jasoninohio

So, in the last 48 hours I stripped my crank arm (left side at least), and spilled a bunch of bearings all over, found them all, then dropped half of them down the sink like a moron. Lessons learned are take the washer out of the crank arm, and take small things apart over a container. Both things that I know and somehow still screw up lol...

What did you screw up recently?

base2 

I made a perfectly fine thread in to a poll on a whim.

Mr. 66

Not too much lately, but I did break a spoke's nipple in getting a smidge to happy in trying to true a wheel. I don't feel bad about it, it was an alloy set of nipples, those are imo are a problem waiting to happen.

_ForceD_

Ask my wife. I think she’ll have a daily response.
(P.S. Don’t tell her I said that because then this will go on the list of things I screwed up.)

Dan

Chuck M 

I popped a tube while mounting new tires because I didn't check to see that bead seated properly. The first time that has ever happened to me in nearly a half century of mounting tires.

Iride01 

Bearings are probably still in the trap of the sink. If you can get past the strainer basket or there is no strainer basket, then one of those magnetic parts grabber on the long flexible stem might get it. Or just remove the trap if you have any plumbing skills.

If it has to be cycling related about the closest I can come recently is that I went for a ride and as soon as I got out of the neighborhood, my Garmin told me my Di2 battery was low. Soon after my front DR remained in the small ring as it's supposed to. I continued riding anyhow since this was intended to be a slow low effort 90 minute ride.

I had to chuckle to myself because out of the blue yesterday my wife ask if I needed to charge my Di2. I told her I thought it was good because I hadn't ridden much the last few weeks.

So I guess my screw up was not listening to my wife! How do they know these things? She doesn't even ride a bike.

SoSmellyAir

Definitely remove all of the bearings if you have an in sink garbage disposal (i.e., "garburator" in Canadian English) or shrapnel next time you turn it on.

My recent mistakes have been fairly mild, mostly consisting of buying spare parts (e.g., chain rings, cassettes, pulleys) which I will not need for a while.

Before those, many of you would consider me spending good money to reduce the gear range of my casual bike a mistake:

Converting Trek FX2 to 1x - Bike Forums

sjanzeir

I lubricated a front brake cable with 3-in-one oil thinking it was the smart thing that smart bike owners do... and then immediately set the bike upright on its tires - letting all the excess oil drip down and out of the cable housing all over the caliper, drench the rotor and soak the pads in no time. Ever since then, I started considering what I type on this forum more carefully, being terrified of slipping up and outing myself for the total moron that I really am.

Boy, this is so liberating!

cyrano138

In my life, I've stripped the threads out of not one, but two, crank arms because I forgot to remove the crank bolt first.

pdlamb

Found a small cut in tire tread that was chewing the tube until it flatted. Booted the cut. Didn't find the glass shard inside the cut that punctured the next two tubes. (!)

BTinNYC 

Hours spent troubleshooting a new build's FD before realizing the chainring was assembled incorrectly?

Over-under is 2 hours.

Take the over. Definitely. Gaaaa!!!

WizardOfBoz

When I worked in the bike shop, we'd invert the tire, and then feel (carefully!) for anything sharp. Found some I guess. May be useful info to some.

rumrunn6

I do scheduling & contract maintenance for work. in the past cpl weeks I found some errors amongst the thousands of entries I make. some I caught in time before they created a question. others, not s much. they were brought to me

rosefarts

Not recently but a few years ago I remounted a Campy Ultratorque crank one tooth off. As in, the cranks were not 180 apart from each other.

I managed to go on one 5 hour ride and I can’t remember how many smaller ones before I figured it out.

WizardOfBoz

When I worked in the bike shop, we'd invert the tire, and then feel (carefully!) for anything sharp. Found some I guess. May be useful info to some.

sjanzeir

I bought a new front wheel with a standard, 100mm hub for a Dahon folding bike I used to own, failing to realize (read: being a lazy ass who couldn't be bothered to check) that the fork dropout spacing was actually 74mm. Ended up having to buy a new, 74mm hub and rebuilding the new wheel around it.

Moe Zhoost

Yep, that was me too. Hurry up mode is perilous.

urbanknight

Hand slipped using a pedal wrench and the teeth of the chainring skinned my finger. Since I've done this before, I should have known to have the chain on the big ring (it will still cut you, but not as bad).

sjanzeir

Yup. Did that, too. Our housekeeper was the most terrified I had ever seen her that time.

sjanzeir

I've got plenty of light-colored pants with very strange, very regular black zigzagging patterns on them that just won't wash off. I wonder where those came from...

Mreitter

thanks for the laugh

SoSmellyAir

Nice, pedaling like a galloping horse.

Chuck M 

I was surprised that my wife came in to check on me. I didn’t think it was that loud. I must not have been wearing my hearing aids.

Ghazmh

The past few times I had a wheel slightly out of true I tried to fix it myself. I always made it worse and when I tried to undue it I made it doubly worse.

urbanknight

Is it because righty-tighty only works looking at it from the nipple head, making it backwards when you're working on the spoke side? First few wheels I trued, I kept doing it wrong and then having to undo it.