturday morning fast road group, as your first club ride;
> Knowledgeable enough about bike fit to set up one of his spare bikes for your own position;
> Aware of the need to carry your own bonk food.

Before said ride, be stupid enough to believe your dad when he says:

> “We’ll not be going far”;
> “I’ll wait for you if I see you’re getting dropped”;

During the ride:

> Eat all your bonk food within the first fifteen miles, in the hope that it might enable you to speed along the unfamiliar roads and catch the group disappearing into the distance, at the head of which is your dad, doing a big turn;
> Eventually find your way to the cafe stop after riding on your own for well over an hour, stars in front of your eyes, and loudly berate your dad, who then points out you don’t have any money to buy anything to eat and offers a banana, knowing you don’t like them.
> Go out without ten pence in your jersey pocket so you can phone your mam to come and pick you up from the roadside.

On the other hand, I learned a lot about myself – and my dad – on that day. Cycling can be very hard. Don’t get ideas above your station. Be self-sufficient. Set up your bike properly*. You can ride further than you think you can. Cafe tantrums make you look daft. Bananas are our friends. Dads can be absolute ballbags, but most of the time it’s in your best interests.

I fondly remember he and I fell asleep on the sofa together upon our return from that ride, me from absolute fatigue and him from decking a can of Special Brew out the fridge as his recovery drink.

* – Not sure what pipe I was putting pressure on during that ride, but it felt like I was pissing molten lava for several days afterwards. Proper recoil-in-pain stuff. That’s probably my most abiding memory of the whole episode.

Get locked out your house with bike in full length lycra (and work clothes left indoors)

Cue scrounging clothes off fellow workers.

Lock your bike up outside the pub on a night out, remove the QR thinking-that’ll learn them if they pinch my bike, leave the pub after a skin full and ride home forgetting about the slight QR issue…

borrow your dads bike without checking the brakes first ‘yeah well you only need the front one don’t you’ cheers dad

oh yeah, ever wondered how difficult it would be to learn to ride a bike all over again, as an adult ?

cross your hands on the bars, instant learner again 😀

Granny ring it up a short steep hill, shoulder the bike over a stile, coast down the short steep hill, decide a trials type wheely will be the best method of tackling the 1ft drop into the stream crossing. Bonus points for anybody who noticed i’m still in granny gear, and the stomp on the pedals won’t carry the bike anywhere near the distance needed, but far enough to have nothing under the front wheel when it comes down. Mid wrist deep in a freezing winter stream is a good reminder to check your gear selection before commiting yourself.

rode away from supermarket with a bag of shopping in one hand.
It was just the right size to fit betwixt knee and handlebars.

I Was barely past walking pace before I was thrown off the bike.

Rattled my knuckles and head off the floor of the car park.

Gloves and helmet from then on.

Ride 140 summer miles with a filled to bursting 75 litre rucksack on shoulders.. Never ever.

Also giving your brake levers a good squeeze first time you changed the pads on your first pair of hydraulics ‘to see how they worked’

Upgrade the wife’s brakes, including increasing the rotor size (I had one spare), and utter those same words to her in the car park first time out…

Not greasing SPD bolts. Since learnt a trick of dripping molten candlewax over the cleat as well, seals it up and fills the screw heads, meanig thye don’t fill with rock hard clay and can be cleaned out quickly when it comes to replacing them.

Put bidons on my road bike that didn’t match the bottle cage colours. Oh the humiliation.

Using the term bidon on STW. I was mocked.

Wierdly it’s the word I use in my head, but always translate it to bottle, even when talking to cyclists.