What’s your “dumbest” bike repair mistake?
10-17-20, 09:36 AM
#76
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Dumbest that I'll admit to was back when we first started. My wife and I shared an old bike that had been stored unused for years (decades?) until she got it as a hand-me-down, and after a few hundred miles the rotted tires started splitting at the sidewalls. I hadn't touched a bike since I was a kid, so I didn't have a clue but it seemed reasonable at the time. I repaired the tires with a mashup of wire mesh, nylon thread and rubber glue. Duck tape was involved. It did work, but of course the tires continued disintegrating and I had to keep adding repairs, and eventually I realized how dumb the whole idea was.
10-18-20, 05:46 PM
#77
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Not a 'repair' but...
I was assembling a new bike I bought and it had a spring fork, my first one. So I went ahead and installed the front wheel (QR) and felt like I had it sufficiently tight. I've had quick-release hubs since 1984 and have re-installed wheels hundreds of times. Finished the bike, tested it around the area and went on my first ride with a buddy, about 15 miles that day on a paved trail that has some rough bridges and washboards where roots are pushing up the pavement. The fork was great at smoothing those out. We finished the ride but I was feeling something funny in the front toward the end. Turns out the QR had loosened. Something about how the dropouts are made had given me a false indication. Looked the situation over, saw nothing out of whack and just re-installed the wheel. No problem since. But then I started thinking about how great it felt going over the rough stuff and how I was pushing it to hit the bridges faster and faster to enjoy the fork. That could have been ugly. Now before any ride on a bike with QR front wheel, I make sure its tight before getting on the bike.
10-23-20, 02:14 AM
#78
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Not noticing that the centering washers on my homemade press-fit BB press had moved off center. I ended up crushing the spacer tube inside the BB shell and then had to destroy the new BB's bearings to get the tube out. The plan was to use the old BB's spacer with the new bearings. I ended up having to buy another BB and then paid the shop to install it for me. Such a doofus.
