Post your Riding Mistake Confessions

[StuckintheSpokes]

See topic title.

 

[All Mountain Coaching]

Pretty much a thing of the past now.

 

[StuckintheSpokes]

Pretty much a thing of the past now.

Yeah well have you got any gaffs to contribute? I think I’ll change the topic title.

 

[Paul Mac]

Not an MTB gaff, but I want to share.
Many years ago, a few friends and I went to take a course to ride motorcycles.
One of my friends was not a natural and we wasted a lot of time in the car park with him not being able to put the bike on its center stand which was a requirement before we could all go out onto the road.
After at last we were all ready, the instructor asked us all to start our engines, my friend then shouted out, it's not his day and that his bike wouldn't start. The instructor walked over to assist him and realised he had the ignition key in the petrol filler cap and not the ignition.
It was then established that best he didn't continue any further!

 

[R120]

That reminds me of a mate who went to take his driving test, and when the tester told him to drive off, he put the car in gear emetic but it wouldn't move, so he tried again, and a third time, before the tester said "might help if you turned the car on!"

I think with emts's the common one, and certainly the one I have been guilty of, is forgetting to charge the battery.

 

[All Mountain Coaching]

As the trail centre is local and 5m ride away. I was almost there and a friend past me in his car and stopped for a chat. He said, where's your helmet. D'oh! Back home I went. Can't believe I didn't notice.

 

[Varaxis]

My mistake was believing in the myths.

Myth #1. You can be overbiked. I thought I felt bored with bikes that were too capable, stable, and planted, calling them "dead". I then bought a more thrilling bike that rode like it was at my limit, handling like a runaway truck that liked getting its wheels off the ground, making the trails more "fun". Whenever I had excess energy to spare, it turned out that this bike + excess energy to burn was a formula for crashing badly. I don't think I've yet experienced being truly overbiked yet. I'm wishing for more control again. I think the issue is that there's long travel bikes with poor R&D behind them, and they're being compared to short travel bikes with a lot of valuable R&D behind them.

Myth #2. Single pivots and linear suspension = bad. I got the impression that progressive suspension was what the skilled riders rode and single pivots had less active susp under braking. I later learned that it made for mismatched feeling suspension, where the rear may outmatch the front, or vice versa. It was nice for popping for air, if I pushed it deep enough into its travel, but I learned that it wallowed in its mid stroke and would buck in chunk if there was a deep compression, especially tight whoops (like crossing a Y-shaped ditch across the forked part). I eventually recognized it was just a terrible tune for control/safety at speed in fast chunky terrain. Turned out basic single pivot linear susp was very predictable and easy to balance, riding higher in travel and maintaining geo easier. Rear braking forces going into compressing the rear shock was something that horst links did too, that it was more of an issue with chain growth (high single pivot with idler has truly active susp under rear braking). My experience climbing on single pivots climb has impressed me more than climbing on VPP and horst links, and a coil isn't a bad idea, despite the idea that a "linear coil" doesn't go well with linear susp (the coil has a bumper for end stroke ramp).

 

[GrandPaBrogan]

Not my experience, but a guy riding in front of me decided to adjust the height of his seat post on the go while riding. Boom... almighty OTB crash. He was in a crumpled heap on the ground entangled with his bike before he even realised what had just happened.

.

 

[Husky430]

Not my experience, but a guy riding in front of me decided to adjust the height of his seat post on the go while riding. Boom... almighty OTB crash. He was in a crumpled heap on the ground entangled with his bike before he even realised what had just happened.

.

Not a dropper post then, you mean old school with an actual clamp?

 

[GrandPaBrogan]

Not a dropper post then, you mean old school with an actual clamp?

Yep... he was fiddling with the quick release Seat Clamp under his saddle. Didn't think to stop for a moment to adjust it.

 

[steve_sordy]

On my first bike with separately adjustable LSC, I was struggling to understand compression damping, just could not get my head around it. Then I read a post made by a very respected biker on the MBR Forum (now defunct). I misinterpreted what he said and thought that with a lot of rocks you needed more low speed compression to stop the front of the bike compressing into a hole (or after a big rock). Well it will, but not to excess.

I completely ruined a week in the French Alps by riding everywhere with my LSC on max. I was so convinced that i was doing the right thing that I never thought to adjust it to a more open setting to see what happened. It was like riding with lockout on the whole time, it was truly awful! I still cannot believe that I never tried a different setting. IDIOT!!

 

[KeithO]

Drive 12 miles to the trails last week and then realised I’d left the bikes‘ Kiox at home...!

Decided to slum it and do without motor assist...
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not doing that again! ☺

 

[GrandPaBrogan]

Years ago in my younger days, I was hurriedly preparing to go for a ride, packing up everything in the car, while eating a sandwich on the go. Who says men are no good at multitasking?
During all the flurry I felt the need to go to the toilet to do ‘twosies.’ Reality suddenly hit me when I found myself swallowing and pushing at the same time. ?

Does this count? I was wearing my bike shorts at the time... well, around my knees anyway... no helmet on though...

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

I once was only 50 meters into a planned group ride when the bike cut out. I turned it back on went another 50 meters, dies again. I repeated this 4-5 times but kept riding as I didn't want to stop the group. But as I realized that the trusty 'turn it off, turn it on again" trick wasn't going to cut it, I had to call a time out. I removed the battery, cleaned the connections, put it back in...same deal. ?? I used the app on my phone to do a fault find but it didn't detect any faults.

The group I was with (non-emtb) were laughing and I was getting all the shit you'd imagine. "should we call a helicopter?" "looks like you're going to have to actually pedal now" I lost my shit, cussing at the bike and was looking for something to take my anger out on. After about 5 minutes of trying to get the bike to stay on, the boys decided to head off and they rode off in hysterics. Fair enough!

I slowly calmed myself and then it hit me, I had forgotten to put the spoke magnet on my new wheels! The sensor wasn't picking up the wheels were turning so the bike would just switch off. So simple and so stupid! I rode in seething anger back to the car park and went home, no way I was going to do 1200m of climbing unassisted.

I got home and unpacked my bag and guess what was stuck to my multitool?? The fecking magnet!! It had been in my pack the whole time.

What a ?!!!

 

[GrandPaBrogan]

Took my previous medium travel trail eBike down a Grade3 DH chute last year... fairly manicured and mild - but steep and fast enough where braking would mostly make the tyres just lose traction.

> Rookie mistake - I forgot to undo the fork lock-out after the ascend.

Everything was fine as the bike kept picking up speed and I was looking forward to high-railing a long sweeping righthand berm that I knew was coming... until... I hit a series of shallow scalloped stutter bumps right on my chosen line (wasn't there the week before). The front wheel started skipping and went further and further outward every time it popped off the ground in rapid succession. I was pointing the bars for the bike to go down the berm - but the bike kept creeping up and up. I was going too fast and didn't think that hitting the brakes hard would be a good idea, so I held on. Trajectory was heading to fly off the lip of the berm and hit clustered trees planted down a steep slope, BUT THEN the stutter bumps ended... and so was able to save it, only just!

Phew! ?

Video screen capture below shows the stutter bumps continuing for another couple of metres ahead, and judging by the fresh busted berm lip next to it... looks like someone had already been thrown off earlier.

 

[iXi]

Today I went up the coast to try some new trails. It was wet and rocky. Rear end was skipping around all over the place. Thought nothing of it as my riding sucks at the best of time and I'd never ridden these trails. Got home and thought I'd go for a quick scoot around my local trails, halfway there realised I had the rear shocked locked out the entire ride. ?

 

[Andy__C]

Doing the Passeportes Du Soleil one year - there are lot of huge fire-road descents - but the states of the fire-roads in the remote places can make them tricky - huge gullys and decent size rocks and boulders everywhere.

I was told by some regulars on that event to always put your bike in the lowest year on those descents not for pedaling as you won't need to pick up speed but to tuck the derailler out of the way.

I never bothered (forgot, didn't care, whatever) as I've never damaged a derailler ever. Anyway - obvious what happens yet - at the furthest point from Morzine, right across the Swiss border - about 50km from home absolutely shred the derailler, chain and cassete - goodness knows how it all happened together.

It was also about 35 degrees in the Mountains, hitting 40 degrees in the valley towns. I had to push the bike from chair lift to chair lift and freewheel descents for about 3hrs to the nearest town with a bike shop.

 

[Flog]

Being a newbie, a Corona baby if you like and never MTB whatsoever, my confessions are...
1. Thinking it was easy...! Does You Tube lie??
2. Thinking I was brave...! Bottled out of so many semi steeps lost count. As a pretty good skier, thought there would be some cross over of confidence....wrong!
3. Thinking I was always a courteous driver to bikers...! I always don a high viz and think I can be seen....wrong!
4. But I was right on how much fun it is!!