so what was your biggest goof up???

Nothing on that scale for me, but one time I started loosing power and bogging down above about 12mph. I pedal assisted and limped home only to discover I had forgotten to open up the choke. I also broke a chain once without a spare on hand and had to pedal about 8 miles home on an overweight single speed cruiser. I now carry pretty much everything but a spare engine with me and I have an engine at home in the garage.

sprocket was on crooked.. tensioner got pulled just as the engine started.. broke 6 spokes and bent wheel.. put engine on diffrent bike.. will eventully get a new wheel for that bike, and put a motor on it tho

let my gf ride my brandnew cranbrook, she loved it, came home telling me how good it would jump. broke all 4 mounting bplts suprised the engine didnt fly off and hurt her

My first mistake was was not mounting my tensioner tight enough. The first time I tried to start the bike the tensioner flopped over. I got lucky though, the chain popped off the pulley and sprocket before the tensioner was pulled into the spokes.

The second mistake was made when I was fixing the tensioner. My chain stay was a little too small for the bracket, so I hammered the bracket a bit flatter for a good grip, then used some inner tube rubber to protect the paint and give it some grip. After riding for a while, I took the tensioner off to try and mount it better. There was just enough side to side play in it that the rubber had come apart, so the paint was messed up. And I had actually tightened the bracket down so much that I slightly flat spotted the chain stay on either side.

The funny part is that after wrapping the chain stay in electrical tape for grip, the flat spots keep the bracket in place .