I’ve discovered that my scruffy pedalling and clown feet have caused so much rub on my drive-side crank, it’s actually rubbed a hole clean through the metal. So I can now confirm that Hollowtech is definitely hollow.

What’s the strangest/daftest way you’ve ever broken/damaged something?

Mrsstu had a puncture on a turbo trainer.

Mech bolt came undone, jockey wheel shot off like a ninja star never to be see again

Replacing 6 speed derailleur on pub bike last week, couldn’t shift to top couple of cogs. Removed chain and released cable, derailleur had full movement. Replaced chain and tightened cable – no top gears. The bolt holding the cable was fouling the body of the derailleur once tightened. Far as I can tell it’s the original bolt. Extra washer fixed it.

Vanishing circlip on Reverb dropper post. If you’re not familiar with this common problem, the Reverbs have a circlip at the bottom that holds the dropper part in the outer sleeve. You’re riding along and the post just drops on you. So you go home and pull it out of the bike and find the circlip is missing, so you turn the bike upside down thinking it’ll drop out, or at least rattle around. But NOTHING!!! They just vanish into another dimension.

Heading to Old Winchester Hill last year, just going through Soberton Heath and I lost drive, pedals simply freewheeling.

By luck I got it working again, soft pedalling home in 34/32, to later discover the finger tight hub endcaps(?) had come loose, allowing the pawls to come out of the freehub… Very odd, in my limited list of bike mechanicals over the past ~40 years!

Mrsstu had a puncture on a turbo trainer.

Thought I was the only one!

Lost a chain once.

When I say lost, vanished. Walked up
and down far as when i’d last pedalled and no sign of it anywhere. Long walk home that.

I’ve discovered that my scruffy pedalling and clown feet have caused so much rub on my drive-side crank, it’s actually rubbed a hole clean through the metal.

I put a 28mm tyre on a pretty tight road frame. The tyre ran close to, but didn’t actually tough the clamp for the front mech. But, despite not touching – its still wore quite a substantial groove in it. It didn’t fail but a surprising amount of metal had vanished

I stopped at some traffic lights on the way home from work one night. Quite puzzled how my bike wanted to go backwards while I waited. Upon closer inspection, I found one hook end of a bungee strap had slipped off the pannier rack and caught a spoke, eventually wrapping itself around the inside of the cassette, while the other end was still attached to the rack. It was pretty much at it’s limit

Luckily it all unravelled easily, but if not for that red light, it could have been a lot worse.

Had a few but most memorable was a completely jammed freewheel just before summiting Snowdon. It rendered the bike a fixed gear which was terrifying descending on the brute. I soon resorted to just unhooking the chain from the cassette and freewheeling down most of it. Managed to mill away about half the alu chainstay. Chucked the frame afterwards. Only.came off once.

Had both of my mechanical disk brakes fail at the same time once. Fortunately had just started going down a hill but it still takes a while to slow down with your feet on the road and cleats.  It took a funny set of conditions for it to happen but i hit them on both

Shimano recalled that model

Handlebars snapped on an old utility bike as I stopped at some traffic lights. Bolt clamping the handlebars to the steering linkage on a recumbent failed and fell out at a T-junction. In both cases I’d have been barrelling downhill one minute later.

Running ispec b on my old bandit and the shifter fell off down tutti frutti in morz and fouled the front wheel causing a bit of a panic.

Weird, but not unexpected, I managed a spiral fracture of a seatpost, there was a razor sharp 20cm spiral of metal left, still mounted in the frame but no saddle atop……

Not unexpected as it was the seatpost I had been using with a tag-along through a couple of kids, and the day it failed was the last drop on the red at Kirroughtree. It felt odd as we bumped down, then a few seconds later I had no tag-along attached, no saddle and a mighty close call as the metal left a cut lycra short and scar up my inner thigh, to within a couple of centimetres of the crown jewels.

1998 I’d just spent shed loads on an EX Dave Hemming MBUK feature bike & wanted to ride some stuff I’d seen in the mags so headed to my first trail center experience at Cwmcarn, parked up, got my kit on & a few hundred meters in at that stupid washboard/plowed field bit my ass hits the saddle & snaps the single M8 bolt making the saddle bounce along beside me – I’d planned on 2 or 3 laps but after one lap stood up I was done!

Also punctured on a turbo and lost a jockey wheel bolt.

Weirdest one<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> for me was losing drive on my SS commuting to work in the snow. Water in the freehub froze the pawls open and had to scoot the remaining mile or so! Absolutely fine after thawing out.</span>

Pringled a wheel and snapped a fork riding uphill on my road bike when a stone jammed in the mudguard once!

My pub bike has a Weinmann centre pull front brake with a flip-down lever to slacken off the cable when you need to remove the wheel.
The other day as I was going to the shops I nipped out onto the main road into a line of stationary traffic, so I went to overtake but spotted a bus coming the other way, leaving no room for me. I grabbed the brake but all I got was fresh air. I guess the lever had been left flipped-down. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem but as it’s a fixed wheel with no back brake and flat pedals I just had to do a sharp right into a gap between the parked cars on the other side of the road.
It’s great to be riding like a 16 year old again. 50 years on.

Weirdest one<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”> for me was losing drive on my SS commuting to work in the snow. Water in the freehub froze the pawls open and had to scoot the remaining mile or so! Absolutely fine after thawing out.</span>

Not that weird in the cold, I’ve pissed on many frozen freehubs.

I’ve ended up effectively having to singlespeed a geared bike from slushy snow buildup on the unused sprockets.

Mrsstu had a puncture on a turbo trainer.

Only weird on a wheel-off turbo trainer.

I had the drive side crank arm fall off when setting off from some lights. Had to ask the chap in the car behind me to reverse so I could retrieve it. A friend had the big ring on a 2x set up disintegrate in the middle of an epic ride. It just fell to bits. Watching him pedal everywhere in the granny ring was amusing.

I’ve had a couple:

Had a Raceface Turbine Cinch SL 30 mm crank axle fail completely when pulling away from some lights, the failure pulled the non-drive side (press-fit) BB bearing out of the (carbon) frame, damaging it in the process. Had to walk 7 miles home. The cranks had done 70 miles from new, I got them warrantied but this didn’t cover the cost of the subsequent damage to the frame, which I had to get repaired at my own cost.

Snapped a DMR Vault steel pedal axle pedalling uphill on my singlespeed, did the rest of the ride (had to get back to the car) pedalling with my foot on the stump left in the crank!

Had a tiny twig , and I mean absolutely minute get in the rear mech and snap the hanger off.

I tried to warn someone about that happening to hollowtech cranks but he wouldn’t believe me.

I was once following a friend whose bike flicked up a twig, which went in to my front wheel. It ripped out most of the spokes and threw me over the bars!

Still one of the stranger ones I’ve had, but thankfully I was ok and the skin on my face did grow back eventually! 😂