I’ve been wondering why the shifting on my new-ish bike was feeling a bit bleh. I girded my loins for an involved process as I’d never had this particular flavour of shifting bleh before.

Turns out the bolt holding the shifter into the I-spec clamp was a bit loose and it took about 5 seconds to fix.

Anyone got any similar stories?

No

The clicking noise under power was a cracked frame. I replaced it with a new bike.

Nothing comes to mind but I could tell you hundreds of examples of the opposite.

I tell myself that I wont need the workstand and a multitool should sort it in a few minutes…3 hours later, every tool I own spread around the garage, lots of swearing and it is fixed…sort of, it still clicks a bit.

the other half’s dropper had stopped functioning. here i go to fix it expecting hours of googling, swearing and general frustration based on prior internally routed dropper experience.

What I got was a mere 15 minutes of fishing cable out of tube, slip it back into the dropper and put it back in. i was pretty pleased with that.

I really should get round to fixing the raceface one that has the most complicated mechanism on the planet

Usually when a mate say, “can you check my gears, they seem to be slipping a bit”……

The dread that I’ll pretty much have to rebuild the bloody thing, only to get up on the stand, fiddle with the barrel adjuster and it shifts perfect!

Unfortunatley this means means they think I’m somekind of mechanical genius and keep coming back, even though I’ve told them how to check it loads of times….

My favourite job for “yer a wizard, Harry” moments is bent mech hangers. I’ve had mates come to me having spent hours tearing their hair out with cable tension and limit screws – five minutes with a hanger alignment tool and it’s all sorted

Thought my bottom bracket was knackered – clicking on every pedal turn.
Went to take it out to make sure I got exactly the right replacement as google gave differing answers.
Turns out the plastic threaded end cup bit was just loose. Tightened it up and all was good.
I was glad that I didn’t trust google and buy a new one in advance.

A mysterious clicking under power was bothering me for ages until I figured out it was the aglet from my laces hitting the frame 😊

I don’t especially mind if it’s easy or hard, it’s just nice to find an actual problem and fix it. Often with dodgy shifting, non optimal suspension or squeaks and creaks you give everything a clean and oiling and it feels better but you never know if it’s fixed. Either the problem goes away or eventually comes back. Finding something actually broken and repairing it is very satisfying.

I bought some cheap, second hand forks and they kept getting stuck down. Easy to burp them but I did want to fix it. Expecting to clean and service and hope it fixed them, when I opened them up I found the previous owner had reduced the travel by cutting the top out spacer in half. That meant on rough terrain it could bounce around and operate the transfer port mid stroke. All repaired and they’ve been great since

Another one was when my chain kept coming off. All the way back I was pondering what it could be as it’s rare with a NW chainring and clutch mech. It still rode and shifted ok, just the odd drop. Turned out I’d snapped the axle and the only thing keeping the wheel together was the qr bolt. The cassette was super wobbly. I’m surprised how well it rode. My repair was on last week’s GMBN “hacks and bodges”

16min 30s here if you are interested 🙂

Was out on a family ride and the rear brake on daughters bike was rubbing like buggery. I faffed around a bit undoing the brake caliper and redoing it, ended up letting a bit of fluid out whcih sorted it for riding home.

Had a look the next day and realised her back wheel was not in the drop out straight, in fact I was pleased she doesn’t like jumping at all as the wheel would probably have fallen out!! 😲

The shuuuush shuuush noise wasnt in fact the rotor rubbing, but was in fact my waterproofs trouser leg rubbing against the tyre. Naturally i discovered this only after taking the back wheel /rotor/mount screws to bits and bleeding the brake.

I once waited for around 2 hours for the AA to come out to fix my car that had conked out by the roadside with a strange intermittent fault. Turns out the plug for the ECU wasn’t quite in properly thanks to the stupid tuning box that was fitted…to 2 seconds to fix.

Bugger.

My gears were shifting horribly when I was out on a ride, jumping all over the place.

I cut the ride short and dragged the bike home. I expected a lengthy fix checking mech alignment, cable tension , B-tension etc.

As soon as I lifted the bike off the ground to get it into the stand I noticed the rear maxle was loose letting the wheel move around.

I once called IT support as I could get my keyboard to work after logging the ticket and waiting 30 minutes the support guy turned up took one look at my computer and flicked the notepad I had resting on the space bar away, turned and left without saying a word. Whilst the whole office took the pee out of me for the rest of the day.

The bird song which accompanied me round a ride a couple of days ago turned out to be a jockey wheel telling me it wanted some lube.

The bird song which accompanied me round a ride a couple of days ago turned out to be a jockey wheel telling me it wanted some lube.

Probably better than the usual family of sparrows nesting in the down tube.

ah that simble thing.

went to check my tyre pressure before popping out last night. hour later, new front wheel bearings, new pads, brake blead, grips changed, tyre topped up with sealant, dropper post snugged up bolts checked. considered changing gear cable but thought best to leave it.

Yea im not buying the easy fix thing….

I once called IT support as I could get my keyboard to work after logging the ticket and waiting 30 minutes the support guy turned up took one look at my computer and flicked the notepad I had resting on the space bar away, turned and left without saying a word. Whilst the whole office took the pee out of me for the rest of the day.

One of our lectures at college came racing out of her office in a panic. She said she’d lost all her work. A friend went in, minimised a couple of windows so he could get to the application, at which point she said “there it is, thank you so much”. It was literally behind a window. This was mid 90s so Windows was fairly new but still

Anyone got any similar stories?

I wish… 😂

New bike, dropper wasn’t working very well, only ever had a Reverb before so was first cradle dropper. Assumed it would be a faff to take it out and adjust it, etc. Turned out I could just loosen the bolt on cable guides and pull more of the cable out of the seat tube and redo up the bolts to add more tension. Took 2 minutes (including finding the right Allen key).

Never had something turn out easier that originally expected before.

Ominous creak being a loose dropout that took a second to tighten.

Although, I did start to remove a few links from a chain and spotted a crack in the frame in the process, so you win some…

Someone on our local FB asked for help assembling a new boxed bike, because their husband had had a go and got stuck. So I volunteered, thinking it’d be some awful BSO junk that had been totally ruined by some ham fisted oaf.

When I got there he’d just put the handlebars on upside down. It had a proper threadless headset and stem with a removable front plate so that was a 5 minute job; then all I had to do was straighten up the front mech and put the front wheel in. Indexing was nearly spot on too. It was a surprisingly tidy bike for a mail order BSO.

I went out to the bike tonight to change the chain to “Chain 2” (I have rotation system!). Whilst manoeuvring the bike I realised the headset was loose. Strip, clean, re-grease, re-tighten.

I changed the chain no worries. Then I spun the pedals. Great. I stopped the spinning wheel with my foot and grabbed the wheel with my hand. The tinniest bit of movement side to side. Unacceptable!

Wheel out. Axle tightened. It is Roval with reverse threaded endcaps, and is always awkward. No joy. Axle out, bearings out. New 6903s in. Massive faff getting the freehub back on. The crappy Roval hub has no spacer between the inner edges of the inner bearing surfaces, meaning the bearings are sideloaded when the axle endcap is tightened.

Just fitted a new rear tyre. Span the wheel and there’s a nasty ticking from the mech. Pulled chain off the mech and rotated the jockey wheel one tooth – noise gone.

Thanks to whoever on here pointed out that Superstar jockey wheels are narrow/wide and do that.

When i had to fix my gears i simply had to remove my very minimalist wallet that wedged itself in between the cogs and i had been looking for for atleast a week.

I hear when Northwind got home from a particular ride he was pretty happy with how simple the fix was….

^^^ Ha ha. I’m still not convinced that picture wasn’t a set up. Still bought a gnarpoon tshirt though.