Stupid things we all must have done

[Garry A]

Early teens and a school pal was cycling his BMX along the road with me on the handlebars blocking his view. We were swerving all over the place laughing like dafties when an angry policeman gave us a telling off.......we were right in front of the station

 

[Dogtrousers]

Trying to get the pedals off an old bike, using an Allen key. Left hand side is clockwise, right. Check. Double check, yes this is right. Boy this is stiff, but the bike has been hanging around for 15 years or so, perhaps it's seized. Try harder ... Eventually I ended up with a spiral Allen key. Then I realised that I was looking at the crank from the wrong side ... Or something like that. And somehow I'd knotted my brain and was turning the wrong way. New Allen key, turn the other way. Easy peasy.

 

[Oldbloke]

I've had some interesting tingles from shite neon screwdrivers, interestingly thing tingle seems to build rather than being the usual crack.

On of my favorite hobbyhorses is the folly of cheap tools you can get a set of quality VDE screwdrivers for just over £20 exceeding EN 60900 for electrical safety up to 1000V.

£20 its not much is it?

This happened to me whilst up a ladder a few days ago, never happened before. Thought I was imagining it! Must get a new neon....

 

[jonny jeez]

Chased a "clicking" sound for weeks, before I discovered that it was coming from my KNEE!

Oh, been there. Replaced a whole front drive, new rings, new crank set crank arms, new pedals , and shoes

Only for the LBS to notice that my rear QR was loose, creating a creak.

 

[jonny jeez]

When about 14 I was riding my old Bitsa heap no-hands when the light mount on the forks became loose and jammed into the spokes, throwing me face first into a conveniently placed pile of loose bricks from a recently demolished wall.

The broken and loosened teeth were then removed in a fight shortly after.

]That's proper night out!

 

[ColinJ]

I can see that a cable has to be run between downstairs and upstairs to enable the light to be switched on/off from both floors but it seems to me that it would have been more logical to run the cable down from the upstairs circuit, rather than up from the downstairs circuit since only the upstairs light works off those switches. There is a separate switch for the downstairs light.

My sister had an electrician at the house to do a safety check and to quote for adding some more wall sockets and moving a couple. She asked him about the upstairs light/downstairs circuit issue. He said that it is a common 'feature', the idea being that if the lighting circuit breaker for upstairs flips at night there will still be one working light up there to enable people to get downstairs safely.

That explanation satisfies my curiosity!

 

[YahudaMoon]

Entered a Audax event in Callow near Chesterfield south Yorkshire a few years back, so left my residence in Manchester about 5am for the 8am start as I was cycling for the there, only realizing on my arrival I was a week late, bumped into a really nice guy on a gorgeous Ellis Briggs custom push bike who took me up north onto Shipley and shown me the Eliss Briggs shop

Still managed about 200km, though not been back to Elliss Briggs or Callow since

 

[Transporterman]

When I was a kid about aged 10 I pumped up an inner tube to see how big it would get. I can confirm it gets huge! That was before it exploded with an almighty crash leaving tiny parts of it embedded in my face, luckily avoiding my eyes. Lesson learned!

 

[AndyRM]

When I was a kid about aged 10 I pumped up an inner tube to see how big it would get. I can confirm it gets huge! That was before it exploded with an almighty crash leaving tiny parts of it embedded in my face, luckily avoiding my eyes. Lesson learned!

I did that but with a "slime" inner tube, coating the front yard with a lovely luminous green which didn't wash off for months.

Couldn't have been much more than 27 at the time.

 

[The_Weekend_Report_Guy]

Man I have a million..!!! Do I have to pick only one?

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

That's why I want to see the light on, and then I want to see it off AND I use a screwdriver with a power indicator in it! (The only question then is how to stop someone turning the power back on when working on the wiring! )

Well, telling people first is a good plan

Not like the sparky we had at work - my workshop shutter door had, for about 3 weeks, needed the breaker flicking back on before it would open in a morning. The power also fed some other things in another room.

So I got to work as usual, door wouldn't open, ladders had been leant on the wall up to the breakers for weeks, so nothing out of the ordinary at all..

First I ever knew the sparky was in and working in the other room was when there was a crash of falling off ladders and a lot of effing and blinding

His own daft fault

 

[Transporterman]

I have another one, as an adult this time.

Back in the eighties I was attending a broken down car (VW Polo). I had checked the ignition/spark side and had moved on to checking for fuel supply. I admit this was a bit of a crude test but I took the petrol feed pipe off the mechanical fuel pump and briefly cranked the engine. This was a common quick test to see if fuel was present and was normally harmless. Unhappily fuel was very present and plenty of it! It spurted out over the distributor cap and the front wing. Needless to say a nice fat spark leapt out ignited the expelled fuel. On seeing the flames on the wing and fearing for the paintwork in a panic I stupidly ran my sleeve over the wing to try and put it out, but all this did was to transfer the burning fuel to my sleeve! I could feel the flames burning my arm so I tried to put them out with the other arm which also caught fire! To this day I still have this vision in my head of me windmilling my flaming arms around and eventually batting out the flames.

No passers by even noticed this fiery drama and by some miracle the only damage to the car was a couple of burned horn wires which I soon replaced and the only damage to me was a glowing left arm. I think my poor overworked guardian angel must have been with me that day.

 

[Tom B]

Yesterday, arrived at the parents house for a mid MTB, slash, feed and warm. Put my helmet onto of the old fashioned wire cage type low level central heating flue and went inside....

Mother decided to hang my damp clothes on the radiator and turn on the heating.... Oops.

 

[MarkF]

I was touring on a Specialized Sirrus hybrid, I'd been uncomfortable for a few days as I'd been cycling into a horrible headwind, I was missing drops. The bike had some chubby little rubber covered bar ends, maybe 4" long............I was slogging up a long hill and was bored, I started experimenting............I found that if I draped my arms over the bars & down towards the wheel, whilst simultaneously wedging my elbows into the bar end/handlebar 90 degree corner, I could steer quite easily and keep my head out of the wind. It was a bit wobbly with my head over the front axle but I reckoned it'd be worth it.

It was shortly after going over the crest of the hill & quickly picking up speed that that I realised I was actually "fixed" in that position and the brakes were nowhere near my hands.

 

[TheDoctor]

Don't try making caramel while wearing shorts.
*sizzle* and *ouch*

If you've poured frozen Finlandia lemon vodka out from a metal bottle, do not try to lick any spillage from off the bottle.
*stuck* And, yes, *ouch*

If a kid runs across the road in front of you, as you're going down a hill, DO NOT look fixedly at the kid.
Target fixation is a thing. You will hit them. You will fly. And you will then land on your shoulder.
*crunch* And, yet again, *ouch*

In fact, if you see me about to do, well, anything, then you should probably do the opposite.