Rip in the fabric of space time, now available in my kitchen

greg66_tri_v2.0
greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
edited January 2010 in Commuting chat
So, I've finally got round to cleaning and servicing Bike 1. I have the front brake shoes off to replace the pads (quite a few bits of Alu embedded in the old ones - oopps!). I drop the retaining bolt from an empty shoe.

In an effort to catch it, I engage my cat-like reflexes, and manage to knock it into one of three wicker vegetable drawers, where it lands (or not) utterly silently.

Forty minutes of searching later, and it's still nowhere to be found.

So, there it is. I managed to rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime and lose a small but vital bit of my front brake. Without which they won't work very well. Well, they'll work fine on one side, but I think that leads to << 50% efficiency.

@rse.
Swim. Bike. Run. Yeah. That's what I used to do.

Bike 1
Bike 2-A

Comments

  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,052
    You'll just have to throw that bike away now, it's pretty much junk now. :lol:
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • cjcp
    cjcp Posts: 13,345
    Seriously :lol:
    FCN 2-4.

    "What happens when the hammer goes down, kids?"
    "It stays down, Daddy."
    "Exactly."
  • greg66_tri_v2.0
    greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
    It took another half an hour of meticulously emptying every drawer, item by item, before, by chance, I spotted the little b@stard thing sitting on the narrow baton onto which one of the drawer runners is mounted.

    Seriously, HTF does something knocked sideways end up balanced on a piece of wood that's no wider than the thing itself?

    I blame the mice.

    And the rip in spacetime.
    Swim. Bike. Run. Yeah. That's what I used to do.

    Bike 1
    Bike 2-A
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    :lol::lol:
    FCN 7/1
    Viner Maxima, Tifosi CK7, Giant Bowery, Old commuter.
  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    Drives me to tears that does.

    Same (kind of) thing happened to my Dad around the TV/HiFi area of the house. Knocked his CD stand over during the 'search', succumbed to the rage when he knocked the sky box off the TV as he tried to move the TV, unit et al. Started swinging his fist ala windmills and roaring then clouted his hand on the TV.

    One of the funniest chain of events I've seen.

    TV remote was on the sofa.
    Food Chain number = 4

    A true scalp is not only overtaking someone but leaving them stopped at a set of lights. As you, who have clearly beaten the lights, pummels nothing but the open air ahead. ~ 'DondaddyD'. Player of the Unspoken Game
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    Could we lure Gillian McKeith into it?
    FCN 7/1
    Viner Maxima, Tifosi CK7, Giant Bowery, Old commuter.
  • cyberknight
    cyberknight Posts: 1,238
    Sounds like me and the dust covers for my tubes...

    I always manage to drop it in the shed and spend 10 minutes looking into dark corners to find it :roll:
    FCN 3/5/9
  • itboffin
    itboffin Posts: 20,052
    cyberknight wrote:
    Sounds like me and the dust covers for my tubes...

    I always manage to drop it in the shed and spend 10 minutes looking into dark corners to find it :roll:

    Let me know if you lose any more, I have quite a few spares :oops:
    Rule #5 // Harden The Feck Up.
    Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period.
    Rule #12 // The correct number of bikes to own is n+1.
    Rule #42 // A bike race shall never be preceded with a swim and/or followed by a run.
  • clanton
    clanton Posts: 1,289
    I once lost one of the silver spacers than come on an casette, between the smaller, loose sprockets on the shed floor Not that small and SILVER FFS so you'd think it would stand out. Man that one drove me mad.
  • fenboy369
    fenboy369 Posts: 425
    Its a well known phenomomomonononnomomnoomn called Fridge Suck. Sort of a gravity based thing, small objects get pulled under large, immovable ones. First place I look when something has been dropped is under the fridge. Unless I am at work and its a bolt/washer or nut thats dropped into a jet engine...... :oops: :oops:
    '11 Cannondale Synapse 105CD - FCN 4
    '11 Schwinn Corvette - FCN 15?
    '09 Pitch Comp - FCN (why bother?) 11
    '07 DewDeluxe (Bent up after being run over) - FCN 8
  • iain_j
    iain_j Posts: 1,941
    I usually find tiny washers and that sort of thing after I've put the bike back together having never noticed it was in there in the first place :?
  • Jay dubbleU
    Jay dubbleU Posts: 3,159
    Not just me then!! :roll:
  • prj45
    prj45 Posts: 2,208
    Greg66 wrote:
    In an effort to catch it, I engage my cat-like reflexes, and manage to knock it into one of three wicker vegetable drawers, where it lands (or not) utterly silently.

    First mistake.

    When you drop something train yourself not to try and grab it, let it drop and watch where it goes.

    I've got this down pat, not lost a nut or bolt in a long while, although watching a £600 camera drop to the floor and smash to pieces is going to be painful (but at least I'll be able to find all the bits).
    Photos - Blog - Bike
  • Headhuunter
    Headhuunter Posts: 6,494
    Back when I used to smoke I was standing out in the street with a bunch of friends once 'aving a fag and a chat. Anyway after 5 mins or so I finished it and dropped it on the pavement and it landed perfectly on the filter pointing the ash end in the air. Me and one of my friends just stood staring at it for a moment. I mean what are the chances of dropping a cigarette end and it landing on it's end like that pointing straight up into the sky? I still maintain there must have been some bizarre gravitational and magnetic flux in the space time continuum or something.....
    Do not write below this line. Office use only.
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    Headhuunter wrote:
    Back when I used to smoke I was standing out in the street with a bunch of friends once 'aving a fag and a chat. Anyway after 5 mins or so I finished it and dropped it on the pavement and it landed perfectly on the filter pointing the ash end in the air. Me and one of my friends just stood staring at it for a moment. I mean what are the chances of dropping a cigarette end and it landing on it's end like that pointing straight up into the sky? I still maintain there must have been some bizarre gravitational and magnetic flux in the space time continuum or something.....

    You were lucky there was someone there to see it! In my experience that sort of thing only happens when you're by yourself...
    FCN 7/1
    Viner Maxima, Tifosi CK7, Giant Bowery, Old commuter.
  • prj45
    prj45 Posts: 2,208
    Wish there was a litter warden there to see it...
    Photos - Blog - Bike
  • PBo
    PBo Posts: 2,493
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    Could we lure Gillian McKeith into it?

    +1000

    glad to see you didn't give her her dodgy Dr title. (thank you Ben Goldacre)

    Why do some people cause me totally disproportionate anger/hate for their crimes?
  • Runoutofgears
    Runoutofgears Posts: 348
    Douglas Adams had a knack for spotting such phenomena:

    Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue, there was also a planet entirely given over to biro life forms. And it was to this planet that unattended biros would make their way, slipping away quietly through wormholes in space to a world where they knew they could enjoy a uniquely biroid lifestyle, responding to highly biro-oriented stimuli, and generally leading the biro equivalent of the good life.

    And as theories go this was all very fine and pleasant until Veet Voojagig suddenly claimed to have found this planet, and to have worked there for a while driving a limousine for a family of cheap green retractables, whereupon he was taken away, locked up, wrote a book, and was finally sent into tax exile, which is the usual fate reserved for those who are determined to make a fool of themselves in public.

    Douglas Adams in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

    It stands to reason that there are similar places for small bits that fall off bicycles!

    Now what would the generic term for such pieces be?
    I ache, therefore I am.
  • Headhuunter
    Headhuunter Posts: 6,494
    prj45 wrote:
    Wish there was a litter warden there to see it...

    Killjoy....
    Do not write below this line. Office use only.
  • Fireblade96
    Fireblade96 Posts: 1,123
    When working on engines, any small parts left spare at the end can simply be dropped through the oil filler, from where they will make their own way to their home location :wink:

    Not sure how that works with bicycles yet...drop them down the seat tube ?
    Misguided Idealist
  • prj45
    prj45 Posts: 2,208
    Headhunter wrote:
    Killjoy....

    No, it would've given me a lot of joy to see you get a £50 fine for littering!
    Photos - Blog - Bike
  • ince
    ince Posts: 289
    Unless I am at work and its a bolt/washer or nut that's dropped into a jet engine......

    Can I ask where you work Fenboy? just so we know.

    I always find it happens most when you know and think what ever I do I must not drop this. Working on a Rangrover gearbox removing the gate from the top thinking 'what a swine it would be to get a dropped bolt out of there' .. followed by said bolt disappearing into the hole.

    Two hours of fishing with a magnet to get it out.
  • fearby
    fearby Posts: 245
    I agree - new bike :D
  • il_principe
    il_principe Posts: 9,155
    I lost my chainwhip in October and despite weeks of searching it only re-appeared when I moved flats. God knows where the damn thing had been.
  • greg66_tri_v2.0
    greg66_tri_v2.0 Posts: 7,172
    Il Principe wrote:
    I lost my chainwhip in October and despite weeks of searching it only re-appeared when I moved flats. God knows where the damn thing had been.

    Ah - well I've lost my chain measuring tool, so perhaps you could ask your chainwhip where it's gone.
    Swim. Bike. Run. Yeah. That's what I used to do.

    Bike 1
    Bike 2-A
  • Jay dubbleU
    Jay dubbleU Posts: 3,159
    Il Principe wrote:
    I lost my chainwhip in October and despite weeks of searching it only re-appeared when I moved flats. God knows where the damn thing had been.

    Obviously anticipated the move and gone to your new flat in advance :wink:

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