Stupid things we all must have done

[Kestevan]

I once had a Triumph GT6, and was working on the cylinder head on the edge of the bench. I managed to knock it off and stupidly thought trying to catch it would be a good idea....

I did learn two things though... I can't stop a falling 6 cylinder engine with 1 hand, and a broken hand really hurts for quite a long time.

 

[craigwend]

If you forget your lock & when you realise as you are visiting the dentist, it's not best advice to undo your quick release to catch any 'ne'er do wells' who may try & take said bike... & then forget you've done this after the visit. I got all the way home about 2 miles & even round a big roundabout - only as I got home & lifted the bars to lift the wheel over dropped kerb to my drive, I then also dropped very suddenly, jaw hitting the bars (luckily my mouth was numb from dental work) - my front wheel carried on the whole length of the drive until it hit the garage ...

 

[Smokin Joe]

The biggest mistake I've made led to the most valuable lesson I've ever learned. Go to the bookies and place your bet before you go to the pub for a session.

Never go to the pub for a session and then visit the bookie afterwards. It's incredible how quickly a week's wages can disappear when you are in a drunken reckless mode.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

As a student we lived in a flat where the landing light stayed on after we had switched all the circuits off and the electric meter wheel seemed to have stopped dead. We never did find what it was wired into. Apparently this isn't totally unknown in hasty flat conversions.

Before I was married I had a bedsit in a converted house, my mate had the upstairs flat, his meter used to consume fifty pences at an alarming rate, one day we disconnected everything electrical in the flat and despite that the meter was still going round, he moved out shortly after that and we never found out what he was powering, the landlord had no idea either. My bedsit had the bathroom light wired through it, I know that because my meter ran out whilst I was in the corner shop one evening, the woman in one of the downstairs bedsits was having a bath at the time and found herself bathing in the dark till I fed the meter, she was not impressed.

 

[Blue Hills]

Yes, on this subtheme, the boyfriend of a work colleague found out that for years he had been powering the flat downstairs. Took him ages to figure out why his bills were so high.

Back to the main thread folks - keep them coming.

 

[alicat]

A year or so ago, I undid the main hinge of my Brompton to deter an opportunistic thief when I left the bike near the tills inside Condor Cycles.

A nice mooch later, I set off down Gray's Inn Road wondering why the saddle felt skewed. A couple of yards later the error of my ways dawned on me as I hit the deck. The look of horror on the face of the man crossing the road in front of me was a picture.

Apart from the damaged pride, it cost me a pair of titanium forks.

 

[RichardB]

Back in the day, I had a Carlton Corsair with a flip rear hub. I decided to go fixed for one winter. On the third or fourth outing, I forgot to tuck the laces of my right shoe in, as I normally did. It's amazing how, in the fraction of a second between feeling the tug on your laces and actually crashing, you can fully appreciate:

1. What has happened with your shoelace
2. What is going to happen to your leg in the next rotation of the pedals
3. How much it is going to hurt.

There's a horrible inevitability about the whole affair once you reach that stage. Your brain is saying 'if you backpedal it will sort itself out' and the bike is saying 'not today, pal'. Painful.