Binners Has Axle To Grind After Ordeal

Demonstrating that age and experience are no guard against stupidity, Singletrackworld.com near-legend status Forum regular, Adam ‘Binners’ Rawlinson has had what some might describe as the most testing week and a bit of his life. His ordeal started as he prepared to head for a ride:

As the sun’s out again I’m heading out for a ride in a bit, with a mate, ending at the pub. Truly living the dream. We’ve just been away for the weekend to the Lakes, so I’ll just put my bike back together after getting its component parts out of the back of the car. Except I won’t be because that ‘Oh FFS?!!’ moment today was the realisation that my back thru-axle is actually sat on the top of a drystone wall near Keswick.

Binners, Northerner

Facing up to his own stupidity, skipping the ride and heading straight to the pub to wallow, this was to be only the beginning of his arduous journey through a series of errors that are thought have brought into question his reputed claims that he knows what he’s doing around bikes.

Obviously, firstly I (wrongly) made the assumption that all 142 x 12 thru axles are the same, so I ordered a Shimano one that arrived and is a completely different thread pitch. 

Binners

In a world where spares are hard to come by, observers are struggling to explain how he was able to so easily access and obtain an axle. Lead times alone should have provided sufficient time for reflection and realisation that the wrong item had been ordered. Despite this setback, Binners vowed to push on, achieving the incredible feat of finding and ordering yet another replacement axle.

So I then ordered another (Syntace X12) one, which does fit (I think). At this point the landlady of the pub we stayed in last weekend got in touch to say she’d found my thru axle sat on the wall outside the pub and she’d post it to me.

Binners

Some have questioned why his first port of call wasn’t to contact the pub he’d been in, but no logical or plausible answer has been given, calling into question claims that ‘he only popped in for coke’.

As a regular rear leader and chief publicist of the ‘MNPR’ Monday Night Pub Ride group, Binners’ predicament soon caused much consternation, and he found himself a minor celebrity among his riding buddies. Binners said it was ‘the most excitement there’s been on the MNPR WhatApp group since DazH bought a can of IPA that cost the same as the GDP of Portugal’.

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions let me tell you.

Not even steves plumbing woes have come close

@Duncancallum, fellow MNPR Member

Rumours that Binners is stockpiling axles in anticipation of a flood of lost axle incidents following the easing of lockdown and a return to the unfamiliar routines of pubs and group rides are thought to be circulating. One anonymous source questioned whether Binners might also be stockpiling cheese and pies, though another said that the grainy image suspected of being evidence of a bulk delivery was actually his standard weekly shop. Binners has attempted to dispel any myths that he is a capitalist by saying that the misadventure has cost him £69.98 so far. At current exchange rates, £69.98 is roughly equivalent to two portions of tempura battered line caught fish with a side of thrice fried potato wedges and a foam of samphire in Cowes, or six portions of fish and chips with peas on Morecambe seafront.

To share your own tales of dawning stupidity, or read those of others and boost your sense of superiority, head here on the Forum.

If this story is of no interest whatsoever and you want proper news, head here to tell our new newshound Lauren what you’d rather be reading about.

To check out something that Binners is better at than remembering and ordering bike parts, check out his website.

Thanks to all our Members and Forumites for making Singletrackworld.com the great community that it is. Come for the bikes, stay for the plumbing/ponds/pies/PSAs and much more.

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