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I tend to forget things, a lot, but two of the more recent ones are:
When I ordered my Reeb SST a few years back, it was right after the new Transmission stuff came out, so I the the Gen1 AXS upgrade for free. (I wouldn't have optioned for it) Fast forward a few weeks later and as a big proponent of Dawn Patrol, I load the truck up and head to the trail had just as the sun is peeking over the horizon, I throw my leg over the bike take a few cranks and try to shift, only to realize the battery is back at home, nice and cozy on the charger in the garage. I now have a battery that lives in my truck, as well as leaving the battery cover on the seat of my bike so I can move the bike without it falling off.
The other time was forgetting a helmet. Not only do I ride Dawn Patrol I also ride solo 99% of the time, so one of the few times last summer I organized a ride with multiple people, which required a 35min drive to Idaho Springs to show some friends the new stuff at Virginia Canyon. But as we were unloading the truck I realized I had everything but my helmet. Panic ensues as I race from store-to-store, looking for somewhere with a helmet, It took me going to 5 different stores before finding a helmet. The shop owner said he just started carrying helmets a few weeks prior, and I gladly obliged in paying full MSRP on a Smith Session that now ALSO forever lives in my truck.
Having 2 batteries is the trick for me.
Fresh battery comes off the charger, remove used battery from derailleur, install fresh battery, used battery goes onto charger. There is always a battery installed on the bike.
I swap them at the beginning of the month and almost never run either one dead.
I'd forget everything if I could. I'm very capable of thinking about X so focusedly that my feet take me right past Y to go to Z even if Y is leaning up against the door. Which is also why I don't have batteries on my bike. They'll be forgotten immediately. My focus walks me right past my lunch and out the front door, there's no way I'm going to remember a little black cuboid hidden away in another room. Plus I'm more practical than I am smart.
So ALL of my bike ride stuff lives in a box. All of it. That box goes everywhere the bike goes. If I put my bike in the car, the box goes in the car. If I put the bike in the garage, the box goes in the garage. Things air out/dry out right next to the box in such a way that I can't lift the box without hitting my head on the things drying out.
In order for me to forget anything, I pretty much have to forget everything...and I'm unlikely to forget EVERYTHING.
Please come back and post here when you do manage to forget everything
That reminds me: I was pulling away from my house to go on a ride last week and checked my rear view mirror. No bike on the rack. Instantly thought of this thread.
I raise you finishing a ride, leaning your bike against the rack, forgetting it isn't secured, and starting to drive off before realizing you almost backed over your bike
I have a great one about those quill stems:
Not my bike, but my friend from way back in Jr. High had one of the first full-sized, 24" or 26" BMX bikes I had seen. (This was in the mid '80s.) It was just a regular store-bought kind, with nice graphics but cheapo parts, probably a Huffy.
Anyway, we had this cool little spot right in front of my house that we'd session all afternoon; it was a small jump up to an elevated sidewalk, with a dirt trail leading back down to the street level. We'd wheelie down, or try to bunny-hop to downside; all the typical things you'd imagine doing on your way down a 5' patch of dirt. Well, one lap, my friend tried to manual and roll down the slope on the rear wheel. Unfortunately for him, the quill bolt was loose and the whole gooseneck popped right out of the frame when he leaned back, leaving him holding his bars up over his head like an Orangutan trying to describe a stripper taking her shirt off. Somehow, he managed to keep it on two wheels all the way down the short decline, bars still over his head, brake cable tugging spastically at his frame while he tried to keep it all under control. Amazingly, the big-wheeled bike was straight enough to wobble out into the street for about 30 feet until the front wheel went sideways and he endoed, still holding the bars (?) and ate crap harder than my 12 year-old self had ever seen. I was caught between care for my friend and raucous laughter after seeing the funniest crash ever!
2018 I bought my first mountain bike. I’d ridden twice a week for about 5-6 weeks when suddenly my dropper became very slow about 10 minutes into a ride. Pretty soon after that it was just stuck at full extension and I abandoned the ride and headed to the bike shop to get it looked at. They were too busy and had a 2 week lead time on booking it in so I headed home. I’d never had a bike before that I’d done any maintenance on other than changing tyres. I was itching to get out and ride and getting really frustrated and annoyed that my brand new dropper was already broken, so I watched a few YouTube vids to see if I could find a fix I was capable of carrying out. I had a dropper remote that mounted on top of the bars and you push down as opposed to a lever. During that ride I had looked down at the cables and thought “oh shit my dropper cable has almost unscrewed itself” so I wound it back together. That’s when I learnt about barrel adjusters and what they do.
I listened to the podcast and heard that my comment made people laugh. Thanks for the shout out.
One of the better tandem mtb designs I have seen
It's awesome for rolling stoppies.
This just happened to me today. A couple months back, I bought a new frame and started building it up, mostly transferring parts from a donor frame. Work has been uncomfortably busy, so I've taken my time, doing bits at a time on the weekend as a form of therapy. I'm usually a good if not anal mechanic, and in this case I really focused on each job at hand, extracting everything I could from the process. Anyway, I finished the build today.
After gazing at the new bike with a sense of pride, I did a quick lap around the neighborhood and immediately noticed that clicking in to the drive-side pedal felt odd. Then, when I would pedal lightly, the drive-side crank would accelerate downwards. I thought to myself, 'this must be the o-chain and I just need to get used to it." I went for a short ride and kept noticing this downward acceleration whenever I was pedaling with light pressure. Again, I said to myself, this has got be some weirdness with the o-chain and reluctantly resolved to take it apart.
At the end of the ride, as I'm coasting on the street with my pedals level, I noticed that...my pedals weren't level. I somehow managed to clock the cranks incorrectly - by about 15deg - when assembling them. I felt like a complete idiot, but relieved all the same.
I have no idea how I managed NOT to do that when I owned eeWings, I thought for certain it would happen with all the little alignment teeth.
A while ago I had an unlucky streak of breaking two Spesh Enduro frames (both headset area). After the second break I was offered a Stumpy Evo replacement frame instead which I gladly accepted. When building it up I noticed the frame came with an extra linkage. "Sweet" I thought as I assumed that the extra one was for mulleting the bike and carried on assembling.
After riding a few months on it I decided I was pretty happy with the 29er life and decided to sell off the mullet link. A couple days later the guy who bought the link calls back, livid. As it turns out, I sent him a 29er link. In turn, I realized I was riding the mullet link all along. Guy got his money back and I got an excuse to finally try mullet. Never looked back since.
Also explains why I was absolutely blowing through travel before stuffing the Float X with the biggest token...
I've destroyed probably 4 shimano crank safety-clip-things from yanking cranks off and somehow never learn my lesson.
As an on-brand DVO fork owner I was bleeding the damper after a rebuild - a process that's like a cup-lever bleed on brakes. The damper shaft binds up easily if not well aligned so while peering over the damper to watch for bubbles the damper shaft breaks the stiction and shoots a jet of oil directly into my eye. I guess there's nothing too nasty in motorex damper oil since the oil didn't hurt much and I can still see, but it was not fun rinsing my eyeball out for the next 20 minutes. I wear safety glasses now...
Had a terrible creak on my propain tyee which happened while pedaling or if I flexed the bike sideways pushing near the BB. I disassembled, regreases & reinstalled the linkage & BB several times, even got new linkage bolts in case those were worn. Eventually I tightened the derailleur hanger nut (it's a similar design to a UDH) a quarter turn and voila - no more creaking. That nut gets loctite nowadays.
Reminds me of my howling brakes that bugged me for a while. Thought I had contaminated pads or the rotor. Just decided to live with it for a while. One day I was fed up and decided to take a look again… Tightened the fairly loose caliper bolt and bam, it was quiet.
Similarly,
When servicing a Grip2 damper, point the hole in the damper body AWAY from yourself (or be smart and cover the hole loosely with a rag). I was wearing safety glasses but it still makes a big mess.
I had a 3 - 4 beer single speed build one night after work years ago. At this time I didn't have a stand so I turned it upside down to install the cranks, pedals, wheel, chain and chain tensioner in my garage. Satisfied with my chain tension I flipped it over and hopped on. It would only go backwards, I had installed the drive on the wrong side....
It took me way too long to realize how that was even possible, but now I'm LMAO. With you, of course. That's 100% something I would have done with the bike upside-down!!!
Frickin beautiful.
This is so good.
Back in mech life daze I learned after the 10-100th time the first spot to check for creaks was the chainring bolts. The number of times I had practically torn down a complete bike for naught due to one or more of those buggers being a tad loose was pretty embarrassing. Plus side, later when one of the other mechs was in the process of doing the same I got to be the smug hero who would tighten the damn things and solve their half hour + struggle. That bit of learning drives me to this day, often pulling the crank arms off and checking the locking or screws on direct mounted chainrings when creaking was called out, and often times yep, that was the culprit.
The number of folx I know who've killed their AXS batteries by leaving them installed on the drive out to far flung places is pretty funny, and there's def a correlation between those that did that with those that end up leaving their batteries on the charger when they go out for a ride. Think Shimano was smart to build their wake function into actuation rather than movement detection.
Did not know that was a difference between shimano and sram… probably a patent issue I’d imagine?
A guy I know was on his first solo mountain bike ride when he started cramping up. Had that first bike / new hobby stoke and was trying out the route we’d shown him the week prior. He hadn’t done a ton of long cardio activities in a while, and ended up getting roasted on a hot day. Mega cramps had him walking the final trail back, with some sit downs and some groaning. Those really gnarly leg cramps that just debilitate you. Not particularly funny.
Until a rider came by and helped by offering water and an energy packet. One of those ooey gooey honey type squeezers. My friend thanked him, downed the water, and proceeded to address his thigh cramp with the gel. By tearing the packet open with his teeth and rubbing it all over his skin. He said the Good Samaritan just watched him silently, nodded, and continued on.
Imagine watching a dude rub hot energy gel on his hairy sweaty thighs. Love it!
This is amazing. You made a circus bike!
I’ve put skateboard trucks on incorrectly in every permutation, including on top.
10/10 story. I particularly love the silent stare of the good samaritan.
I mean, it’s cheating to go on Reddit but I instantly thought of this thread: “master link clicking…”
https://www.reddit.com/r/bikewrench/comments/1mq8pek/master_link_clicki…
Maybe, but regardless it makes a lot more sense to me. It's not a big deal to pop off batteries for transport certainly, though not having to do it is even less of one.
Maybe, but it makes a good bit more sense the way Shimano does it (to me at least). It's no big deal to pop a battery off for transport, but it's even less of one to not have to do it.
2 weeks ago I finally got around to having time to set up the new crankbrothers synthesis wheelset from vital fantasy (still so stoked thank you vital and crankbrothers).
Pulled the tires and tannus tubeless off my oem set (which I can mount by hand without Tyre levers).
Try to install them on the new set. 29r front goes on easy by hand.
27.5 rear is unbelievably tight to get the last little bit and needs levers to get on. Won’t hold air longer than 20min. Spray it with soapy water and it blows bubbles around the valve stem and nearby spokes. I had put a hole in the tape with the lever.
Remove everything, re-do the tape, reinstall trying to be very cautious of the levers on the tape. Still touch it with the lever. Same again.
Remove everything for another re-tape. Run out of tape at about at about 3/4’s around the rim.
Think f*** it I’m 2 days in already and have to buy a new roll of tape I’ll just pay someone to do it. Drop it to the local bike franchise and explain to them Its very tight and I keep nicking the tape with my Tyre levers so it will need new tape and a lever with a nice short end on it. Head in to pick up the next day and it’s flat. He says he refreshed the sealant. I tell him I already know the issue is damaged tape, that’s what I had dropped it in for. Looks at me like I’m an idiot. Walk out with a still flat Tyre. On the way home realize I had forgot about another local bike mechanic I used to regularly go to had re-opened a new workshop after closing down a few years ago. Head in to buy more tape. He has no 30mm tape left and it takes 3 days to come in. Decide to leave it in there and let them do the install. Explain it’s super tight on the rim and I keep catching the tape with the lever. The wife to pick it up for me when it’s ready Friday afternoon. I grab it out of the car Saturday morning. It’s flat.
Pump it up and spray soapy water in it. Blows bubbles out some of the spokes, but also seems to blow bubbles through the Tyre sidewall. Decide I’ll install the brand new spare Tyre I have in the shed.
Pull it apart and go buy another roll of tape, a new bottle of sealant, and some new Tyre levers with a very short hook end.
This Tyre is even tighter than the original so I decide F*** it and abandon the tannus insert. I wrestle this thing for a good 20 mins before I get a second set of hands to help and it finally goes on. Pump it up, and spray it. Bubbles at the valve hole and spokes.
This Tyre is so tight it takes 10 mins just to get it to drop in the rim bed and get a lever under it. Pull it off and can’t find a hole but it looks like I overcut the valve hole in the tape a tiny bit.
Now 1.5 weeks in I retape it. Add some gorilla tape over the top in the area I’m using levers to try and protect it, and have another 20 min wrestle to get the new Tyre back on. Well I catch the tape with a lever again about 5mm past where I had stopped the gorilla tape.
Pull it all off and by now I’ve redone it and wiped sealant out so many times that there’s a bit of lint from the rags stuck to the leftover tape residue. Decide this might be allowing air through out so get some goo remover and tidy it all up.
Retape it, add a bit more gorilla this time. Wrestle the new Tyre on again. Blows loads of bubbles at the valve stem hole. peel the Tyre back enough to see I’ve ever so slightly overcut the tape hole again. Add a patch of gorilla and while doing notice the edges of the tape aren’t sticking to the rim now.
Pull it all off. Try to re-tape but it just won’t stick at all. There must still be a bit of residual goo remover. Give it another good clean with water and dish soap. Retape it but it’s still not sticking very well. Give it another scrub and leave it to dry overnight.
Running low on tape again as well as patience. It still isn’t sticking very well.
Decide f*** it I’m just using straight gorilla and going back to the original Tyre with the insert as the new one is just impossibly tight.
Get it mounted, spray it and it blows bubbles at some spokes but it’s the best it’s been out of any attempts. Decide I’ll keep adding air and spinning it every hour or two and hopefully sealant will work. Well it takes about 12 hours to go flat! Huge win I should be fine get through a 2 hour ride so I’m happy and hopefully over time sealant will plug whatever hole there is.
Throw the wheel on the bike and the Tyre is on BACKWARDS!!!!!! FML!!!!
It’s now been 2 weeks, about 10 attempts, and about $200 in parts and cleaning gear and I still have a Tyre the goes flat and is f mounted the wrong way.
I felt this story in the marrow of my bones. I haven’t had your exact experience on the same wheel, but every part of your story I have experienced on one day or another.
In a related story, last month I finally decided that I will never ever buy the small roll of tubeless tape or small bottle of sealant ever again. If I change rim size and have 30 meters of extra 30mm tape sitting around, so be it. Cannot afford the existential pain of having 6” too little rim tape ever again.
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