Home Mechanics – Dumbest thing you have done

[Raymo853]

I fixed something this morning that I did that was just dumb. I routed my front derailleur cable over my chain stay bridge. It worked but the shifting took a lot of force and it rubbed off the paint. This was only #2 in my dumb list, the dumbest was over torquing a two piece crank leading to the arms falling off near the end of a long ride. (Team mates pushed me the 10 miles to home)

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[creadinger]

This was a while ago. But about halfway into my commute home from Bethesda to Silver Spring my chain broke.

So I whipped out my trusty chain tool, which I was using for the first time. I pushed the pin ALL the way out, and of course I couldn’t get the links back together again. Instead of screwing with it anymore I scootered/walked it home to play with it further.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I nearly took off the last centimeter of my thumb while cleaning the chain on my fixed gear, but just punctured the nail at its base instead. I’m actually wincing as I type that, as it was the most painful thing I’ve experienced since I was a kid. Mechanically, I once mis-routed my chain through my rear derailleur, with the chain not going through the jockey wheels correctly. It was actually rideable and took a while for me to notice, although it probably put a lot of undue stress on the derailleur and chain.

[jabberwocky]

A while back I dismantled the rear derailleur cage on my mountain bike to clean and lube the pulleys. This is a Sram type 2.1 in a 1×10 setup. When I reassembled, I put the long pulley screw in the top and the short in the bottom, opposite of how it should be. The way it manifested was the derailleur would stick and not tension the chain, but only in certain gears. For a few rides I was getting baffling chain drops all over the place until I finally figured out what I did. The long screw is apparently just long enough to jam the mechanism, but only in certain orientations.

[OneEighth]

I suspect every fixie rider (who cleans his/her chain) has punctured a thumb nail.

[sethpo]

I am positive I’ve done dumber things ranging from putting tires on backwards (rotational direction) to chain routing to removing cables to swap bars instead of just removing the shifters…but this was the most painful. Pedal removal gone wrong = chainring piercing.

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[Steve O]

@sethpo 138480 wrote:

I am positive I’ve done dumber things ranging from putting tires on backwards (rotational direction)

Me, too. Then I just rode around backwards until I had a chance to switch it out.

I don’t know how many times I’ve fixed a flat and either shortcutted or not doublechecked or whatever and ended up with it flat all over again.

And there was the one time I forgot to re-engage my front brake release after putting my wheel back on. I live up a steep hill and only realized it as I was speedily approaching the stop sign at the bottom. Thankfully no cross traffic.

[trailrunner]

One time I was working on the front end of a mountain bike. I forget exactly what I was doing, but I had a pair on thin needle-nosed pliers up there trying to get something free. Maybe I was trying to take the grips off the handlebars – I’m not sure. I was pushing real hard with the pliers, and with my other hand I was holding the handlebars steady, when suddenly the pliers broke free and the the sharp pointy end stabbed into a finger of my other hand like a solid apple corer, puncturing it neatly and deeply.

I think the dried blood is still on my basement floor. That one hurt like a sumbitch.

[consularrider]

Just about everything I try to do as a bike mechanic is a dumb thing. Good thing Bikenetic moved closer to my house and my LBS in Kyiv is even closer (now to go test out their overhaul of my disc brakes).

[jrenaut]

Anyone who owns a cable cutter and has NOT cut through a cable when they just meant to cut the housing is a liar.

[Vicegrip]

Does it have to be about working on a bike? If not I got lots with gory pictures too. If so… I stopped roadside with a flat in a nice comfortable spot with a bit of shade. Removed the wheel, stripped out the tube, found and removed the offending bit O wire from the tire. Got out my fresh* spare tube and then carefully reinstalled the original tube. Not knowing this while watching the tire go flat and being a mile from home I made The Call of Shame.

*Fresh spare tube = Holds air and 3 patches or less. More than 3 and they get a bit bulky in the pocket.

[huskerdont]

So many, but nothing as beautiful as that cable routing. Probably my best was not putting the spacer on my new bottom bracket, then tightening it down and crimping it. And for some reason, that bottom bracket is still on that bike (with spacer) about two years later, when the smart thing would have been to just get another.

When I was converting an old Schwinn to a fixie, I saw pictures of torn fingers on the Sheldon Brown site. That was enough (so far) to make me just careful enough not to do it myself. Of course, the day could be coming.

[dkel]

@huskerdont 138499 wrote:

When I was converting an old Schwinn to a fixie, I saw pictures of torn fingers on the Sheldon Brown site. That was enough (so far) to make me just careful enough not to do it myself. Of course, the day could be coming.

Yep. This.

[kcb203]

@creadinger 138470 wrote:

This was a while ago. But about halfway into my commute home from Bethesda to Silver Spring my chain broke.

So I whipped out my trusty chain tool, which I was using for the first time. I pushed the pin ALL the way out, and of course I couldn’t get the links back together again. Instead of screwing with it anymore I scootered/walked it home to play with it further.

Isn’t that how you clean your chain? Legendary bicycle guru Sheldon Brown recommended this method.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/chainclean.html

[baiskeli]

Damn, I was gonna talk about the time I overpumped a tire at a gas station and it exploded, but you guys have got bloody puncture wounds. You win.

[Author]

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