What's your biggest bike related mistake?

[pawl]

mine is going from SPD cleats/pedals to SPD-SL. I have been trying to love my Look pedals all summer (and about 1500 miles) but for some reason I just can't get the hang of them. I just can't clip in quickly and accurately and have had a few little twitchy botty moments.

Have decided to give up on them. Might give Speedplays a go next summer, but on the winter steed it is back to SPD.

Falling off and breaking my collar bone.Still not healed properly,as I have 90% movement back surgeon is reluctant to operate

 

[Tin Pot]

mine is going from SPD cleats/pedals to SPD-SL. I have been trying to love my Look pedals all summer (and about 1500 miles) but for some reason I just can't get the hang of them. I just can't clip in quickly and accurately and have had a few little twitchy botty moments.

Have decided to give up on them. Might give Speedplays a go next summer, but on the winter steed it is back to SPD.

Joining cyclechat.

I thought cyclists were quite a nice bunch up til then.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I don't think the AW ever was completely, hence the practice of resurrecting old hubs by oil-flushing them. Wrapping newspaper around the spokes just after a refill avoids oiling the rim and tyre.

Amen to that. I've done that in Europe and I've also ridden on the right on a main street in central Cambridge after nearly getting thrown off by a dent in the road!

Confession time: I recently did the opposite. Last time I was back in the UK I went to the pub. Cycled the whole way home, it isn't far, on the right hand i.e. wrong side of the road. No cars thank goodness.

 

[Padraig]

Of course I didn't fill the AW with oil. I injected whatever amount was recommended, either by Sheldon or some Sturmey Archer site, of which there seem to be plenty. I recall that, when I stripped down the AW originally, it only contained grease, although its date (1982, from memory) suggested it had originally been an oil hub. In fact, it had the oil cap, so it must have been. Possibly an earlier owner had had trouble with it shedding oil. They're very ingenious things, but I don't see myself having another. I quite like the idea of single-speed. I planned to build the Bob Jackson as a single-speed, but I couldn't get the chain tension quite right.

 

[Profpointy]

Nothing wrong with the Sturmey which would trump a 5 and challenge a 10 if set right, but those bikes are heavy and the gears are set so high that you'd need to be doping to accelerate quickly.

well apart from only have 3 gears, alipping out of gear if you put any welly down, and being left for dead by anyone with a 5 speed never mind 10

 

[Profpointy]

I don't know what you idiots are on about, buying a the ParkTool chain cleaning thingy was one of the best ideas I ever had, it's great.

Having said that, if that was my best decision ever you can imagine the calibre of my bad decisions...

selling mine was a good decision.

Realising you didn't actually need to clean chains with solvents was an ecer better on

 

[Sara_H]

I've made that mistake twice. The most useless pile of bike related crap ever made.

And buying an MTB. Hated it with a passion and gave it away eventually.

Me too! I've bought two! They rubbish!

 

[Sara_H]

I've made that mistake twice. The most useless pile of bike related crap ever made.

And buying an MTB. Hated it with a passion and gave it away eventually.

Me too! I've bought two! They rubbish!

 

[Saluki]

Biggest bike related mistake was locking my Tri bike up, with 2 D locks to rings cemented into the wall. The rings were in a galvanised bike box that was bolted to the wall and floor and was padlocked with 3 good quality, insurance company approved locks.
This was not the mistake bit. The mistake was going on holiday with a pal for a week. When I came back, the bike, and the galvy bike box were gone. Vanished into thin air. The ex said that he had no idea where they had gone.

As there were no signs of a break in, the concrete shed door mortice lock and deadbolts had not been forced or damaged, the insurance company were not interested (I worked there and ran it past my pal in the claims department and they don't pay out for having a deadbeat husband). I lost over £1000 of bike and a very expensive bike box as well.

My next bike mistake was a Apollo XC-26. It was free and I overpaid at that! Bloody thing.

 

[Hip Priest]

Ah, I thought SPD SL was a generic term for the larger three hole cleats/pedal types. I was using (not very successfully) Look pedals and Look cleats.

Funnily enough, it might be worth swapping for SPD-SL. I've been using Look Keo for the last few months as my new bike came with them, and I'm still finding them a bit tricky to clip into first time. Whereas previously I'd used SPD-SL with nowhere near as much difficulty.

 

[mickle]

I wrecked the internals of a three speed Torpedo hub by failing to check the dropouts. And then, having replaced the entire guts, replaced the wheel and took it for a spin. I applied the brake to discover that Id forgotten to afix the coaster brake's torque arm and the whole thing promptly wound itself around the axle and ground to a halt. Seized solid. Ouch. Doh.

 

[mickle]

Leaving a whole bike's worth of stupidly expensive gold anodized SRP bolts in a bowl of Muck-Off to soak.

 

[mickle]

Trying to squeeze a too wide Sante hub into Richard Ballantine's brand new hand-made Dursley Pedersen. It broke at the seat stay bridge.

 

[Bollo]

I wrecked the internals of a three speed Torpedo hub by failing to check the dropouts. And then, having replaced the entire guts, replaced the wheel and took it for a spin. I applied the brake to discover that Id forgotten to afix the coaster brake's torque arm and the whole thing promptly wound itself around the axle and ground to a halt. Seized solid. Ouch. Doh.

Leaving a whole bike's worth of stupidly expensive gold anodized SRP bolts in a bowl of Muck-Off to soak.

Trying to squeeze a too wide Sante hub into Richard Ballantine's brand new hand-made Dursley Pedersen. It broke at the seat stay bridge.

There's a bit of me that wants to book a service just to see what the feck happens.

 

[mjr]

well apart from only have 3 gears, alipping out of gear if you put any welly down, and being left for dead by anyone with a 5 speed never mind 10

Its gears are wider spaced than on a derailleur (that's what the W in AW is) and it only slips out of gear if you've got the cable tension wrong (or broken the hub) but if you can't maintain and don't understand what you're riding, of course you'll get left for dead by those who do...