Most stupid problem you've had while commuting


In the arena of my fault:


1) Being far from home when the gas runs out and then realizing I forgot to refill my pre measured oil bottle.

The real doozie:
2) Having my gas spittle and vibrate out of the tank because I left the gas cap loose..... Riding thru "The Hood", late at night. The gas tank ( lost the cap altogether) ran out literally as I rolled up to my front door. Not in the Hood where I surely would have met ill fate.

2a) I have poor night vision. In the above "adventure" I baled early (not early enough) without saying goodbye because I realized that the medication i was taking was having an adverse reaction to the few beers I had. I took the dark side streets thru the Hood to avoid gangbangers and other nare-do-wells. I was driving legally blind... it was scary as heck. No cellphone, helmet, front light, visual acuity or motor skills.


Well there you go KJ.......can't set the bar much higher than that I would think.



Michael
 
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Had a scary issue this morning!

Riding to work, notice the steering feels very vague, very loose. Look down, and notice that my handle bars are loose in the forks! the retaining bolt had come loose, meaning the bars could turn freely in the forks.

Gently rode it to the nearest servo and borrowed a shifter, tightened it up, and was all good, however could have gone real pear shaped if I hadnt noticed it when I had!
 
Had a scary issue this morning!

Riding to work, notice the steering feels very vague, very loose. Look down, and notice that my handle bars are loose in the forks! the retaining bolt had come loose, meaning the bars could turn freely in the forks.

Gently rode it to the nearest servo and borrowed a shifter, tightened it up, and was all good, however could have gone real pear shaped if I hadnt noticed it when I had!

I'm sure that you will want to get one of those compact bike multi-tools:cool:
 
I have a short area where I kill the engine and pedal on the sidewalk for about two blocks. One day as I roled up I noticed that the engine rpm didn't decrease as it should. I ground to a halt to find my clutch wasn't disengaged. I thought the problem was the cable coming loose. As I tried to tighten the cable with pliers and a set of keys I began to cause a crowd of construction works to gather and giggle. After a few minutes I realized I wasn't making the clutch work any better. I picked the bike up and carried it for two blocks. Then I reached down and operated the clutch by turning the arm on the engine by hand. You can imagine the difficulty I had with down town traffic with out the ability to come to a complete stop.
That evening when I got ready to head home I noticed the three screws that hole on the sprocket / clutch shaft cover were loose. I pulled out my screw driver and fixed te problem in about 3 seconds.
 
Most stupid thing I have done is not carry my spares, I had been using thick tubes and slime, never had a puncture for around three weeks.
About to head to work and picked up my bag I carry everytime I ride, it has tools, spare plug, chain joining link, roll of tape, cable ties, a old 1 litre 2 stroke oil bottle full of my fuel mix from my jerry can and of course a spare tube and a puncture kit.
I decided I don't need it, I got to work ok, and I made it about 1/3 of the way home, pop, back tyre flat and green sh!t every where, lol, no phone either that was on the kitchen table.
1 hour and 45 minutes to push it home, bought a saddle bag now.
 
Today as I was riding home from my grandmothers I got caught in a storm. Before I left she asked me if I had enough gas I said oh sure! Bad move. I had riden approx. 25 miles already that day on a half tank. Sure enough ran out of gas in a thunder storm so I hid under a tree and waited for a friend to pick me up.
Last time I leave without peaking in the tank.
 
Teaching one of my daughters to ride. She had ridden just a little bit the day before and everything seemed well and she had enjoyed it.

I put her on and she pedalled a bit and then dropped the clutch. She took off like a
rocket. We live on a dead end. Houses on one side, terrible drop-off with woods on the other side and at the end. She was headed, full speed, straight toward the trees and drop-off at the end. I hollered "Clutch, Mary!!!" But she couldn't hear me, anyway. What seemed to save her was some rough ground right at the end. It slowed her down enough that she could turn and then, apparently, it stalled. She couldn't give me a good description of what happened. She was too frightened.

When I looked over the bike in hope of figuring out what went wrong, I noticed that the throttle assembly had been turned on the handlebars through at least one or two revolutions. So that the cable was wrapped a couple of times around. No wonder it was stuck WOT.

I asked her if she couldn't figure out that something like that would be trouble. I don't remember her answer, but it wasn't much in any case.

so now I have one daughter who is scared to death of motor assisted bicycles and is showing no inclination to ever get on one again. I have another daughter who wants to ride, but destroys bikes. (both my wife's and my own a couple of times.) She breaks something every tie she gets on. She is now barred. And one daughter who rides quite a bit and seems to do it right. When she returns my bike, it is in working condition.

I'm batting .333 with my kids. I guess it could be worse.
 
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