Dumb Bike Problems

My best dumb wrenching move came from being too clever.  I run 203mm rotors, and last summer I kept going back and forth between running a Lyrik and Zeb on the front of one of my bikes.  The Zeb is 200mm native post mount so it needs just spacers for 203 rotors, and the Lyrik is 180mm native post mount.  Well, I started out running an old 20mm adapter on the Lyrik with the spacers.  At some point I got a 23mm post mount adapter for it so I wouldn't need to fiddle with the little spacers.  I used it for a bit then swapped to the Zeb again.  After swapping back to the Lyrik, I started getting a horrendous grinding noise after a few rides from my front brake.  It turned out I'd forgotten I had put a 23mm PM adapter on it instead of a 20mm one, and installed the brake with the spacers, effectively spacing the caliper for 206mm.  The rotors had cut down into the pads leaving the top ~1.5mm of pad tall, which was rubbing on the top of the rotor.

I spent two weeks chasing a hideous front-end rattle on my Tallboy which only happened going through rock gardens. Tried pretty much everything, from rebuilding the headset to taking everything out of the downtube storage and riding without a water bottle.

Turns out it was the giant knobs on my fresh front tire (Conti Kryptotal) catching on my trusty Rockshox fender during big compressions.

I had gotten a Kids Ride Shotgun kit to use for taking my daughter around. She loves it.

After installing, I just could not get this weird clunking to go away from the stem. I had the right number of spacers, and when riding it felt perfectly fine. Only when rolling off curbs and picking the bike up did this clunk happen. I rode a few times without thinking too much about it.

Well, slowly inspecting it, I realized that I had installed the thing while the bike was on the ground, having just needed to take the stem off to install the special spacer. Putting everything back on, I tightened everything up while the bike was still on the ground, so it tightened at a weird angle and did not full seat.

I loosened everything, picked up the front of the bike, then tightened everything. That fixed the problem.

I spent more time than I would like to admit trying to fix my shifting. It would shift fine for some of the cassette but some gears I couldn't  get to work right no matter how i adjusted. i even replaced a derailleur hanger.

Turns out i routed the cable of my shimano derailleur backwards. 

I spent months of frustration and probably lost years off my life, trying to sort out my tubeless setup. I taped and re-taped my rims, tried all sorts of different settings on my air compressor, and swapped out the cheap cone-shaped tubeless valves several times. Could not get the tire to inflate. As it turned out, all I needed was better valves with the flat rubber block on the backside, instead of the cone. Instant fix and I'll never go back to the cheapos. It's a dumb problem to have over $12. 

Two more for the list.

Had a front-end clunk for a while. Spent an afternoon taking apart the headset, checking tightness, re-assembling, trying different things, all to no effect — grab the front brake, rock the handlebars back and forth, still a clunk. Gave up, went for a ride, realized halfway down the hill that my water bottle cage was loose. Stopped on the trail, tightened that up, no more clunk.

Had a bottom bracket clunk for a while. Only really felt it on smooth climbs, but I could feel a clunk on each pedal stroke. Spent an afternoon taking apart the bottom bracket and cranks, re-greasing and re-assembling, but nothing felt loose and the bearings felt great. Couldn't reproduce it at home, still felt it on the trail. I was loading the bike up today and pinch-checked the tires to make sure they had enough pressure to be on the rack. Front tire, fine. Rear tire, huh — I could pinch the rear tire and feel lateral play in the wheel. Busted hub? No, loose pivot bolt. Tightened that up, went for a ride, no clunk on smooth climbs.

It's always the last thing you try, unless you're an absolute psycho and keep trying things well after you've solved the problem.

V1 Forbidden Druid, had some small bearings that would seize and creak. Changed them out, still noise. Checked/changed some other bearings, still creak. Rebuilt pedals, still creak. Changed bb, still creak. 
It was a bunch of dust and dirt packed around the idler bearing. A few weeks of headache. 

I have a creak coming from my derailleur area (I think). It happens only when I pedal hard and it happens whether I'm sitting or standing. No amount of moving the suspension makes any sort of noise. Not a long sound, almost like a ticking but to the tune of a creak. Almost like spokes rubbing...but it doesn't quite sound like that either.

Removed/cleaned/greased/reinstalled the rear axle. Did the pedals just to be sure. Still there.

I THINK it's the UDH or maybe the derailleur mounting bolt but it could even be in the derailleur itself. Maybe the cassette? I have no idea. I should give the spokes a yoink just to rule that out. Not THAT frustrating because I can ignore it but I'd definitely love for that sound to go away!

Damaging Torx bolt heads by blindly shoving Allen wrenches in them, or my torx wrenches by blindly using them on Allen bolts.  You'd think I'd have learned by now.  Or I just need to throw out all the Torx bolts.

The day I realised I could use a regular one-way torque wrench on a left hand thread simply by coming at the fastener from the other side using an extension bar was a special day.  I felt special in many ways.

last year i had a slight clicking noise on my old sb150 while pedaling up and it drove me crazy, cranks were greased so i thought it must be that PF BB and i just let it be since the bearings still ran smoothly. then in september i switched to a new sb160 frame and on the first ride that clicking was back… turns out it was the pedal thread that needed cleaning and some grease.

I am a slightly obsessed shade tree bike wrench... Wrenching on my bikes fills a void that is created from quitting racing/wrenching on motos, rc cars, spec miata and performance street cars.  I go looking for things to service/maintain on my bikes as working with my hands is my escape from work.  My bikes are 99.9% dialed and I am always over prepared.  That being said, there's some dumb shit that I have done, and continue to do repeatedly.  

-I frequently forget to tighten my brake caliper bolts after doing fork service or bleeding the brakes.  I can't tell you the amount of times I've had a rattle, only to find my caliper slightly loose.

-I have forgotten to tighten the bb pre-load ring on my dub cranks a handful of times

-The most dangerous thing I've done with minor regularity, is forgetting to tighten down all of the controls/stem faceplate bolts after doing a handlebar or stem swap.  

-headset stayed loose no matter how many times I took the whole assembly apart and reinstalled, turns out the new stem meant I needed another 2mm spacer to set properly. bike shop was embarrassed enough for me they didn't charge

-didn't take my brake pads out during a messy bleed (first timer) and found out what having no brakes feels like

-threw some spare pedals on hastily for a quick errand, stripped the crank threads, had to buy new cranks, got a size slightly too wide, am now riding ~3mm off center

-multiple times been working on my bike on a deck and had little bits - chain rollers and quick links, valve stems, disc bolts, you name it - fall between the cracks and disappear into the abyss

basically any time I try to do something quickly it's a guarantee I'm about to support a LBS

Also a creaking bonus - replaced everything from my fork to drivetrain trying to get rid of this noise only to find out it was the stupid XTR hub that I thought couldn't possibly be the culprit since it's XTR. #recallshimanohubs

Infinite tweaking of limit screws and b-gap screws on derailleur with no success of getting it to shift well with no luck.

Oh yeah, the frame bolt is loose. I've done this one enough that it's now one of the first things I check. 

Once had a horrendous noise start mid XC-race. would quiet down on the climbs then any time I hit a root or rock garden it sounded like the bike was falling apart under me. I was fully convinced the frame was cracked and I was going to die. Got to the end of the race, stopped, lifted my front end up and the noise happened again. Felt the fork and it had some vibration in it. Turns out 2 of the volume spacers I was running had come loose from the air cap... most nerve racking experience ever.

Related: 6-ish years ago me and 2 friends decided to ride 10,000 ft vert of tech trails at x27/Raging River. About 7k' in, climbing Return Policy for the second time, one of us is just shattered and has lots of derailleur noise. He routed the chain outside that little tab between the pulleys so it was grinding the. entire. time. He must have burned an extra million calories and had to bail. The other 2 of us made our goal, but the last 900' of vert was on gravel access road as we ran out of daylight.

Given your experience I'd actually love to know which valves you settled on and which gave you hell.

I have a random hardtail that is giving me problems and I'd basically given up on it and just run tubes... But would love to throw another curse-filled evening at it with diff valves.

- One loyal customer had just purchased a new high end road bike, did a few rides and called in complaining of BB/drivetrain clicking. They weren't technically competent to troubleshoot over the phone so they brought the bike in. Roughly an hour drive each way. Bike goes in the stand and we immediately noticed that the front derailleur cable crimp was bent out and ticking the crank every revolution. We shorten the cable, bend it back and send the customer back out into the world. 

- Bashed my knuckles straight into the top of a sharp road bike chainring while loosening a pedal. Still have the scar. Now I shift the chain to the top ring before attempting or just don't be an idiot. 

- Almost shot myself in the face with a lower Fox air spring assembly. Forgot to depressurize the damn thing before removing the snap ring. That was maybe a top 10 life F up for me. So lucky. 

-Tubeless explosion in my garage at midnight before a race. Ecoplasm everywhere. Neighbors were all asking about "the bang" for a couple days. 

- Front maven lever body corner was touching my bar bend, sounded like the  bars were cracked. Shifted it over a couple mm and went back to sweet silence. 

I got some new tires, inserts, tape, and sealant. Kryptotals, which ended up being some of the tightest beads I’ve ever tried to put on. Front went on well. Back broke two tire levers. The second broke as the tire went on, so I had to crack it open to get the lever piece out. Got some sealant in, and tried pumping it up. And tried again, and again and again and again. I couldn’t get it to seat. Let it sit in the sun, used some soapy water, everything. Finally, finally the bead was seated and it held air. I put it back on the bike.

And realized I had installed the rear tire backwards.

I have become the neighborhood bike mechanic for our cul de sac.  Its been fun teaching the kids how to work on their bikes and also making sure they are not riding around on death traps.  Seriously if there is a neighbor kid rolling around on a bike go make sure his quick release skewers/bolts are tight on their wheels.  

Anyways last night I had a kids bike up on the stand and was running through their gears trying to get it to shift into the hardest gear.  I had the cable tension set right, limit screws set correctly, hanger wasn't bent and it still wouldn't go into the hardest gear.  WTF?!?  After spending waaaay to long on the problem I realized that the cage that protects the derailleur from getting bashed was also preventing it from shifting.  Bent that sucker out a bit and things were good to go. 

Riding along and all of a sudden my fork feels like it completely locked up. Gave it one push down on the bars and heard a nasty scraping sound. Thought for a minute that maybe I had come crazy failure of the air shaft or something else inside. Nope! Just the perfectly sized and shaped rock to get wedged between my stanchion and arch. Took some trail-side fiddling but it eventually popped out. 

I've never seen or even heard of this happening before haha.  

2. I have done this more than i'd like to admit.  I saw this the other day and it blew my mind https://youtu.be/0RP23GSw2V8?t=398

3. I have a buddy who ties off both ends of a shock before opening it up because this has happened more then once. 

Not willing to admit just how oblivous I am.
But my mechanic buddy who has to text me at 1am can attest, I'm truly hopeless.

Oh hey! I had the same thing happen to me too except I got lucky that it got caught between the mud guard and the dust wiper so my stanchion survived  

Yep, been there. Now I always check the hanger bolt first  when there are shifting issues, and continually disappointed to find a loose bolt hasn't been the cause since.