# Shop Monkeys: Favorite Pranks



## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

Ok heres my start to this thread and my personal favorties.

First off I worked at this high end road shop that had the full 9 yards of roadie lightweight parts complete with the "drug dealer" digital scale for people to ensure that the bar tape they purchased was lighter than thier previous selection (Sad but horribly true). So from the back service area I call the front sales area and get Matt, one of the sales people on the phone. I asked if they sell chains for Campy 10-spd, what kinda, how much, etc. Then I ask which is lighter? What is the weight difference between the Wipperman and Campy chains? Now Matt was one hell of a polite and jem employee so he puts me on hold, and slightly perturbed and muttering about frikin weight weanies procedes to un-box and weigh both chains. When he finishes he gets back on the phone and tells me the difference of the two and at that point we're all laughing so hard in the service area I can't maintain and he figures out whats going on. Good times.

Before a group ride with the staff I turned in the upper limit screw for the rear der. on the service managers newly built Karate Monkey all the way in so when the trail hit the hills he didn't have use of half his cogs. HA!

One of the sales people always kept a jug of purified water to drink stashed


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## smudge (Jan 12, 2004)

I always liked to put the odd bearing in various places in peoples bikes. Inside the bars, down the ST even used to pull the fork out once in a while and drop 'em in the vent holes to the TT and DT. I'd take caps off of bar ends (when folks used to use them) and drop a few in there too.

My friends and I have been known to ride up on each other and dump a bunch of gears or grab a brake while riding up hill. 

I used to track stand in stream crossings to make friends dab.

We also used to load up our blower nozzle with hot mountain tips and fire them off at one another.

We left the shop owner stranded in the bathroom for about an hour on a busy saturday by removing all the TP and paper towels from the shelves.


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## RockyRider (Nov 21, 2004)

We used to have granny gear races out front in the parking lot and the shop was located at a busy intersection. So people would see us pedaling like crazy and going about 5 mph and give us funny looks. In the winter when it was slow we'd set up an obstical course in the shop and try to ride recumbants thru it. It was pretty common for a seat bag display or something similar to come crashing down.


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

Sorry, got intertupted...so anyway.....Water jug.....Baby Ruth....you do the math. 
The best though was inspired by this person. At yet another shop an employee kept a toothbrush to brush his teeth after every meal. Keeping it near the service area was a bad idea. I bought an identical toothbrush to his(I'm a joker not a jerk), another mechanic and myself put on ski masks then went to town with a digi camera. Pictures of us cleaning parts in the solvent tank, cleaning the toilet and shower, brushing the dogs teeth, etc. We then put the pics as the screen saver to be later discovered on one of the registers. HAHAHAHA!


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

Oh man I almost forgot! We did the same during X-mas with a Trek kids trike! We'd do a trike Crit through the store, it was hilarious! There was this one guy who was like 5'2" that we couldn't beat! He hauled ass on that trike.


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## RockyRider (Nov 21, 2004)

How about when you have a bike in the stand making adjustments you get the rear tire spinning good then drop a nut or washer on it and nail your co-worker with it.


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

Hooters!....Comming soon! A buddy of mine worked at a bike shop near downtown SLC, UT and across the street a restaurant closed down. He got on the computer and made a fake flyer stating that a Hooters was moving to that location soon. The public outrage was classic.


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

The service manager went on vacation and we decorated his tool bench for him while he was gone. First we removed all of his tools except for a 6.5mm allen, a hammer, a crescent wrench, and duct tape. Then we put of pictures of sheep all over his bench (He was from Montana, a lot a sheep jokes nuff said). We also made him a pair of velcro gloves and hung those on this bench. 

He left for a second trip later that year and we decorated his bench with girly pictures and Maxim, topping it off with wadded up toilet paper covered in Pedro's Ice Wax.


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## Rainman (Apr 18, 2004)

We had a 'gofer' who we used to send on errands on his bike. We played so many tricks on that poor kid. We once soaked his bike seat in a bucket of water overnight and then re-fitted it on the bike. He got a nice wet bum when we sent him out for a ride.. 


R.


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

What about un-toeing your co-workers front V/canti brakes? Hehehe.


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## Furrner (Jun 10, 2004)

My LBS at Uni had a radiator in the workshop that would get stupidly hot. When the shop was full on Saturdays the mechanics would have to drop their tools and head out to the shop if there were too many customers for sales staff. While they were gone we would place wrenches and tools on the radiator and set a lookout to warn when they were about to return to the workshop. The wrench would then be placed back on their tool tray ready for them to scald their fingers when they were picked up.


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## Rainman (Apr 18, 2004)

We used to send the gofer out to pick stuff up from the post office and railway station.

One morning we told him to go to the freight office and ask the guy there for "a long weight".

He went along and the guy at the station told him to sit down in the corner and he would tell him when it was time to go get 'it'.

The poor kid was there for two hours...lol..  


R.


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## overtorqued_nut (Oct 24, 2005)

Where I work we have a few favorite pranks to play, and they never seem to get old either. My personal favorite is to slide a road tube (airlock if you are feeling really mean, but I have never done that. yet.) under the door of our bathroom when someone is in there, which is next to our repair area. You then inflate the tube with the compressor until it explodes! 
Another popular alternative to working is to smear some grease under a doorknob, or under the clamp on a repair stand. Someone gets a nice handful of park grease, and you can can taste their sweet anguish. 
One that I have heard of, but have not personally seen is a complete bike disassembly and subsequent reassembly, just this time with everything backwards or upside down. 
These are all special ideas in their own unique way, so feel free to try them at your place of work! 

PS and a note to any "civilians" reading this: We do not pull these on customers. 

PPS: unless we think it will be really funny.


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## mistermoto (Jan 22, 2006)

Once I put a mushy 1/2 of a banana between the tire and tube of a co-workers tire, then inflated. That was pretty messy several days later on a trailside repair of his flat tire. Hehehe


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## [email protected] (Oct 11, 2004)

The classic bearings dropped in some grease in the bars to eventually work loose. The grease is important so it doesn't do it until they're out on the trail. 

Cut a schrader valve stem off an old tube, clamp it into your track pump. Now grab a dust cap and bung it on the end of the valve. It should be a nice snug fit now take aim and pump away. I was able to build up about 160psi before it shot off at my colleague.


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## Navtrtl (May 17, 2006)

There was a sales guy at my shop that was a germaphobe. He kept a bottle of hand sanitizer under the counter and used it like every five minutes or so. I came into work early one morning and brought some chocolate puding with me. Using a toothpick, I carefully placed a good amount of puding inside the head of the pump for the sanitizer and wiped off any that could be seen. To the untrained eye, it looked untouched. When the sales guy came in later, he went for the sanitizer and on the very first pump, he got a palm full of some brown, nasty stuff. It upset him so much that he threw up all over the floor behind the register, and soaked the floor mat . I have yet to confess to the act. He is still ticked off after 5 months. Everyone thinks it was the best prank ever, but I can't tell them I did it. Kind of sucks when you can't take credit for something you did.:madman:


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## PeanutButterBreath (Oct 7, 2005)

I cut some old tubes and tied knots in both ends so that they could be re-inflated into long, "snakey" shapes. I stuffed a bunch into another mechanic's locker and taped the door shut in a non-obvious spot. Sproing!


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## rockhound197 (Apr 30, 2004)

*water tubes*

We used to have an OLD pump that was falling apart, but the valves were still decent. A patient individual could pull the pump apart, fill the chamber with water, connect it to a co-workers bike and slowly fill it with water.

When they would go to pedal home they encountered a little bit of extra rotational weight to say the least.


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## Irishbuddha (Feb 25, 2004)

I use to work with a guy we nicknamed Bubba that would spend countless hours on the porcelain throne reading back issues of mountain bike magazines. He also avoided working on the beater bikes that use to come in and would leave his work bench in a total heap of tools and garbage at the end of the day. I told the other mechanics don’t get mad get even. So one hot sticky day in the shop while Bubba was enjoying laying some coil, we put a huge pile of talcum powder in front of the bathroom and shot it under the door with the air compressor. 

You could hear Bubba *****ing up a storm and oh, was he cranky. One of the younger mechanics knocked on the door and mentioned that Bubba should finish his paper work. We were all paralyzed with laughter when Bubba came sprinting out of the bathroom holding his pants half way up, frosted hair and white circles round his eyes and nostrils. Bubba looked like a mad man as he ran around the shop giving all of us a swift kick in the rear - we couldn’t get away because we were all laughing so hard.

Oh, how I miss the days of turning wrenches!


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## Blacksheep (Jan 24, 2004)

I've seen an infamous prank called the Meat Musket. How to do it? Pull the seatpost out, insert a polish sausage, saurkraut, mayo, relish, ketchup and whatever else you can find at the nearest quickie mart. Stuff hotdog bun in (as wadding) and ram down with a broomstick. Your victim won't discover it until they overhaul/replace their bottom bracket (or when they pull out the seatpost and smell the rapidly decomposing goo...)


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## thebigred67 (Mar 29, 2005)

overtorqued_nut said:


> Where I work we have a few favorite pranks to play, and they never seem to get old either. My personal favorite is to slide a road tube (airlock if you are feeling really mean, but I have never done that. yet.) under the door of our bathroom when someone is in there, which is next to our repair area. You then inflate the tube with the compressor until it explodes!
> Another popular alternative to working is to smear some grease under a doorknob, or under the clamp on a repair stand. Someone gets a nice handful of park grease, and you can can taste their sweet anguish.
> One that I have heard of, but have not personally seen is a complete bike disassembly and subsequent reassembly, just this time with everything backwards or upside down.
> These are all special ideas in their own unique way, so feel free to try them at your place of work!
> ...


Even funnier if you hit the circuit breaker for the bathroom and kill the light first. They don't see it comming that way. That will move about any slow bowel!


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## cfwdude (May 22, 2006)

Wasn't the Meat Musket, but a chicken gizzard. Bad thing was the seatpost was removed in the same shop months later, and stunk up the whole shop. (That wasn't me, but a buddy.)
i like the less stinky trick of slicing a small hole in a tube, insert a bb, and patch the tube and install into tire. only makes noise when moving slowly.


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## cdad_martinez (Nov 14, 2004)

I just did a fun one the other day. While one of the kids was out test riding a bike I put Conti rim cement on his 5mm allen. He came back and freaked out about there being tree sap or something on his allen. I just kept looking at the ceiling telling him mabe it came from there.


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## crashomatic (Jan 16, 2006)

*pranks*

if they have splined cranks you can pull an arm off and replace it a notch off but only if they arent too observant.
use the bleed syringes and load them up with your favorite condiment and inject into the vent holes, mayo mustard and ketchup work best, use compressed air carefully to ensure total coverage.
filling tubes with water is fun but you need plenty of time. 
if the area you live is flat prone, a piece of lunch meat in the tire is a nice surprise

the best so far here was the hand sanitizer.


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## Navtrtl (May 17, 2006)

crashomatic said:


> the best so far here was the hand sanitizer.


Yeah, I thought it was one of my best pranks. Funny thing is, it didn't happen like that exactly. I said it was at a bike shop because everyone else has a cool story from their shop. I don't have the good fortune of working at a bike shop. I actually did it at the Navy Reserve Center I worked at up until a couple of months ago. The guy puked on his huge desk calendar. It was great. I just love a good prank.


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## toydeluxe (Apr 12, 2004)

Navtrtl said:


> Yeah, I thought it was one of my best pranks. Funny thing is, it didn't happen like that exactly. I said it was at a bike shop because everyone else has a cool story from their shop. I don't have the good fortune of working at a bike shop. I actually did it at the Navy Reserve Center I worked at up until a couple of months ago. The guy puked on his huge desk calendar. It was great. I just love a good prank.


So, you lied to make a good story? :madman:

MMMmmmmkaaaayyy


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## toydeluxe (Apr 12, 2004)

I don't work at our local shop, but the topic of shop pranks came up the other day.............


They took a really thick, heavy duty zip tie and strapped it around the drive-shaft of the service manager's Cherokee. He came back to the shop one afternoon asking one of the more automotive mechanically inclined workers to come ride with him and figure out what the weird ticking noise was. Needless to say, it made for a good laugh.

They've done the ball bearing trick to the same worker several times..........

They also did the water in the tubes trick to an employee. He had just bought a fancy new set of road wheels. He was pissed at how heavy they were, and how weird they felt riding in the parking lot.

They decided to actually organize one of their messy co-worker's work bench once. It confused the hell out of him.


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## Zanetti (Sep 18, 2005)

Tube under the bathroom door.... check.:thumbsup:

Ball bearings in frame tubes and handlebars...... check.:thumbsup:

Misc items in seatpost.....check. --In this case, the victim was an obsessive-compulsive weight weenie, so we added as many coaster brake axles as we could fit inside his seatpost right after he spent big bucks on some lightweight doodad. The look on his face was priceless when he found out his bike _gained_ weight. We let him ride with the "ballast" for another week before we told him. 

The next prank is to bet the new guy he can't beat the shop record for keeping a flanged BMX grip stuck to his forehead. To pull this off, you'll need a flanged grip with a closed end. If you squeeze the grip and push the flanged end against your forehead, the suction will hold it in place. Make up an easy to beat time record, like three minutes. Once he's worn the grip about that long, congradulate him on setting the new record, then inform him that the grip has left a big red hickey on his forehead that will last for days!


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## Navtrtl (May 17, 2006)

toydeluxe said:


> So, you lied to make a good story? :madman:
> 
> MMMmmmmkaaaayyy


Not at all. The story is good regardless of the setting. So I "lied." I don't deny that. I just wanted to keep it within the topic of: Shop Monkeys: Favorite Pranks. I'm sure that if readers pictured it taking place at a bike shop they would relate to it better, thereby getting more personal enjoyment out of my prank than if I said it took place in the office of a Navy Reserve Center in NJ. Hell, I wish I worked in a bike shop. After years working on RADAR and COMM equipment followed by years behind a desk, it would be a nice change of pace. Just think of it as fiction. The subject is the prank and not the location. I took the subject and painted a familiar setting so that the majority of those reading it (bikers, not Navy Reservists or Active Navy) could better visualize it for their enjoyment. Sorry.


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## crashomatic (Jan 16, 2006)

*dont worry*

the quality of the prank saves you here. im putting that one away for the right day, time, person. thank you.


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