D'oh! Share your finest moments...
 

I spent a couple of hours tuning up my Bickerton last night.

Dismantled the front hub, cleaned and degreased everything, repacked the bearings with good grease, dismantled and cleaned the front sidepull brake so it works smoothly, shortened the overly long brake cables fore and aft, making sure the casings were well lubricated.

Spent a proud few minutes admiring my handiwork, spinning a silent wheel here, testing the responsive smooth brakes there - everything was much better than before.

Aah! Time to fold up and have a wee celebratory nightcap at last.

So I folded down the handlebars, but they won't go all the way. I've only gone and cut the cable too ####### short.

No Einstein among bike mechanics, me.


Do share your stories so I don't feel quite such a doofus.

Cutting a cable too short is not as dumb as cutting a fork steerer too short. I have only done one of these.

Too many to count. One of my favorites was from back in the 80s when I stripped the bars on my road bike to install replacement brake levers. I spent about an hour and a half stripping, cleaning and re-wrapping them with a time consuming decorative harlequin pattern. Once I was done and proud of my work I realized I re-installed the old levers.

I have one of the older Dahon handleposts with the tiny white plastic cam tensioner. I was tightening up the lever and did it so tight it cracked the plastic when I closed it. Since I don't want a handlepost failure I bought a new one piece handlepost.

Quick tip for budding Bickerton mechanics - a left to right cable/lever swap sorted that out. Bonus is I now have the right brake on the right, like on my other bikes.

Boo-boos aside, that's remarkable tapework, very pretty. Never seen that before.

Just to be clear that particular work isn't mine. I haven't been that particular with bar tape in ages. Way back in the day my riding buddies and I used to try and out-pimp each other. Tape patterns was one of the most effective ways without being a hindrance during training rides like chromed chain link handlebars, curb feelers or 120 spoke wheels.