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What’s the dumbest maintenance mistake you’ve made??

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What’s the dumbest maintenance mistake you’ve made??

Old 04-13-22, 02:41 PM
  #26  
Sutnblue
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I flatted while riding the other day. Pulled the spare tube out, uncoiled it and set it down. Pulled the tire off, set the flat tube down, got my pump out, and mounted the spare and tire. Started pumping and got nowhere as the tube wouldn’t hold any air. Turns out I remounted the leaking tube instead of the spare.
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Old 04-14-22, 08:41 AM
  #27  
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When I was 12 I took my New Departure coaster brake apart to grease the bearings. When I got a nut off, it fell out, and I didnt see how it was put together. After cleaning and greasing, I put all the round discs on the shaft and then all the eared discs-----------NO BRAKES!!! I took it apart and put all the eared discs in and then all the round one, NO BRAKES. Well then not being the dumbest kid, I alternated discs then eared discs, and yup BRAKES.
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Old 04-14-22, 10:13 AM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by pdlamb
Now I'm kicking myself for a maintenance mistake I thought I'd learned. A month (or was it a couple months?) ago I did the preliminary chain check with a Park chain checker (CC-3 variety). It moved a little, but wasn't close to dropping, so I figured I'd check it in a couple weeks. This week I got a round tuit.

So the chain I didn't change back then -- now it's going to cost me that chain, a cassette, and either all three chainrings or a new crank. Just think how much I saved!
I'm terrible with maintenance. I usually wait until the entire drivetrain is trashed before I do anything. My triple crank bike was in that condition when I stopped riding it in 2012. I used it from time to time as the newer bike was down for broken wheels and last year I decided to put a new chain on and see if it would work with the old rings and cassette. It was so bad I was afraid it was all junk but the new chain didn't skip and only the middle ring was unusable. The chain would hang off the inside of the ring, pretty weird, but my LBS guy gave me a used one for free! Now it's fine in all gears even when I stand on the pedals.

Back when I used the 7 speed stuff I had rollers fall off the chain on more than one occasion. Yes, they will still go with just a pin. Also had a plate separate on one end when I was in the mountains. I heard the noise but I didn't want to stop. Made it down the mountain (with a little bit of climbing) with just one side holding that link together.
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Old 04-14-22, 10:21 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by Ogsarg
Just noticed today that when I last replaced my chain, I had it on the wrong side of the guide between the jockey wheels. I did at least 3 rides over 60 miles without noticing. DOH!
A lot of us have done that. Also, one time a friend broke his chain on a ride and I fixed it with my mini tool. Except I missed the front derailleur. I had a lot of trouble connecting the chain so I didn't want to break and reconnect it again so I took the derailleur apart. It would probably have been easier to just open the chain.
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Old 04-14-22, 10:30 AM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by andrewclaus
Not double-checking if the handlebar stem bolts were tight before the test ride.
I went to a charity century with a friend. Before the ride started he asked me to ride his bike around to check some drivetrain noise, or something. I rode it a bit and when I applied the brakes from the hoods the bar rotated forward and I almost went down.
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Old 04-14-22, 01:57 PM
  #31  
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Tried to true my old AF Bontrager wheels with paired spokes. Made them worse and rather than trying to fix it I just had em done at a shop. Oddly enough the same style on my road bike I got done fairly easy.
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Old 04-14-22, 03:48 PM
  #32  
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Years ago I forgot to secure the recessed brake caliper bolt on the rear and after a few miles on the first test ride, it fell out and the caliper dislodged from the frame hanging by the cable.. It happened while on a fast descent and had no rear braking as a result.
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Old 04-14-22, 04:20 PM
  #33  
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Afraid to overtighten the cleat bolts, I tightened them as I thought appropriate and went for a ride.

I encountered a stop sign at the top of short steep hill, and tried to clip out. Not a chance. The cleat swiveled on the shoe and there was no way to get my foot out.

I began to roll backwards.

I ski, and instinctively tried to put myself perpendicular to the slope so I would stop. That was my second mistake. I swung around and got slammed to the asphalt all the harder than I would have otherwise.

The only way out was to take my shoes off and leave them in the pedals while I walked back home.

I have other tales of incompetence ... let me think ...
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Old 04-14-22, 07:48 PM
  #34  
big john
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I didn't grease the seatposts or quill stems when I started riding as an adult. I found a crack in a Modolo stem on my Trek 660 and it was stuck in the steer tube.
I ended up wailing on it with a claw hammer until it came out.

I first worked on a car in 1971 and car mechanic became my career. I've made so many mistakes on cars it's ridiculous
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Old 04-15-22, 08:48 AM
  #35  
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Apparently the new jockey wheels that I bought & installed 7 or 8 years ago were installed backwards...which I only just learned this past year when I had the LBS do a full tune-up.
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Old 04-15-22, 12:51 PM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by Rdmonster69
Tried to true my old AF Bontrager wheels with paired spokes. Made them worse and rather than trying to fix it I just had em done at a shop. Oddly enough the same style on my road bike I got done fairly easy.
yeah have done this too. It starts to become this really bad rabbit hole of making the wheel worse and worse with each twist! ha ha
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Old 04-15-22, 09:14 PM
  #37  
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Brand new frame. I clamped it in the Park stand to begin the build up, seemed a little harder than usual to clamp but I didn't think much of it. It wasn't until I got to that final little detail of mounting the water bottles that I realized I had clamped the stand right on top of a seat tube bottle boss (with allen screw already installed) leaving a good sized dent in the beautiful new frame.
Brent
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Old 04-15-22, 09:33 PM
  #38  
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I've done the crank puller thing and forgot to take out the inner bolt. Stripped out the inner threads.

But the dumbest long term mistake is when a tire sprung a leak and pulling it off revealed that I had put two full twists into the inner tube so it was like a balloon dog inside the tire. That was done two years earlier and took that long to wear a hole.
.
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Old 04-15-22, 09:36 PM
  #39  
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The stupidest one within the last 36 hours was to try to put a Vittoria gravel tire insert inside a Rene Herse Hurricane Ridge tubeless tire. My hands and whole upper body are in pain, and I completely failed, as did two bike shops.

I finally pulled the insert out and the tire mounted up nearly instantaneously.
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Old 04-17-22, 08:03 AM
  #40  
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Originally Posted by obrentharris
Brand new frame. I clamped it in the Park stand to begin the build up, seemed a little harder than usual to clamp but I didn't think much of it. It wasn't until I got to that final little detail of mounting the water bottles that I realized I had clamped the stand right on top of a seat tube bottle boss (with allen screw already installed) leaving a good sized dent in the beautiful new frame.
Brent
Ouch!
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Old 04-19-22, 10:50 PM
  #41  
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In the day of single seat post bolts to affix the saddle, over tightened it and when was five miles out, the bolt broke. Rode out standing up with the saddle in my back pocket until I got to a LBS
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Old 04-20-22, 09:06 AM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by rsbob
In the day of single seat post bolts to affix the saddle, over tightened it and when was five miles out, the bolt broke. Rode out standing up with the saddle in my back pocket until I got to a LBS
I had one break out of the blue (hadn't touched it in years/decades) a mile and a half from home. That was a tough ride home for just that distance! I later stopped in at the LBS to pick up a bolt. "Oh, we just go to the hardware store when we need those." So I did!
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Old 04-20-22, 10:18 AM
  #43  
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buying a bike with internally routed cables has lead me to fine new ways to mess up maintenance on a whole new level!
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Old 04-20-22, 11:04 AM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by sdmc530
buying a bike with internally routed cables has lead me to fine new ways to mess up maintenance on a whole new level!
Dental floss and a shop vac are your friends, as I discovered when I gleefully yanked the cables out of my wife's bike, immediately followed by the "what did I just do?" question to myself.
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Old 04-20-22, 08:58 PM
  #45  
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If you don't do maintenance, you can't make mistakes !!!
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Old 04-20-22, 09:04 PM
  #46  
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Originally Posted by beng1
If you don't do maintenance, you can't make mistakes !!!
No maintenance is the worst (and most common) mistake.
Brent
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Old 04-22-22, 10:31 AM
  #47  
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I've been trying to repress those memories. Now I'm in the fetal position.
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Old 04-23-22, 04:53 AM
  #48  
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My most recent maintenance embarrassment is regreasing my headset (kind of still in progress). The irony is, I did this for the first time a couple years ago with no problems at all. This time, I've made every mistake you can make. Mistakes included:
- Overtightened top cap, steering way too stiff
- Under tightened top cap - front wheel shuddering when I braked
- Put the compression ring in the wrong sequence (I know, how can that happen!) - steering wobbly
- Cable housing tangled and steering constrained because I put the handlebar back in with cables not repositioned correctly
- Tightened all the screws and handlebar not aligned correctly
- I'm going out for another ride today - I really, really hope I finally got it right
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Old 04-23-22, 10:38 PM
  #49  
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Originally Posted by WGB
Crank remover screwed in - without removing the bolt first.....
Well, I was way ahead of you. I removed the bolt but left the washer in place. Things got interested when I thought some well placed “taps” with a hammer on the puller handle might help.

I still have that Park crank puller with the dents in the handle. A great reminder to stop and think about what I’m doing; especially since I had removed a number of cranks in the past.

John
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Old 04-24-22, 11:37 AM
  #50  
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Originally Posted by Polaris OBark
Dental floss and a shop vac are your friends, as I discovered when I gleefully yanked the cables out of my wife's bike, immediately followed by the "what did I just do?" question to myself.
I stripped out the small very inner tubing in cable housing, about 4’ in length. When I change internally routed cables now, I just slide the small tubing over the cable to be removed, and then pull the old cable out leaving the tube sticking out both ends of the frame. I think my LBS told me about that after I pulled the cable out of the frame the first time and couldn’t get it rethreaded.
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