jj1091

It'll work if it's a fixie!

squirtdad

after reading all of these I feel far smarter than is justified

fleslider 

Got Married! but now Divorced so its probably just me right now..

ok Bike related.

1. had my 1980 Trek 613 on top of the car and forgot.. pulled into garage . bike was wedged on the rack and under the garage door frame... dented the roof of my car, took a chunk of wood out of the door frame.. and bent the death fork and dented the top tube.

about a month ago i rebuilt a 1986 Trek 850, put the thumbshifter on backwards , didnt notice till after riding it for a couple miles and wondered why it was so difficult to shift with my thumbs..

thinktubes 

clubman 

We've covered this long time ago. 1972. Age 14 . Suburbia. My first racy-road bike, 72 Orbea OCI , Zeus Alpha Junior parts on seamed tubes. Riding with pack of 15 year old peer group, smoking pot and get inspired to yell 'Evil Knievel', pop a wheelie over curb. Front quick release lets go mid air, forks bite tarmac, over bars I go, grind 3 front upper teeth into nerve screaming chicklets.

Cut to hostipal, 27 shots of freezing, 4 extractions and a lifetime of dental plates, partials and complications.

Surreptiously, I find out later that close friend had released QR as a joke. Still haven't confronted him yet after 45 years. Still a friend.

Sigh!

CroMo Mike 

Dumbest thing, bike related? Responding in kind to the insults directed toward me by the idiot hanging out the side window of a passing car. Who would have guessed that the car would stop and 3 idiots would get out? Such is life when you live in bubba-land. I've always tended to act impulsively, but this is one impulse I try to resist nowadays.

Scotty0424

I have a lot of choices. But I have to go with the day I cruised onto the parking ramp at work and forgot I had my Bridgestone MB-3 on the roof. The steel arch over the ramp scrubbed the bike as well as the rack off the roof, denting my Pathfinder and destroying the bike, which, amazingly, was still skewered to the rack and lying in the parking lot.

MDR629

I've only been working on old bikes for 4 years, so nothing too bad (plus I got a lot of stupid mistakes out of my system by working on cars).

Highlights include leaving a quill stem a bit loose, nothing catastrophic but just enough so that the handlebars were different for every turn. Recently stripped the crap out of the threads trying to pull the drive side crank (but they were a bit mangled to begin with and it's a crappy crank). Oh and I had a period where I couldn't mount a tire correctly. I forget if the issue was too much pressure on non-hooked rims or if I found out why you don't want a bit of lubricant on the inside of your rim. Anyway, I ruined some tubes and tires and the worst was when the front tire bead unseated itself mid-ride and the tube exploded loudly (scared the crap out of a lady walking her dog). I barely managed to get the bike to a stop before that happened and then I had a nice 3 mile walk back home.

Otherwise I've been pretty lucky considering my penchant for using old brake pads and tires no matter how old and cracked, as long as they have some meat on them.

noglider 

I used a bench grinder without wearing goggles. I almost lost my eye.

Stormy Archer

Years ago I left some pretty terrible dents in the chainstays of an old (and thankfully crappy) Schwinn, trying to get the seized kickstand off with some ill advised leveraging.

More recently, I was riding home with a big 12 pack of toilet paper kinda balanced on my bars. Ride went totally fine, but when I got home I had the thought to toss it up on to the steps while I was still on my bike, because I still had to go around to the garage to put it away and I couldn't dismount without at least dropping it anyway. Chaos ensued I couldn't help but laugh at myself. This was AFTER me and a stranger embarrassingly picked up 4 rolls.


LMAO SAME my dude!!!

Stormy Archer

I have a friend who lost a good bit of his thumb and his whole thumbnail that way.

rumrunn6

reminds me when I was 4 or 5 my older brothers put my tricycle in our red wagon. while I helped carry the wagon up the front steps, the tricycle rolled back crushing one of my thumbs & later that nail came off. ahhh cycling memories ... :/

Shamrock

stephr1

Saw the thread, laughed and couldn't resist sharing a bit of my stupidity from about 3-4 years ago....but it did have a silver lining


Been riding my Specialized Hard Rock MTB for a number of years, typically for exercise along my usual streets and paved trails (occasionally took some "dirt detours" at times, if only to justify being on an MTB My route takes me along a road where a bridge crosses a significant creek. There's a fairly level separated bike/pedestrian section of the bridge added to the edge of the road. At both ends of this bike bridge are metal poles ~3 ft. tall (filled with concrete) used, I guess, for helping to understand which side someone should be on? Easy enuf to get past on a bike.


So, one morning I seemed to be a bit distracted and was mostly in my head. Since this was a very familiar route, I wasn't too concerned and was doing ~15 MPH. Got past the 1st pole, no problem, but apparently was a lot more distracted than I realized. I got to the other side of the bridge and when I looked up/refocused I realized I was less than 3 ft. away from heading dead center into the pole. Muscle memory took over and, having conditioned myself to hit the front brakes slightly before the backs, panic hit and naturally I clamped down on the front brakes way too soon and way too hard. The result was I went over the front of the bike AND over the pole landing half in dirt, half on asphalt of the trail.


Checked me and the bike out, and while the bike only had bent handlebars, I had smacked my foot, caught something that bruised my inner thigh. The worse part was I landed front side down with my arms taking most of the impact. I tried to finish the 2nd half of my ride but realized my left arm had lost all its strength....had trouble pulling the brake or even steering. So I short-cutted and limped my way back home. My arm was in a sling for a week or 2 and I had some pretty serious bruises Good news, nothing broken...except my ego...


What surprised me (other than suddenly speeding headlong into the pole) was this was on a busy road at morning commute time, and no one bothered to stop and ask if I was OK. Everyone just went on their merry way


But here's the silver lining...About 15 yrs. earlier, I had been playing competitive volleyball and one night made a move after the ball that set me up with sciatica issues to the point I could expect 5-8 days of debilitating pain (to the point where I had to crawl up the stairs just to get into bed) 3-4 times a year (No, that is not the silver lining). In fact, I bought the bike becuz I had to give up high impact sports (B-ball, hiking, skiing, V-ball, etc.).


So, fast forward ~15 yrs. to the bike incident. Given the impact my body took, I kept expecting to be spending upwards of 2 very painful weeks of a sciatica episode. That section of my hip was sore, but it never got worse. After nothing happened after a year, I started to believe that the bike accident put body parts back into place that the v-ball incident had shifted. Since the accident, I have not had anymore sciatica "moments".


Not quite the treatment I'd recommend, but since it happened, I am not complaining. Thx for letting me share.....

Cl904

gearbasher

Not to derail this thread, but I also suffered from sciatica and even had a Neurologist recommending surgery. Well a massive crash ten years ago, involving 14 broken bones and 5 days in ICU, seemed to have cured it. Now my upper back gets sore after a few hours on the bike, but it's much better than the sciatica. I also won't recommend that cure

stephr1

1 last comment....
@gearbasher - I am not worthy!! Wow!! That is a much more radical approach than mine for sciatica pain. I certainly was out of commission for a couple of weeks, but nowhere near in as much pain or discomfort for as long as you must have been. Wanted to add that I am not completely pain free. I still do have some soreness at times (on or off the bike doesn't matter) but it truly beats the alternative

Glad to hear you were able to get back on the bike...we are definitely kindred spirits in this specific sequence of experiences....safe riding....

patrekrider

If you're old enough to remember the early '80s, that's when Sears came out with their so-called airless tires for bicycles. I was having God-awful luck with flats on conventional tires so I figured, what did I have to lose? I bought two of those contraptions for my bike, which at the time was a knock-off model 10-speed with stem mounted shifters.

When the package included hardware I had to use to make a special device for installation, I said, "Uh oh." But I patiently followed the instructions and went through with it. At least as much as I could. These tires were sized just right to fit a 26-inch diameter rim, so as you may imagine, trying to get one of those on there was a word Clint Eastwood made famous in Heartbreak Ridge. Somehow I managed to get the tire, which had a semi-slick tread surface and a honeycomb design on the underside to provide a little cushion, on the front wheel without killing myself.

Then came the rear wheel. I had to work around the cassette, and after a few tries I gave up. My Dad knew somebody that operated a garage, so he told me he'd take the thing and have it put on. Cool, I thought...until the assembly came back. The good news is they got the tire on there. The bad news is, it was an aluminum rim and where it was clamped, it made a permanent indentation--ouch! So every time I would apply the rear caliper brakes, guess what would happen? The brakes worked, but it took more time and distance to stop and eventually, all that jarring took its toll on the rear axle and dropout. My Dad's intentions were good, I get that, but my rear wheel and bike were ruined. I used that opportunity to get a better built bike. And a bike shop would fix anything that I couldn't.

The ride and handling on those tires weren't as bad as one would think. That said, buying those things was the dumbest biking investment I've ever made.

These days I use Bontrager Hard Case tires (or equivalent) on my hybrid, 700 x 28. No tire is going to be puncture proof, but those really do make a difference.

rickpaulos

There are (and were in the 1970s) 7 different rim diameters for 26-inch wheels. I'm guessing you weren't aware of that and most likely the airless tire manufacturer didn't know or bother to explain that on their product labeling. Any time you have the wrong size tire, it's a royal battle to try to get it installed. Even when you have the right size, airless tires (some brands are still available today) are a pita to install. They have to be so tight so they don't flop around.

JohnDThompson 

A couple days ago I was rehabilitating a donated bike for our charity shop. Worked on it for a while, with distractions, then hopped on it for the obligatory test ride.

Forget to tighten the stem to the steer tube. Handlebars when one way, the front wheel another.

Fortunately, I was able to jump off and avoid a serious crash.

cheffyjay

i left a really lovely two tone, long cage suntour cyclone rear derailleur in a too-strong parts cleaning solution overnight. took the black finish off 2/3rds of it. sad face.

cinco

Two-tone as in black front and rear knuckles, or as in the recessed black panel on the outer parallel? If the latter, there's an easy solution. If the former, none of the solutions are easy.

Lemond1985

Happened to me once recently, while sprinting for a traffic light, on an MTB I had just been working on. At first I thought the front tire had blown out, very scary moment. Took me a second to figure out what had happened, as I just barely got to the sidewalk with the bars loose and turned sideways, as cars passed me in both directions. Sheesh.

panzerwagon 

carbomb

Riding really far to the right to be a 'good cyclist' my first day ever with my first road bike ever and getting doored. Luckily nobody was in the oncoming lane I was launched into. However it lead me to my first ever bike co-op to fix the derailleur that ripped off starting a life long addiction to fixing up bikes. Serendipity or a curse... I can't decide