# Shameful admissions



## anothersam (24 Jun 2015)

Despite the thread title, which is merely a device to pull in the punters, there are no judgements here: this is a Safe Place.

I'll go first, as an OP should: I cannot wrap handlebar tape. Or tighten spokes (never mind build a wheel). These by virtue of the fact that I've never done them, rather than feeling they're beyond my capabilities. Probably I could do both if I watched a video or two. It's just that neither has ever come up, and I've got enough on my plate without stuffing my brain with unnecessary knowledge.

Give me something else please. Change your bottom bracket? Sure, can do it with my eyes closed.







Am equally happy installing and adjusting mudguards, which can be maddeningly delightfully fiddly, or shortening a chain, or lots of other things which mean I rarely visit the surgery. But a spoke key might as well be a bottle opener for the use it would get.

It feels good to get that off my chest. Anybody want to go next?


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## Drago (24 Jun 2015)

There ain't nothing I can't do to a bike, though I must admit to being far too modest for my own good.


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## Slioch (24 Jun 2015)

I'm sorry, but if you can't wrap bar tape then you cannot be classified as a proper cyclist.




Oops! Just read the bit about this being a non-judgemental safe place. Sorry! 


I can't do wheelies. Does that count?


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## MisterStan (24 Jun 2015)

I can't ride backwards with no hands....


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## Milkfloat (24 Jun 2015)

I can only bunny hop when clipped in and although my trackstands look impressive, I have to use the brake.


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## roadrash (24 Jun 2015)

I find it impossible ,difficult to pass a cake shop ..... ......


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## ianrauk (24 Jun 2015)

C'mon Sam, you have to have a go at bar wrapping. It's not that hard and when you do a good job it's a very satisfying one.

I also can't build wheels, But to be honest I have never tried.
I also can't trackstand. Never did learn the art. But to be honest, I can't really see the point of it anyway.


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## theclaud (24 Jun 2015)

I'm not really across the concept of gear inches. Don't explain them here - I won't read your post if you do.


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## ianrauk (24 Jun 2015)

theclaud said:


> I'm not really across the concept of gear inches. Don't explain them here - I won't read your post if you do.




Ohh Ohh good one... just watch as my eyeballs rolls into the back of head when ever someone starts spouting gear inches..


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## coffeejo (24 Jun 2015)

Currently struggling with poor memory and concentration that, coupled with my natural lack of hand-eye coordination, had led to several mechanical disasters following "simple" jobs on the bikes. I now leave everything other than tyres/tubes and "cleaning" (think @potsy rather than @ianrauk) to my LBS. Trust me, it's safer.


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## coffeejo (24 Jun 2015)

roadrash said:


> I find it impossible ,difficult to pass a cake shop ..... ......


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## theclaud (24 Jun 2015)

I once cut a cable outer to length...


Spoiler: CLICK IF YOU CAN BEAR TO READ IT



...with the inner still inside.


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## Slioch (24 Jun 2015)

theclaud said:


> I once cut a cable outer to length...
> 
> 
> Spoiler: CLICK IF YOU CAN BEAR TO READ IT
> ...


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## Dogtrousers (24 Jun 2015)

I can't true or build wheels, do tricks like wheelies, track stands or bunny hops, ride no handed for more than a few seconds.

@theclaud gear inches are an Edwardian concept. It is calculated as the product of a gentleman's tweed Knickerbocker inside leg and deerstalker hat size, divided by watch chain length. For ladies is is bustle size plus number of whalebones in corset divided by number of ribbons on bonnet.


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## Arjimlad (24 Jun 2015)

I have chickened out of fitting new forks for my son's MTB what with the star nut and crown race fitting, and asked my friendly local bike mechanic to do it for me.


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## shouldbeinbed (24 Jun 2015)

I'm pretty standard I think: 
trackstand - no.
gear inches - pah, pass me the matchsticks for my eyes.
spokes are a dark art, never tried wheel building or proper truing.
my bar tape takes a while and a couple of time a whole new roll to get right and I finish more with a sense of relief at not having cocked it up than satisfaction at a job well done 
two tyre levers to get a tyre off - you're having a laugh right?
I can do but don't like setting up derailleurs from scratch.
there was my recent incident of paying an Evans employee to fit my new mudguards.
I wear a Sam Browne belt.


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## Tim Hall (24 Jun 2015)

Dogtrousers said:


> I can't true or build wheels, do tricks like wheelies, track stands or bunny hops, ride no handed for more than a few seconds.
> 
> @theclaud gear inches are an Edwardian concept. It is calculated as the product of a gentleman's tweed Knickerbocker inside leg and deerstalker hat size, divided by watch chain length. *For ladies is is bustle size plus number of whalebones in corset divided by number of ribbons on bonnet*


Rational dress FTW! (I did a little talk outside the Hautboy Hotel a few weeks ago, where, as you know Lady Harberton got turfed out of the lounge for wearing Rational Dress. One of the aims of the Rational Dress movement was, allegedly, to bring the weight of underwear DOWN to seven pounds.)


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## theclaud (24 Jun 2015)

anothersam said:


> Am equally happy installing and adjusting mudguards



Are people just going to let this go??


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## theclaud (24 Jun 2015)

Dogtrousers said:


> @theclaud gear inches are an Edwardian concept. It is calculated as the product of a gentleman's tweed Knickerbocker inside leg and deerstalker hat size, divided by watch chain length. For ladies is is bustle size plus number of whalebones in corset divided by number of ribbons on bonnet.



I'm sorry, but I can't Like this post as I determined not to read it.


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## xxDarkRiderxx (24 Jun 2015)

Cannot do gears or bar tape. hmm where is that link for youtube!


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## Smokin Joe (24 Jun 2015)

theclaud said:


> I once cut a cable outer to length...
> 
> 
> Spoiler: CLICK IF YOU CAN BEAR TO READ IT
> ...


I have never even once fitted a full set of cables to a bike without cutting one of the outers outer too bloody short.

Measure twice, cut once? I measure once, twice, thrice and then once, twice. thrice all over again and it still happens.


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## Mugshot (24 Jun 2015)

I did my bar tape a couple of months back, read the instructions lots, watched a video a few times, checked, checked again, very very carefully wrapped the one side looks great, went through the routine again, wrapped the other side, looks great 
If only the two sides matched 
I was going to mention it here when I did it but have only now plucked up the courage thanks to this thread. Thank you for not judging me.

BTW, I aint changing it til it needs doing again!


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## glenn forger (24 Jun 2015)

I can mend a puncture.

It takes me an afternoon, by the end my hands are bleeding, the tyre lever's snapped, the cat's been booted across the room and I've used up all the swear words I know. 

I CAN trackstand like a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.


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## Apollonius (24 Jun 2015)

My confession is that I like wearing white socks and shoes when cycling.

Only in summer though, and I justify it as a safety measure!


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## ianrauk (24 Jun 2015)

Apollonius said:


> My confession is that I like wearing white socks and shoes when cycling.
> 
> Only in summer though, and I justify it as a safety measure!



Me too... in summer only also.. but I do it because I look so bloody good.


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## Crackle (24 Jun 2015)

I'd like to admit to being



Spoiler: secret admission




I'm not really I just wanted a piece of the Spoiler action


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## jefmcg (24 Jun 2015)

Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been 25 years since my last confession .....

I had a bent QR skewer on my folding bike that I meant to replace for 3 or 4 years. Then the front wheel came out of the fork, and I broke my collar bone.

I think 8 weeks off the bike covers my penance.
(I also recently rewrapped my bars and made a total pigs ear of it  )


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## raised by puffins (24 Jun 2015)

Here's a corker. Had a new carpet in the bedroom which needed me to cut off a bit from the bottom of the door. Easy yeah? Put the door back on and I'd only gone and cut the top bit off instead. Glued it back on but now looks a right state.


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## winjim (24 Jun 2015)

I didn't clean my snow tyres after winter and now the studs have gone rusty. I noticed this on midsummer's day.


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## jhawk (24 Jun 2015)

I recall my touring bike's first p*ncture. I was riding out of town with a group of five cross-country cyclists that I had met the day before, got about two minutes past my house when BAM - p*ncture. I thought I was screwed, I hadn't fixed a p*ncture on that bike before, and when I had fixed a p*ncture, it'd usually been at home and with help.

But, they were very patient and even gave me one of their spare tubes, because the spare tube I thought I had, wasn't the right type of valve. So, I learned how to fix one on-the-road, the key thing I found, was not to panic. Now, I'm still for whatever reason dreading a p*ncture, but I'm slowly learning to trust the equipment.

Beyond that, I can now strip out a dynamo hub, tighten my brake cables, mount any hardware (bike computer, light, etc). I can't fix or replace broken spokes, or do any gear/cassette maintenance... That's next!


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## Apollonius (24 Jun 2015)

Nothing shameful about that at all. We all have to learn. Sounds like you are doing well to me.


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## Jayaly (24 Jun 2015)

Last week was the first time in my life I have cleaned and lubed a bike chain. I didn't know you had to until I joined this forum.


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## jonny jeez (24 Jun 2015)

Occasionally I have to lock up the office. Arming the security system requires me to hold a fob against a panel for 7-10 seconds.

True fans will be way ahead of me here....but when I do, I like to play Hans Gruber and look about the place menacingly with total silence.
...anyhow, I could talk about men's fashion and security systems all day but I am afraid, work must intrude.


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## ScotiaLass (24 Jun 2015)

I can't stay on the MTB when I see roots and boulders......


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## 50000tears (24 Jun 2015)

Out on a club ride yesterday and our leader took us up this climb

https://www.strava.com/segments/695417?filter=overall

As you turn the corner the road tips up to 22% and stays above 16% for a couple hundred metres. It beat me and I climbed off the bike for the first time since I just started out.  In my slight defense I was having a terrible ride and discovered when I got home that my back brake on the right side was resting against the rim and I had been dragging it the whole route!


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## Hugh Manatee (24 Jun 2015)

I shall join the shameful cannot wrap bar tape club.


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## glenn forger (24 Jun 2015)

I tried wrapping bar tape once:


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## Arthur (24 Jun 2015)

Despite having a tub of cable end caps (somewhere!), I usually end up re-using the old one when changing a cable.


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## PhilDawson8270 (24 Jun 2015)

I can't ride no-handed


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## nickyboy (24 Jun 2015)

Spoiler



Until now that is!


Despite having made a gazillion posts here I didn't know how to do those spoiler thingys


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## Smokin Joe (24 Jun 2015)

nickyboy said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How do you do that? I don't know either.


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## glenn forger (24 Jun 2015)

Spolier


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## glenn forger (24 Jun 2015)

Spolier? Goddammit.


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## nickyboy (24 Jun 2015)

Spoiler: this is how



You click on the "insert" option in the reply box. Drop down menu, select "spoiler"





Smokin Joe said:


> How do you do that? I don't know either.


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## Smokin Joe (24 Jun 2015)

Spoiler



Thanks Nickyboy


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## Katherine (24 Jun 2015)

Well, I've kept to my new year's resolution to keep my bike clean, including mickling the chain, but learning how to fettle it has been put off. 
The most frustrating thing that I wish I could do properly, is tightening the quick release levers so they end up in the right place! 

However, I can track stand briefly and I'm practising all the time; I can ride with no hands for a while and drink from my water bottle whilst riding.


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## jonny jeez (24 Jun 2015)

Spoiler: What fun



heheh


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## hatler (24 Jun 2015)

Trying to adjust cantilever brakes generally ends in the brakes not being as well adjusted and me going barmy.


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## glenn forger (24 Jun 2015)

Bods like @DCLane make me feel proper inadequate. That bloke repairs eleventy-twelve bikes before breakfast then when he's waiting at the bus stop he finds an old coat hanger and some chip wrappers and makes another bike out of it.


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## cyberknight (24 Jun 2015)

Installing a brake cable, the little plastic bits either side of the bit where the cable sits in the shifter always fall off and drive me nuts .


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## Saluki (24 Jun 2015)

I can't track stand, pull wheelies, build wheels, bunny hop or anything like that. I can change a tube and do a gear service as long as I don't have to touch the front derailleur as I always muck that up and can't get it back to where I started. Actually I'm a bit hopeless but then there is a nice man around the corner whom we ply with cake to sort bits and bobs out for us.


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## NorvernRob (24 Jun 2015)

Katherine said:


> Well, I've kept to my new year's resolution to keep my bike clean, including mickling the chain, but learning how to fettle it has been put off.
> The most frustrating thing that I wish I could do properly, is tightening the quick release levers so they end up in the right place!
> 
> However, I can track stand briefly and I'm practising all the time; I can ride with no hands for a while and drink from my water bottle whilst riding.



The trick with QR levers is simply to hold the lever open, opposite where you want it to close, and tighten up the other side until it's at the right tension to close rather than spinning the lever side. 

I've never serviced a hub, though I haven't had the need to yet. I'll probably do what I usually do and watch a few YouTube videos!


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## jefmcg (24 Jun 2015)

I go to cake shops instead of making my own


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## stoatsngroats (24 Jun 2015)

Slioch said:


> I can't do wheelies. Does that count?


Me neither, and I try every ride on the tandem, but she just won't have it!


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## Captain Slackbladder (24 Jun 2015)

General bike maintenence. With working and two young children I generally don't have the time to be faffing and cleaning them, much prefer the riding bit.
Both bikes end up being serviced more than they should atm...


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## Pat "5mph" (24 Jun 2015)

I'm not bad at the maintenance/mechanics, but, boy!, what a disaster of a rider I am!
Can't do tight corners, can't do u-turns, scared of downhill, 5mph max on the flat


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## 400bhp (24 Jun 2015)

I knocked a forum member off his bike


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## raleighnut (24 Jun 2015)

I use the electric assist on my trike to 'scalp' spliff smoking chavs on MTBs.


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## anothersam (25 Jun 2015)

ianrauk said:


> C'mon Sam, you have to have a go at bar wrapping. It's not that hard and when you do a good job it's a very satisfying one.


I would have to unwrap a perfectly nicely wrapped set of bars just to wrap them again, which seems such a waste of someone else's talent for the selfish purpose of acquiring a new one myself.


Dogtrousers said:


> gear inches are an Edwardian concept. It is calculated as the product of a gentleman's tweed Knickerbocker inside leg and deerstalker hat size, divided by watch chain length. For ladies is is bustle size plus number of whalebones in corset divided by number of ribbons on bonnet.


Sounds like Sheldon Brown's gear calculator, v. 1.0









shouldbeinbed said:


> two tyre levers to get a tyre off - you're having a laugh right?







see below


glenn forger said:


> I can mend a puncture. It takes me an afternoon, by the end my hands are bleeding, the tyre lever's snapped, the cat's been booted across the room and I've used up all the swear words I know.


Hope I can be of assistance.


> I CAN trackstand like a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus.



_here's one someone made earlier_



You can leave your hat on.


theclaud said:


> Are people just going to let this go??





Spoiler: de rigueur



Hid my perversion in plain sight. See also happy in your work, dug up from archives.
Sound proofed room optional, though it comes in handy for any howls of pain if I snap off the end of a strut and it pings back in my eye.





hatler said:


> Trying to adjust cantilever brakes generally ends in the brakes not being as well adjusted and me going barmy.


I get that way with V-brakes. Can adjust them, more by luck than anything. Really just prefer not to have V-brakes.


nickyboy said:


> Despite having made a gazillion posts here I didn't know how to do those spoiler thingys


I only figured it out by replying to somebody's spoiler'd post then looking at the code.


Katherine said:


> I can track stand briefly and I'm practising all the time; I can ride with no hands for a while and drink from my water bottle whilst riding.


Riding no-handed is the bestest feeling in the world; definitely a life skill worth having.






Trackstanding is chiefly of utility for the indecisive.


Pat "5mph" said:


> Can't do tight corners, can't do u-turns, scared of downhill, 5mph max on the flat


Not a big fan of downhill either. But so often it is a prerequisite for going up again.


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## jefmcg (25 Jun 2015)

Oh, this is a good one:

I used to sew, so made myself a cycling top to practice sewing with lycra. Decided to make it in unusual colours - what's the point in all that work if you make something you could just buy? So I used black fabric, with contrasting gold fabric. I was really pleased with it until my brother told me it looked like a Star Trek uniform.

It really did


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## hatler (25 Jun 2015)

anothersam said:


> I get that way with V-brakes. Can adjust them, more by luck than anything. Really just prefer not to have V-brakes.


Get outta here !! V-brakes are a model of simplicity and adjustability.


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## coffeejo (25 Jun 2015)

hatler said:


> Get outta here !! V-brakes are a model of simplicity and adjustability.


Not, I assure you, if you are me...


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## MisterStan (25 Jun 2015)

jefmcg said:


> Oh, this is a good one:
> 
> I used to sew, so made myself a cycling top to practice sewing with lycra. Decided to make it in unusual colours - what's the point in all that work if you make something you could just buy? So I used black fabric, with contrasting gold fabric. I was really pleased with it until my brother told me it looked like a Star Trek uniform.
> 
> It really did


There's probably a market for that.....


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## glenn forger (25 Jun 2015)

I'm just glad I didn't misunderstand the thread title and write Kerry Katona, Kate McCann and Kay Burley.


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## glenn forger (25 Jun 2015)

Goddammit.


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## Falco Frank (25 Jun 2015)

These days I REALLY detest mundane things like housework and worse 'gardening' - getting in the way of my bike maintenance and riding


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## PhilDawson8270 (25 Jun 2015)

My most shameful is that I do own a team jersey 

In my defense, it is a Castelli and was on offer for £20, the northern penny pinching of £20 for a Castelli jersey outweighs having to wear team colours


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## Eribiste (25 Jun 2015)

I can't ride my bike as fast as I want to.


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## Ern1e (25 Jun 2015)

Dogtrousers said:


> I can't true or build wheels, do tricks like wheelies, track stands or bunny hops, ride no handed for more than a few seconds.
> 
> @theclaud gear inches are an Edwardian concept. It is calculated as the product of a gentleman's tweed Knickerbocker inside leg and deerstalker hat size, divided by watch chain length. For ladies is is bustle size plus number of whalebones in corset divided by number of ribbons on bonnet.


Finally this must be the "definitive" version which can be understood by all ! thanks for the insight @Dogtrousers .


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## dave r (25 Jun 2015)

Dispite being on fixed for years I can't trackstand, I can't bunny hop, pull wheelies or ride no handed, I've never got round to learning how. I also don't like clipless pedals, the only reason I have a set on my geared bike is that when I brought the bike in 2010 I also brought a set of clipless pedals to try and I haven't got round to replacing them with toeclips yet.


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## DCLane (26 Jun 2015)

I tend to ride bikes with mixed colour tyres; a batch of tyres from eBay last year in "mixed colours, selection not possible" meant I've pink, green, blue and red tyres on various bikes.

Currently I'm hunting round for a matching blue pair for the Eastway R4.0 build and it'll not happen.


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## theclaud (26 Jun 2015)

DCLane said:


> I tend to ride bikes with mixed colour tyres.





theclaud said:


> Are people just going to let this go??


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## Tojo (26 Jun 2015)

hatler said:


> Trying to adjust cantilever brakes generally ends in the brakes not being as well adjusted and me going barmy.




I know I've been building and working on bikes for years and its top of my list of worst jobs, just put new brake blocks on my old Orange, Had me wanting to pull my hair out....Its a good job that I'm baldy as a Coot......


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## anothersam (26 Jun 2015)

hatler said:


> Get outta here !! V-brakes are a model of simplicity and adjustability.


Will take yours and his ↑ word for it that cantilever brakes are no fun; I've never had a bike with them, or if I have in the distant past, someone else did the honours. This doesn't change the fact that V-brakes are the devil's own creation.

You have to adjust a tiny little screw, like you're fixing a watch or something. If the screw reaches its limit you have to go to the other side. Back & forth, forth & back until it's just right. It's what I imagine tensioning spokes to be like, only worse, because although there are what seem to be infinitely more spokes to deal with, spokes don't actually do anything useful like stop you, they're just there to make a bike look like a bike.


DCLane said:


> I tend to ride bikes with mixed colour tyres





theclaud said:


> Are people just going to let this go??


If @DCLane wants to join me on this thread, we don't have to let it go…


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## subaqua (26 Jun 2015)

theclaud said:


> I once cut a cable outer to length...
> 
> 
> Spoiler: CLICK IF YOU CAN BEAR TO READ IT
> ...


If it's a scrap inner then that's the way to do it as it stops the outer deforming . I do the opposite for inners as it helps stop em fray. 

Years of setting up / replacing/ refurbishing mechanical interlocks on switchgear taught me this.


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## subaqua (26 Jun 2015)

Oh what can't i do. True wheels . YET


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## theclaud (26 Jun 2015)

subaqua said:


> If it's a scrap inner.


It was when I'd finished with it.


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## subaqua (26 Jun 2015)

theclaud said:


> It was when I'd finished with it.


Lots of people in the office just looked at me as I laughed very loudly. 

And yes I have done that once or twice on the same day !!!


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## Moodyman (27 Jun 2015)

I once let air out of a colleague's rear tyre on my lunchtime.

He was an amateur racer (lithe, fast, handsome) and made my fat self feel so inadequate that in my own perverse way I was getting evens.

Oh and he used to joke and tell me to get a proper bike - I rode a hybrid at the time.


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## Sandra6 (27 Jun 2015)

I don't pump my own tires up, when one of the bike crew at work notices I let them do it. 
I'm not sure if I'm actually ashamed of myself for doing this, or proud of the power I have over these men. Mwahahaha!


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