[Closed] Idiot bike servicing mistakes

Nah, I reckon Northwind still has you beat.

Putting forks on back to front is pretty stupid.

Upside down, though...

(Great minds, Tom!)

I remember that! Tried to add to the thread but it’s closed to new replies

I have seen many left pedal, right pedal buy some new cranks incidents... tired or excited then sad....

^ oh my word, that is priceless - took me a second or two to figure out how the seatpost was coming out of the seat tube ;-0

Mixing up 8 and 9 speed cassettes and shifters then spending 3 days trying to index the gears.

Answering the phone halfway through fitting new stem then forgetting to tighten the bolts up and riding straight into the side of the shed when the bars turned but the front wheel didn't.

Now that disk brakes are normal, I still forget to reconnect rim brake cables when I fit wheels to old bikes.

Cleaned and regreased the freehub mech on my Pro 4s a few weeks ago, checked the exploded diagrams etc, all looked fine.

Put it back together, and realised I now had the ability to pedal backwards and freewheel forwards.

Please tell me you actual tried out riding backwards

I just keep repeating the same ones, and still take half a ride or more to realise what I've done wrong.

Last week it was rethreading the chain the wrong side of the tab on the mech cage, same as the OP. Cue rattly drivetrain and an entire ride spent twiddling barrel adjusters and getting increasingly pissed off until the penny dropped. Then having to re-index everything because I'd screwed up the shifting...

And that was after putting the quicklink on pointing the wrong way so it jumped on the 11t...

I literally only clicked on this thread to see how many posts it took for that picture to appear. I'm just surprised it wasn't Joshvegas.

Yeah I'm a little bit dissapointed it wasn't me.

Fitting a NDS square taper crank arm in a dark, wet car park before a ride.

Yup, 90' out and no crank removal tool.

Did a very interesting 15km ride that night. Not recommended.

After putting some decent, but used road tyres on the FatNotFat wheelset, thought I'd get around to flipping the stem to negative and put some more spacers above the stem, to stretch me out and reduce aero drag a little...

Set off for work in a very dozy state yesterday morning, went to turn right, the bars moved but the front wheel didn't. On the final time I messed around with the new position the night before, I had only forgotten to tighten the stem steerer bolts back up! 😳

On a more positive note, the ride in after bolt tightening and the ride back were my 2nd and 1st best respectively, despite being full of lurgy. 😆

I’ve had a couple!

Cut 20mm from bar end, walked around the bike to cut 20mm from the other side. Distracted and cut a further 20mm from the already cut side. Bars in the bin, expensive mistake.

Turned a bike upside down and threaded the left and right bottom bracket cups in. The wrong sides as it was upside down. Luckily I managed to get them out without any damage and save myself a frame.

90′ out and no crank removal tool.

Did a very interesting 15km ride that night.

Can't believe you carried on with the ride!

Single-speeding a rear wheel, put a stack of spacers on the freehub, tightened up the lock ring, realised I hadn't put the cog on.  Thank goodness for mole grips.

Ha . I’ve done that a few times. Not he northwind one !! The chain tab one, just so we are clear!! 😉

Motorbike, tightening calliper bolt with torque wrench, was just thinking wrench should’ve clicked by now when calliper stripped,  failed wrench then thrown through garden bench.

Shortened the hydraulic hose on the road Caliper and couldn’t figure out why pulling the leaver wasn’t cycling fluid.

has a right old strop and walked away for a bit.

cup of tea later and I’m back to see what’s going on. Frickin gimp boy here has one syringe on the front Caliper and the other connected to the rear brake lever.

ended up bleeding both and doing a proper nice job too  🙂

Got the bike stand out of the garage earlier, was distracted for a bit then put the bike in it.  Start indexing the gears and the whole thing toppled on to me as I’d forgotten to extend the legs on the stand

Threading a mech the wrong way round and wondering what the metal on metal sound was...

Putting forks on back to front is pretty stupid.

This was actually the reason for tapered forks....

Today on the trail adjusted cable tension, fiddled with the b tension screw, 30 mins later spotted the rear axle was unscrewed and trying to depart 🙄

I worked in a bike shop in mid 90s and part time sales chap there ‘serviced’ a Hope rear hub but forgot to re-fit a spacer inside. This meant it didn’t freewheel when the qr was done up and only rode fixed.

However, rather than ‘service’ his own rear hub he thought he’d ‘practice’ with my back wheel and not tell me he’d cocked it up. Knob!

So today I had to change some bottom bracket bearings...on three bikes! Last one....put B.B. back in, tighten it all up lovely..........chain dropped off frame & is relaxing on the floor.

aaaghhhhhh!

Sorry, I'm ill, humour me. Whats the problem?

Get well soon Tom.

I had to take off the cranks again. The chain was the wrong side of chainring.

Mr Magoo.

Its quite common for me to have to reach down and do the front brake quickrelease up on the fly.

Get well soon Tom.

I had to take off the cranks again. The chain was the wrong side of chainring.

Mr Magoo.

Nah sorry you're losing me too.

Surely you just put it back on?

Or if its tight you take the wheel out and put the chain on the reattach the wheel?

Edit: forget that last part. It myst just pop back on from any cog?!

Not bike servicing but building mistakes.

On the new SolarisMAX I fitted an 180mm disc adaptor to the McQueen HLR's (which are 180 disc...) and yarked the lever, hard, and wondered why the front wheel was stuck so yarked it again, but harder... then noticed the brake fluid pishin out the calliper, duuuhh. fortunately Bothy Bikes had a SLX front brake in stock...

Same bike, couldn't work out why the rear mech wasn't sitting right. Only forgot to get the tension thingy done putting it together (I knew there was something I was supposed to remember...).

Over tightened the bolt on a seat tube - it blasted off and smashed the mirror (rented flat obv).  I was just glad it didn’t come the other way.  Sounded like a rifle going off.  Also pumping up some road tyres - must have just pinched the tube - exploded at about 120psi.  My ears were ringing for about an hour.  Best one?  Forgot to relighted the stem bolts after transporting bike... first corner I sort of went straight in - fortunately no injury!

I spent a good couple of hours trying to work out why the indexing on one of our fleet bikes was out.

Did all the usual things but just couldn’t get it to work.

Eventually discovered that I had clamped the cable against the frame with the stand. It meant the cable could move when I used the shifter but I couldn’t pull slack with my fingers so I never clamped it on the mech in the right place...

So much tea and swearing...🙄

I took off chain,removed cranks & then B.B. Replaced B.B. & cranks,the chain dropped off frame and was on the floor.

Istill don't understand foregive me. How did the chain fall off the frame completely without being split. And if it was split why couldn't you just put it back on the join it.

Refitting a chain with a powerlink, something I've done hundreds of time before. Normally they hand pull to snap shut but this is a tight one. Really tight.....even using the 'brake on, pull the crank' won't close it. So tight in fact that standing on the crank won't shut it. SO tight that JUMPING on the crank won't shut it.

Because there's no tension in the lower run of chain, is there?

Ha.Nice one Josh.You are forgiven. 🙂

Take the cranks off .chain not split. Replace cranks without chain. oopsy.

To refit the chain ,I took the cranks off. I could have split the chain or risked mangling the front mech (old bike)I suppose or just fitted the bloody chain and cranks in the first place a la the thread title.

You really had to be there.: -)

I've managed to fit both crank arms in the same direction before!

When building up my Singular Swift I copper greased the EBB insert and refitted it the wrong way round; this was followed by a period of confusion and frustration as I failed to fit the bottom bracket. I even considered taking the bike to the LBS to have the insert chased (which would have been a bit of a disaster) before realising what I'd done.

Done few of these, nothing too catastrophic mind.

Replaced bb and ended up putting crank on the non drive side. As I tapped it in it popped the seal of the new bb...new bb needed.

Took chain off to clean then threaded it through the rear mech the wrong way....the rubbing chain nearly cut through  the rear deraileur before I worked out what I had done.

Over tightened tubless valve once, so much so I pulled the rubber valve base into the rim cavity, was a total ball ache to get back out.

Fitted barbs to new brakes once in haste. Realised I had not measured cables first to had to cut them out and shorten cables.

Tyres fitted wrong direction is a common one too, it's harder than you think working this out when bike is upside down.

I am sure that more happen will too.

I once fitted a tyre with the logos and valve misaligned.

I once fitted a tyre with the logos and valve misaligned.

Get out. Go on, take your coat and go!

I've ridden an entire 1-week MTB stage race in the Himalayas with my chain as per the OP 😮 No wonder the bike felt draggy and noisy.  I finished 3rd in that race, I wonder if I could have done better with a drivetrain as it should have been 😀

Cheers, Rich

ive done the 'just one more turn before stripping a bolt' thing more time than I care to remember. the torque wrench was a sensible investment

had a puncture at bpw, turned the bike upside down and fixed a non existent puncture on the wrong wheel, didnt realise until i turned the bike back up the right way

Tried to service a long-neglected hope Ti-Glide. Couldn't get the axle out at all, so idiot gorilla here set about it with thor. 20 minutes of bell-ringing din later and the hub explodes with pretty much every non-drive side spoke hole departing from the hub. I then lost my presence of mind, folded the dead wheel up into quarters and dropped the whole thing down my flat's rubbish chute. I kept finding shrapnel in the carpet for ages afterwards.

About 5 years later I get talking to the hope guys who said that they could've unglued the hub and put a new non-drive side in pretty easily & probably for nowt. AAARGHHHH

About 5 years later I get talking to the hope guys who said that they could’ve unglued the hub and put a new non-drive side in pretty easily & probably for nowt. AAARGHHHH

It's ok, I stood on a pair of expensive Oakleys while trying to squeeze into a wetsuit and reduce them to debris. I chucked them into the shop bin in disgust, but it was only when I got home that someone mentioned to me that Oakley would probably have just replaced them for a nominal fee. Doh!

I once fitted a crankset to the NDS. Realised, took it all apart again and refitted it with the crank arms at the same angle ..

Dunno what was going through my mind...

Thought I'd be a good Samaritan at CyB years ago. A couple of blokes were looking at a bike with a broken chain not really knowing what to do. I didnt have a power link but did have a chain splitter.

So went over and offered my services. I got them to hold the chain as i rejoined the links. All sorted nice and bonny, till I realised that the chain wasnt on the bike.

Many years ago I did some work on my old Cannondale series 3.0. It was fitted with Shimano biopace oval rings.

I’d finished whatever I was doing, held the chainstay close to the chainrings and gave the cranks a massive swing. What I’d forgotten was the oval chainrings which when they came around to their high spot the teeth dug right into my hand and punctured my fingernail.

I've done the syringe on the wrong brake lever thing twice now while bleeding Shimano brakes, trying to push fluid from the caliper end and wondering why it's just leaking out the nipple/syringe tube join instead of making its way up to the lever end...!

My BIL once cut the steerer of a brand new, never ridden forks too short.

Worst I had, which still makes me feel a little sick now. Week before first ever trip to BPW, giving my Spesh Enduro ('04 model) a once over before putting it away, spots chainstay weld with a crack in it. Bugger! Never mind, swapped EVERYTHING over onto my HT frame and alls good. Forwards to the day at BPW, rear disc pads seems to be wearing faster than I've ever known. Get back to the cafe after a couple of runs to swap the pads out, notice that the rear wheel isn't actually in the dropout and the pads had two huge lips on them where only about 2mm of disc were contacting the pads. That could have been nasty!

And that was after putting the quicklink on pointing the wrong way so it jumped on the 11t…

Hang on they have a direction?

I've done the "threaded the mech wrong" thing so many times, but when I upgraded my bike from 2x9 to 1x11 I forgot to thread the chain back through the mech after measuring the length.  Wouldn't normally be a problem but this was back when 11-speed quicklinks were rare and I was still waiting for one to arrive, so I had installed a pin.  Stood back with a big satisfied grin before it dawned on me.  So much for that evening ride.

We may have put the cranks of a mates bike in parallel outside a village hall whilst he was inside and hid round the corner until he tried to pedal off.

We were at a race HQ and had tools in the car.

Done the chain through the mech thing - took me days to work it out, was only when I replaced the mech thunkthi it was knackered that I realised what I'd done......

Also put foam grips on my lads bike when I built it - soapy water and let it dry - stuck really well. Then realised I'd forgot to put the brake levers on.......

I've done the chain through the mech wrong, but to my credit, it was blindingly obvious there was something badly wrong so it was rectified before I rode it..

Umpteen rounded bolts, still keep doing it. Did one yesterday, trying to rush in the car park in the rain and made a hash of it. Ruined a CK rear axle.

.

Most irritating was spending hours and hours with an internal gear cables on my Plasma TT bike, finally got the ends of the cble through, connected them to the mechs. Front shifter/rear mech, rear shifte/front mech. Two minute job on normal bike took a day.

I once fitted a tyre with the logos and valve misaligned.

Not really servicing but recently thought Id have a go at using Cushcore, went to work on the rear wheel and after some huffing and puffing, plus going to incredible efforts to make sure I put the tire on the right way (measure twice cut once etc), I got it all up and running.

Later that night, while looking at my bike I did have that strange thought, why is the logo the wrong side of the wheel.

Cue another hour of trying to get it off and then back on again the right way.

Back when I was very new to this I tried to knock a hearing out of a 20mm hub by simply hitting the end cap on the other side.

Hang on they have a direction?

They were some cheapskate make, Clarks I think, and have a curve in them. Which needs to be on the outside of the chain, it seems.

smugly chuckling at some of these...until last night.

Bleeding brakes, pumping lever and seeing fluid level dropping down and thinking 'must be a lot of air in there'....dripping noise reminds me I've not wedged anything in the caliper and pistons have popped out and fluid is now p*ssing out onto the floor.

Another day, another cock up.

bought a lovely trek 29er from a local hire fleet, looking a quick profit

finishing off a full service, refit fork, tighten star nut... pop... star nut is rusted to death. In a rush so Knock it out with a socket and bit of bar only socket bizarrely gets stuck half way down (it’s a straight steerer) no amount of hammering will shift it, and at one point the bar I was using gets stuck in the socket as well.

Eventually get everything out and the bike rebuilt  apart from the socket which will forever live in the steerer tube.  2 hours of my life lost