Worst/Funniest DIY experience?

I was wondering if there were any funny and/or helpful bike DIY anecdotal SNAFU's out there that would be informative and make good reading.

Not a great DIY'er myself, I was quite proud to show off to my LBS guy how creative I was in rearranging my headset to adjust the handlebar position down. I found out that I had creatively engineered a booby trap that would cause the handlebars and stem to come off after hitting a bump on a 45+mph descent. The thought of that imaginary scenario sent a shiver up my spine.

Anyone for example had their "wheels fall off" figuratively speaking???

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I cost myself a bit of money when I first armed myself with a BB tool, ignorant of the right-sided reverse thread. I killed the BB and the BB shell needed to have its thread chased with a tapping tool - thank god for steel. The same thing happened when I first armed myself with a pedal wrench, but no permanent harm done.
No funny/scary stories, fortunately.

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"All that we see and seem is but a dream, within a dream..."

I've got plenty. I challenge anyone to come up with something dumber than this:

One night at home I was checking out how varying skewer pressure on my front wheel affected to spinning time of the wheel. I figured a slightly looser skewer would make my wheels faster. I had the bike upside down, with the skewer done up with less than half the normal pressure, and I spun the wheel every time I walked passed and watched it spin for ever. You guessed it, the next day I grabbed to bike and rode off, forgetting about the loose skewer. About 7km down the road, I hopped a curbed at good speed, the wheel fell out, landed heavily on my right side, scoring a cracked rib, a badly bruised shoulder and a light concussion -- ambulance ride and everything!

Wow. That was funny, but painful. Moral of the story: If you leave your bike in an unridable state, make sure it looks unridable.

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- with my first full bike build , I cut the chain and used one pin.

- too short , the chain.

- used the other pin and lengthened the chain.

- no more pins left.

- prayed.

- chain length turned out just , okay.

.

yeah, i stick notes on them now, if I can't be bothered adjusting or fixing stuff when i get off the bike.

Ouch! You win...so far.

After purchasing a mountain bike, I decided to "familiarize" myself with the new front suspension fork by turning a few knobs, and unscrewing a plastic cap on top of one of the fork arms. I screwed the cap back in, or at least thought I screwed it back in, then decided to straddle the front wheel of the bike and lean on the handlebars to see the front suspension fork in action. Then it happened.

BANG!

It sounded just like a gunshot in my house, and then came intense pain. Under the pressure of me leaning on the handlebars, the plastic cap popped off the top of the fork arm and shot me in my left nut - HARD. This wasn't an accidental glancing of the nuts, it was a full-on pressurized shot from about 4 inches away. On top of that, as I was in my house at the time, my only protection was a thin pair of boxer shorts.

After writhing on the floor, seeing stars, and almost puking from the pain, I was finally able to regain my senses enough to check out the boys and find no permanent damage. I really expected to see some sort of carnage down there. My friends still laugh about this story some 7 years later.

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"There is alot of blather here that does not float the hooey barge." boudreaux 11/22/2005

That actually hurt to read. I hope you can laugh at it now, although at the time I'm sure it wasn't too funny.

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Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Years ago I worked at the maintenance department of a hospital, and just about the same time as I had gotten a compressor for my garage I came across a length of (what looked like) air hose that had been junked. "Great" I thought "I could sure use a longer hose at home" and happily carried it home. Hooked it up, attached a inflator gun and opened the valve on the compressor.
A sound like of distant firecrackers immediately greeted me, followed by an insistent but rapidly fading hissing.
Turned out that this was a medical-grade air/gas hose, and they run at lower pressures than a shop compressor. The hose didn't burst though, but looked like someone had run it through a sewing machine....

I have never had a problem with my DIY projects, but I did have a buddy play a trick on me that caused a couple of very gentle rides. I had disassembled an old road bike to rehab the frame, rebuild the wheels, etc. When I went to build it back up, I ended up having a left over, unlabelled cap screw and no idea where it went. I disassembled and reassembled the bike two more times looking for a home for this cap screw. After that I went ahead and rode it a couple of times very gently so that it wouldn't hurt too bad when the frame came apart due to a missing cap screw. Finally my riding buddy couldn't hold it any longer and told me that he threw a spare cap screw into my parts bin. If I had been holding a weapon at the time, I would be in jail, unless the judge figured that it was justifiable homicide !

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One life, one chance. Don't waste it!

Damn you Scotty_Dog. Everytime I scroll down the page I see that "BANG" and I get a sympathy pain in the testes.

Good story though!

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Ok, this is pretty small potatoes....

I build up my Coppi bike(Italian threaded BB) and took it out for it maiden ride. I was really looking forward to my new bike.
About 15kms into the ride I had to stop to tighten the BB. As I was used to English thread I'd not done it up tight enough and hadn't put Loctite on it either(which I since have and had no more trouble).
I had to stop every couple of kms to hand tighten the BB to get me home .
I then couldn't ride my beloved(still) new bike untill I could sort it out properly.

Well it was my first time on a mountain bike which also happened to be my last time seeing the bike. Try topping this one off!!! I was at canadian tire buying a nice schwinn bike and brought it home, When i got home i decided that the front wheel looked to tight and thought i should loosen it a bit (not knowing anything about bikes at the time) so i went ahead and loosened it up a bit and also not knowing anything about crank bolts loosened those too!! While i was on my ride i went through Ganatchio Trail and decided devils trail was where the action was and went through it (Its a somewhat challenging trail with top speeds of about 25km/h) and at the last part of the trail is where it happened (also the fastest part of the trail) my left pedal arm fell off and i flew off the bike now remembering the tire that i loosened it broke my nose in two places. Now knowing about bikes i realize how dumb i actually was at the time and also realize bikes are good the way they come and should let a professional do the work, As for my first mountain bike i got a new one the day after because my schwinn was absolute garbage after that because of bent frame problems. Also all my wonderful scratches, bumps, bruises, and cuts along with broken bones i believe i've learned my lesson and know about bikes now after 2 years. I do look back on this and laugh quite hard to so hope you guys do to!!!

Proxy entry for Ullrich's mechanic.

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