I am, I'm sure, more prone to ineptitude than most but surely I can't be alone.

Have you, for example, ever put the punctured tube back into the tyre in mistake for the spare that you extracted from your tool bag only moments earlier? I have.

Have you ever taken off a crank and replaced it in the same direction as the other one, both pointing forwards? I have. And I stared at the bike for ages, sensing something was wrong but unable to see what.

Please reassure me I am not alone.

What have you done? We are all cyclists. We will forgive you anything.

happy days

léo

On one of my tandems, I failed to check the lengths stamped into them and mixed the cranks, so that neither captain's nor stoker's were the same length on each side of the bike.  My local bike shop owner noticed the error much later on and commented "So that's why your stoker's name is always 'I Lean' "...

Although I know better, I've (too) often been guilty of rushing the glue drying on a patch and had the patch fail to stick properly, leaving me worse off than I was before attempting to cure the ill.  This usually comes to light only after I've reseated the tire, reinstalled the wheel, and reinflated it, so I get to do the entire job again (and again, and again...)

I've forgotten to flip the tensioning lever or reconnect brake cables after removing a wheel.

Foolishness and silliness!  At last, a cycling topic with which I have some degree of expertise.  I'll limit my examples to ones related to touring.

My mechanical skills are terrible, but I do have the ability to prepare my bike for placement into a box for air or rail travel.  Even so, I don't remove the pedals all that often.  I remembered there is something unusual about that task so, before tackling that process by memory, I consulted a higher authority:  The Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair.

In Montana, I took a break on the side of a highway.  I took off my helmet, set it on a guardrail, drank some water, and wandered into the ditch to pee.  I was back on the road for almost two miles before I realized I didn't have a helmet on my head.  QUITE foolish!  It was painful to backtrack that far, but I did it.  

At a campsite in southern Minnesota, I sprayed 100% DEET into my eyes.  That was the result of not paying enough attention to which direction I was aiming the nozzle.  VERY foolish!

While on my way to the Baseball Hall of Fame in New York State, I came upon a stretch of highway with a wide, beautifully paved shoulder.  I didn't realize it had only been paved for a very short time until I had accumulated about 1/8 of an inch of fresh blacktop on my tires.  I spent the next half-hour scraping that stuff off my tires while chatting with the gal in charge of flipping the STOP sign around to the SLOW sign at the construction zone.  SUPER foolish!  (To this day, I wonder if the road construction company repaired my tire tracks or if they're still imprinted in that stretch of highway shoulder.)

After crossing the bridge over the Niagara River from Buffalo, NY to Fort Erie, Ontario, I got in line with the cars to clear customs.  Unfortunately, I forgot that I had tucked five $20 bills in my passport (for emergency use only) before beginning my tour.  Even more unfortunately, I forgot to remove the money before pulling up to the booth and handing it to the customs officer.  He opened the passport to the page with the money in it and rejected it outright.  It's hard to believe anything I could have done would look more like a bribe.  ULTRA foolish! 

I'm so old and wise that I only have faint memories of the days when I made foolish mistakes.  ;-)

Foolish mistakes happen less often as I become more experienced and more risk-averse. And nowadays technology helps me avoid surprises relating to road quality, climbing, climate, services, alternate routes, etc.

Twenty years or so ago, my wife and I had planned a November anniversary mini-vacation in the Florida Keys that would tag on to a business trip I had scheduled. At the last minute, the business trip was cancelled and I came up with the idea of biking the C&O towpath from Cumberland to DC - CycleBlaze journal here. My wife, a very fit runner, was game - even though she had done very little cycling that year.

The first 60 mile day, Cumberland to Hancock, went fine but my wife was feeling the effects of doubling her mileage and seat rear end time for the year. 

The second day from Hancock to Harper's Ferry, another 60 miles, was a bit rougher and my wife was pretty happy when we reached Harper's Ferry  - but not so happy when she saw the spiral staircase over the river to get to the town and our motel. To prevent her from finding the local all night divorce court, I schlepped the loaded bikes up the stairs and we pedaled the short distance to the park entrance to Rt. 340 where the motel was located, I think it was a Quality Inn.

Except construction had closed that entrance and tall fences blocked the way. So, we had to bike (mostly hike-a-bike) up the steep hill a mile or more to the (then) new visitors parking lot. I then guided us a bit more up hill to the left, where we pulled into the Clarion Inn motel - who, or course, did not have a reservation for us because  we were staying a the Quality Inn which was to the right on 340 and back down the big hill as twilight moved in. 

In my defense, this was in the pre-GPS days and since we were riding on and staying on the very familiar C&O Canal Towpath the entire 184 miles, I didn't do much map research.

Speaking of lack of research, the final 60 mile day I had planned a lunch stop at the excellent luncheonette/snack bar at White's Ferry - which of course had closed October 31st for the season - doh! 

Hi,

Foolish and silly? How about building a new wheel but forgetting to retighten all the spokes so the whole thing comes apart on a long descending grade. Fortunately, it was a back wheel, so the only thing injured was my pride. Or packing my wallet in my tent in the morning, only to forget where it was and panicking upon arrival to my nightly destination some 160 km from where I started. Actually, when you think of it, cycling presents endless opportunities for feeling foolish. But then, if you learn to laugh at yourself, you’ll always be amused. 

One further thought: the only people who don’t look foolish in cycling clothes are professional racers during a race. Most of us look silly, at least to the non cycling fraternity.

Cheers,

Keith

Does pitching a tent on the only elevated ground for miles around next to something metal during a lightning storm count?  

Asking for a friend.

I would respectfully suggest that this might be in the running for a prize, in the death wish category.

So many inanities come to mind, but our favorite one (now, years later) is the afternoon in a small town in southwest France when Rachael called me over to guard the door to the outhouse, since as I understood it she couldn’t close it.  

It closed just fine, as I found when I immediately pushed it shut.  The issue came when Rachael was ready to leave but couldn’t because the handle was missing.  It occurred to me that maybe my fourth marriage was going to end right here until I remembered I had a Swiss Army knife in the tool kit.  Ten minutes later I managed to cut completely through the door and open the lock mechanism, and we sped out of town before my vandalism was discovered.

Something along the same lines happened to me in Vietnam (see here) in 2016.