Look out for these things when working on your mountain bike!

I'm not the best person to give safety advice, but then again I'm also not jaded. I know better than anyone how easy it is to fall into bad habits, and how mundane things have a tendency to bite you! Today we'll spend some time in the workshop, examining a few key things to look out for. I guess you could call this a safety video!

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[lucidstudios]

I love the scale from park tool to whistlindiesel!

[sstrazzi]

The lingering agony of sticking yourself with frayed cables deserves more recognition

[Peace]

Always make sure when you are done repairing your bicycle, to tighten up all the bolts

[SloaneDalmer]

The brake rotor one hits home for me. I was cleaning my bike and was well aware of the dangerous pinch point. Even just with a slight rotation in the wheel, the rotor gobbled up my cleaning cloth and pulled in my finger tip with it. The rotor sliced the tip of my finger, cut THROUGH the finger nail, and bounced off the finger bone. Luckily I could get stitches and didn't lose any finger bits or feeling in the finger. That's how I learned that it's possible to get your fingernail sewn back together with stitches

[MTB_CRZY]

As a CNC machinist, I learned very quickly that anything that moves or spins CAN AND WILL cut you.

[speedcheetah]

One great safety tip is when using a wrench, it's always better to pull then to push. Saves your knuckles if you slip.

[kevinmuzikar]

In the industry we call all of those "Near Miss" incidents. Just because someone didn't get hurt doesn't mean they couldn't have been hurt and we have the opportunity to learn and adapt our approach to the work/job to avoid having an actual Hit/Injury event.

[ghisallo]

Safety glasses are a must when working with anything under pressure. This includes hydraulic brakes and suspension. DOT 5 in the eyeball is no joke.

[UnburdenedByWhatHasBeen]

Whenever you hear someone refer to fingers as "fingies" you know they have a baby at home😆

[mickreynolds]

On my first disc brake bike, after a particularly good fall, I went to straighten my bars by straddling the front wheel and twisting the handlebars. 10 years later, I still have remnants of the imprint from my rotor branded into my calf.

[moonriseproductions]

I'm happy that you started with disc brakes vs. fingers lol. I cut off the tip of my thumb while working on my bike. I also was truing the wheel and accidentally put my thumb in. It cut 75% of the way through and cracked the tip of my thumb bone. They had to put stitches through my fingernail with a fish hook looking needle and I lost some feeling. Definitely avoid this!!! I've also burned myself on hot brakes. So I am much more cautious with the brakes now lol

[andrewredding]

@5:50 also when removing a seized chain ring, be aware of where gravity and the force with which you're hitting will send it. A stock 3x steel chainring with integrated cranks came down right on a vein near my ankle. I knew i had f'd up, but when I saw the squirt and my sock filling up, I really knew I just learned a valuable lesson😀

[Radln_Jeden_Tag]

Add on to letting air out of your suspension when servicing: watch out for presure in the oil chamber
I got a shock used for cheap and since it wasn't serviced in a long time I went and thaugt of letting air out first and when I got to open the oil chamber I just opened it and the upper part of the sock flew across the room . I tried to clean the oil up as good as I could but there's still a mark of it on the ceiling.

[ericmueser]

I've never hurt myself working on my bike, but I've seen some real injuries working on cars.
Probably the most significant was when I had to take my coworker to the hospital after he tried to disassemble an AC system without discharging it first, and blasted himself in the face with 200 PSI of toxic refrigerant. Stay safe y'all!

[pappaslivery]

Can confirm brake disc of doom. We're #1/2!

I was cleaning the bike upside down and the wheel was spinning slowly from the hose spray. Left it spinning as I was cleaning the frame and BANG! the three stages were "Oh man that crap I'm bleeding"....oh Jesus IT'S MOVING! Sucker could flap around like a muppet head. 5 hours in the ER, x-rays, three stitches. 10 months later it still feels weird. It crushed the bone but that healed. They even saved the finger nail, although I had to go through the dead cut one falling off.

WATCH OUT FOR DISC BRAKES!

[juliank]

Remember that one of your pedals is left hand thread. A number of years ago I was breaking down my mountain bike to package it for a flight. I thought one of my pedals was just SUPER tight. I put a trolley jack handle on my 15mm wrench to get some extra leverage... pulling towards my face (duh) I snapped the wrench and hit myself in the eyebrow with the jack handle with all my strength...nearly passed out, bled a decent amount and still carry the scar....

[RomansDowntime]

I'm just happy to see the pup get a treat in the name of safety.

[MisterMkey]

My worst injury was when I was bikepacking. I have a 2x11 drivetrain and the chain was in the inner position in the front, had to do something with the bike, dont even remember what and it started falling down. Mind you, I had like 30 kgs of stuff on the bike. So when it fell, I tried to stop it from falling, leg went on the other side of the bike between the wheels and the front chainring squeezed into my shinbone. Got lucky cause i had no infection or anything and didnt even go to the hospital, but I had to clean the wound for about a month while cycling to southern Italy. And now I got a nice souvenier from my first bikepacking trip, along with a puppy I found on the streets 😅

[jkimm]

I would also like to mention that if pedals are threaded into a crank - ALWAYS tighten them. That is to say, don't get side tracked and say "I'll tighten them later" because if you go out to test ride the bike, that finger tight pedal will likely come off and if you are standing up on the pedals you can come down on the top tube very hard or even inadvertently turn the bars as you go down and core sample yourself. Have had it happen and made sure to check pedals on any bike someone else built before I test ride.

[squarewheelFTW]

Always be careful when servicing forks, because sometimes there is pressure where it shouldn't be.

I was servicing a relatively old fork with a Motion Control damper, when I noticed that there was pressure built up in the damper and it was pushing out the shaft. I started to unscrew the compression damper assembly, as there was no other way to vent the pressure. When it stopped hissing, I assumed there was no pressure left, but the suspension oil was probably sealing the threads, because when I continued, it shot the whole compression damper out, left a little dent in the ceiling and made a mess. I was fine, if I had been a little less careful, it could have ended badly. I had read all the manuals, but it wasn't mentioned anywhere that there could be pressure in damper side of the fork.