Cycle A 2 B

R.I.P Pancakes

2012-02-21T13:25:00.000Z

It's pancake day.....and it's a sad day.

Many years ago, if you wanted to go somewhere to eat in Manchester(and you were me), there was only one place on the list. The Dutch Pancake House. No restaurant could beat sitting in the ancient 70's decor and eating a 3ft pancake covered in any number of bizarre toppings. It closed in 2007, but they've recently started to knock down the building.

How it used to look :-*(

Meanwhile next door: a rather nice Chopper.

Aptly, nearby to the fallen Pancake house is another derelict piece of Dutchness (ish). The remains of one of Manchester's very few segregated cycle paths. Abandoned as part of the Council offices refurbishment, it wouldn't be complete without the words 'cyclists dismount'.

Speaking of the Council. It's unfair to hold out any hope of something so complicated as proper segregated when they woefully fail to get the basics right. (they sacked the streetcleaners and imagined that covering the bins would solve that little problem).

Squelch

2012-02-20T18:13:00.000Z

This section of the national cycle network had to be resurfaced due to its poor condition only a few months ago in the late summer. Thankfully it's already matured well and now fits in well with the standard of the rest of the network....

As you can see the high standards of our cycle facilities in the UK attract a great many users, even on a fresh February afternoon.We've simply no need for the fancy sort of smooth, well maintained traffic free tarmac routes that Johnny foreigner's got. Frankly you Dutch fellows can take your fancy tarmac and stick it up your arse.......as you can see thats what we do with our own cycle paths.

Sigh.....

2012-02-18T23:27:00.000Z

FFS.....

How to kill a Nexus 8 Shifter

2011-10-29T16:47:00.000+01:00

Step One: Ride the bike 5 days a week for a year or so.

Step Two: Change gear roughly 1 million times per ride.

Step Three: When it starts shifting badly between gears 7-8 decide "ah I'll look at it at the weekend"

Step Four: Continue riding it whilst thinking "bugger this is getting worse"

Step Five: Leave it in 6th and limp home because its completely knackered

Steps 3 -5 happened over a period of about one and a half rides, so it was a fairly terminal failure. It didn't feel too bad at first, then all of a sudden I could barely change gear at all so opted to just leave it in 6th (the most all round gear for my ride).

The good news was I could tell it wasn't a problem with the hub. It was clearly the shifter, since it was making some horrible noises and felt like the teeth on the ratchets had mashed themselves to bits from overuse.

This was all no big deal really. I have other bikes to use and to be fair this shifter is not only second hand but has also done a hell of alot of work for me since I change gear so often whilst riding it. Mainly because the 8 speed hub allows you to pick just the right gear for whatever the circumstance, so I tend to go for the correct gear to maintain a steady cadence. Unlike on a deraileur where I might either pedal harder or faster just avoid shifting.

Practical cycles furnished me with a brand new shifter via their eBay site which was a piece of cake to fit.

Once that was on I could have a look at the old one to see what went wrong. My guess at it being the plastic rachety teeth was completely wrong. Turns out it was a teeny tiny spring. I'm not entirely sure where it goes or what this spring does, since it was in two halves and loose inside the case. This had then been mashed against the moving cable, frayed it and then caused the wholse thing to sieze up.

So there you have it. the Shimano shifters are mostly made of plastic, but it was one of the few metal parts that fatigued and broke, taking down the rest of the ship with it.

Beat up old shifter

The result of the frayed cable from all the way up at the handlebars

Shiny new shifter with cable already included and ready to fit

Shiny new one fitted, works perfectly straight away.

The old shifter taken apart - teeth were fine

This is the tiny spring which had broken - filthy fingernail for scale

This is roughly how it should look when not broken

Rubber Brompton

2011-10-07T19:51:00.001+01:00

Ilove Bromptons. They are probably the most versatile bike money could buy. It’sa unique bike. Quite unusual and different to other options out there but theyreally should come with a special warning label.

Something like:

‘Dear valuedcustomer, this bike will gratuitously accentuate how silly you look in thoserubber knickers....please for the love of God wear your normal everydayclothing when enjoying a Brompton’.

Green Machine

2011-09-24T14:57:00.000+01:00

How to compensate for your crap bike lock?, paint it a horrific green in such an uncaring manner it would make even bikehacks blush. I especially like the matching green shopping bag-come saddle cover. Very fetching..... No, honestly I do like it. Chavs will nick anything, but this will make them think twice at least. Room for improvement?, it could have been candy pink maybe.

Police, Action, Denton Roundabout!

2011-08-24T09:32:00.000+01:00

Denton roundabout is the official Guinness World record holding roundabout for the greatest number of red light jumps by all forms of motorised traffic within a 24 hour period. Unfortunately the exact figure is unknown because they stopped counting shortly after 1 billion RLJ's when one of the counting team threw himself off the motorway bridge after going mad listening to 24hrs worth of beeping, tyre screeching, engine revving and swearing.

Sadly those record breaking days may infact be numbered for Denton roundabout.

As everyone knows, when it gets to the end of each month, a small panic spreads across the nation's police forces as the bobbies realise they are miles off reaching this months quota because they've spent the first 3 weeks of the month filing in the forms about the 4th week of last month.

It appears that our boys (and girls) in blue have finally realised that catching RLJ cars, vans & lorries on Denton Roundabout would be like shooting fish in a barrel. A small barrel. With not much water in it. With double Uzis and extended mags.

So they hatched their plan and parked their van. And they happily snapped away all afternoon. Except I bet they didn't. Because the van is big. And bright yellow. With flashing lights on top. So nobody was jumping the lights!. Yay!, finally.

But.....Who's betting the conclusion went something like this "we didn't catch anyone jumping the lights, no point in doing that again!..."

Fancy cycle parking for cool hip peeps

2011-08-22T09:49:00.000+01:00

This is an underground car park on Spring St in Manchester. Nice isnt it?. Let's ignore the fact that you have to lift your bike a significant height above your head and hook it on. Then the metal loops mean only a cable lock is really useable. Aaannnd you are doing all this whilst stood in on the entrance exit ramp. Bad shoulder?, bad back?, bit old?, not tall enough? prefer a better lock?, heavy bike?. Tough park somewhere else you loser!, this cycle parking is for cool peeps.

Fail.

Merc has got a good spot tho....

Plymouth Grove crash

2011-08-16T15:15:00.005+01:00

(Not a nice post, but sadly this is the result of certain driving styles...)

Sirens and unusual tailbacks are never a good sign.

This is Plymouth Grove yesterday evening, which fortunately for the occupants is where the emergency ambulance depot is located, meaning a response time of about 10 seconds.

Unfortunately for the occupants of the black Citreon it looks as if the boy racer Focus was overtaking on the wrong side of a traffic island straight into oncoming traffic.

....crashes like this are obviously common place enough for the Police to have a special unit for the job.

Gruesome'ish bit - highlight to read:

Beady eyed viewers, or people who've seen too many crashes will notice the distinctive way the Focus windscreen is shattered. That only happens when the driver is not wearing a seatbelt and slides headfirst up and over the airbag. Suprisingly survivable though, but not always.

Downhill Danger

2011-08-14T11:34:00.001+01:00

A sign showing it's age in Llandudno. Quaint? - that the most dangerous thing about cycling back when this sign was put up was the awful performance of your rod or drum brakes....

1930's Royal Sunbeam Light Roadster

2011-07-25T13:10:00.000+01:00

This is a Ladies Royal Sunbeam from some point in the 1930's. When I got it a while ago the only thing I knew about it was that is is a Sunbeam. But after a bit of googling, and in particular finding this thread by another owner and this Sunbeam history page I began to piece together a rough history. Mine is almost identical to the one in the thread, which is identified as a Silver Sunbeam Light Roadster. But after looking at the 1936 Sunbeam brochure I'd have to disagree and say that it is a Ladies Royal Sunbeam Light Roadster as the Silver models all appear to lack the prestigious 'Little Oil Bath' chaingaurd.

Super comfortable 68/68 geometry with a long fork rake

The original bike will have come with rod brakes, which have long since been removed and replaced (probably in the 40's) with a set of Sturmey Archer 90mm drum brake hubs. The front hub is marked BF9, which denotes it is a BF model hub made in 1939. So it's fair to assume that the rear hub was fitted at the same time. The rear is an AB 3-speed 90mm drum brake hub and is so old it is undated, but will also most likely be from the 1930's.

The brake levers and shifter dont sit very comfortably on the rod brake handlebars

It's been through a fair bit of use and no doubt a fair number of owners in its 70+ years. When I got it the brakes where so ineffectual they might as well have not been connected at all but with some air in the tyres it was completely rideable, albeit you had to stop using your feet.

This is all that remains of the original markings

At somepoint, probably more than once, it has been given a coat of black paint to cover up various scratches etc. However this means that some original features such as the the transfers on the frame and chaingaurd are gone & there is a lot of overspill onto unpainted parts and the cables. The only transfer that is still there is the headbadge, but even that is mostly gone.

The oil ports are finely made spring loaded metal caps - quality stuff

Sunbeams were supposedly the finest bicycles money could buy in their day and this bike is certainly very well made. The main selling feature of these Sunbeams was the 'Little Oil bath' chaingaurd. Which was not any ordinary chaingaurd for 2 reasons -

It is fully sealed and is supposed to have a small sump of oil at the front end, constantly bathing the chain in fresh oil.
This bike only has one rear chain stay, the other is the chainguard itself which has a kind of miniature cellular beam inside it which carries the load of the bicycle & rider.

Image courtesy of www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk

I was unsure at first about what to do with this bike. Would it be historic blasphemy to strip it entirely & refurbish from scratch?. Invariably on tv programmes when something antique or vintage has been tampered with, cleaned up, repainted or heaven forbid...take out of the box! the expert will suck his teeth and declare that if is had been original (read : rusty and unuseable) then it would have been worth £50 quadzillion but since you took it out the box and used a bit of brasso on it is now worth £4.37.

I know there is merit in this approach to total preservation, but to my mind this bike has had a sucession of owners all of whom have modified & maintained it in some manner. So since it belongs to me now, and it's already far from original, I intend to simply refurbish it as it stands and get this bike back to usefulness.

The problem with the brakes is most likely down to ancient cables, and glazed/dirty pads. So before I get to properly working on this bike I'll just clean up the brakes and oil the rear hub gear to get this bike rideable enough for the time being whilst it waits it's turn.

The mudgaurds stays have their own brazed mounts. One of them is badly damaged but will be ok.

Bullnose front to the metal mudgaurd

The Sturmey shifter is still in working order, but has seen better days. I think it will clean up ok though. Older shifters like this have all their markings upside down. This shifter is a 1950's GC2 model which is supposed to be mounted on the lefthand underside. for some reason, possibly just fashion, all Sturmey shifters switched from underside mounting to topside in the 60's. This pdf is a comprehensive document on Sturmey shifters if you're into that sort of thing. The little circular window shows the different speed selected, there are no 1,2,3 speeds. It is L,N & H for Low, Neutral & High gears.

And to finish....adjustable dropouts.If only all my bikes had these....

Building a Dog Scooter

2011-07-09T16:14:00.000+01:00

This is a crappy Asda BMX. What to do with it?. Let's make a dog scooter!.

Either read on or digest it all in a 1 minute video :)

After some brainstorming, the plan became to make some strategic cuts with the angle grinder to seperate the top half of the frame triangles away from the bottom half.

The top half could then be flipped upside down and the top tube welded to the bottom bracket.

A bit like this.

One potential problem with this approach would be the strain put onto the join that used to be the top of the seat tube. We solved this by welding a smaller diameter section of steel pipe inside and capping both ends with metal plate.

Once welded up we found out for the first time whether it would actually work. The frame had alot of bounce to it, but that's good as long as it's not too much. We knew that once the board supports and the plywood footboard were fitted they would add a bit more rigidity and the board itself would take flex somewhat in favour of the frame.

The board supports welded on. They are just box section steel.

The fitted board after a few coats of oil.

I had a can of purple spraypaint sitting around with no purpose (only bought it because it was £2 clearance). Even with the frame having virtually no preparation, the paint finish turned out really nice.

The finished scooter is alot of fun to mess about on. It's never going to be used as a proper dog sled, our dogs are neither big enough or trained for that, but it's certainly more use & fun than a broken Asda BMX :-)

Stowaway Build

2011-07-05T16:10:00.001+01:00

Here is all the various parts of my Stowaway laid out and ready to be built up. The freshly stripped frame had recieved several coatings of black Hammerite, which when sprayed on is really nice stuff. I started with a thickly brushed on undercoating then after a light sanding sprayed over the top.

I had planned to retain the original handlebar stem but once the bike was together and test-rideable it was obvious that for the trekking bars to work the bike needed a much longer reach stem.So I got a long reach adjustable stem off ebay for £15.

The Stowaway handlebar stem is a bit unsual because it doesn't have a normal headset. Instead there is a plastic bush at the top and a piece of looped wire which slides inside the stem. This bit of wire secures through the bolt for the from caliper brake. This means that when you are adjusting the quick release stem you can't accidentaly pull the stem out too far.

The finished wheels with tyres fitted. These Kenda tyres seemed like a good good choice (there isn't much choice with 451 tyres) but when it came to fitting them they have a ridiculously tight bead - not good news for any on the road punctures.

As with alot of vintage bike building the cotter pins for the cottered cranks where a bit worse for where. These things suffer on old bikes, mainly because they have old imperial threads and over the years someone will always have tried jamming on a metric nut. So both cotters got retreaded with metric threads and given brand new locking nuts.

mmmm shiny crisp new threads.

Here's a little video to show how easy it is.

During the build I stupidly managed to break the shifter for the Sach 5 speed hub by overtightening the nut. Its not a great design to be honest , since it relies on the plastic to take all the strain on the metal clip being wedged inside of it.

After deciding that there was no way to fix the original method of fixing I started to work out an alternative. So I took an old shimano friction shifter. Took out the handlebar attachment from that. chop some bits off it. Drilled a hole directly through the top of the sach shifter and glued/bolted the shimano base onto the sachs body.

The end result is slightly less elegant than before, but is actually more ergonomic as the whole shifter now sits a bit higher above the grips, meaning its easier to shifter with my thumb than it was before.

You can get long foam grips specially for butterfly bars, but I'm not keen on squishy foam, so instead got some honeycomb effect fake leather tape. Brown because the plan it to get a Brooks saddle of somesort, or a Charge Spoon at some point. With this build I used a gusset 1/2 link chain. I've never used a 1/2 linker before, but knowing how much bother it has been sometimes trying to get the chain tension just right on a hubbed bike (and then resorting to using a 1/2 link piece anyway) I decided this time it was worth trying. I'm a convert, 1/2 linkers are really easy to split & fit.

The rack is the original style Stowaway rack, but was a 24" wheel version new old stock. I had planned to just cut the stays down to 20" (so that the deck lays horizontal) but decided the extra heel clearance from it being slightly angled might be more useful.the front X-FD drum is as superb as expected, but the original cleaned up rear caliper is about as much use a chocolate firegaurd. I'll try it with some modern pads and see if i can get it any better.

The finished bike is very light and agile - as Stowaways usually as, but with the added fun of drum brakes, extra hand positions

What lies beneath

2011-07-01T14:02:00.003+01:00

A while ago I posted about how occasionally you see glimpses of what lies beneath the thin skim of tarmac on most of Britains urban roads. For the last few weeks some workmen have been working in a huge hole beside the Apollo and now they are finished they have skimmed back a huge section of the existing tarmac inorder to replace it.

This is the end of Hyde road and these setts will stretch the entire distance all the way back to Hyde and in most directions beyond. The tram lines however are probably quite rare as the wiki page for Manchester Tramways says nearly 5000 tons of track was ripped up and donated to the war effort.

Just a couple of inches down is the preserved cobble setts and the tram lines. Whilst they were digging the hole you could even see below these cobbles was a huge set of iron girders which helped support the weight of the trams down the centre of the road.

You can see here the lines diverging off in in seperate directions ready for the junction ahead. this morning they were using a huge street cleaning lorry to clean up the loose bits ready to re-tarmac, by tomorrow it will probably be all neatly covered back up. Lots more to read about Manchester Corporation Tramways which ran the 292 miles of track around Manchester.

Brompton on a motorbike

2011-06-26T10:15:00.000+01:00

I was passed on the M60 a few days ago by this motorbiker with a Brompton bungeed to the back of his motorbike. Looked like it fitted there quite comfortably.

Longsight bicycle storage depot....

2011-06-19T10:33:00.000+01:00

....or as it's formally known - Longsight Police station.

This is round the back of the building through the railings of the car park compound. Streetview shows a second pile that used to be there as well.

View Larger Map

Presumably these are all confiscated bikes of some sort of another. Most of them have yellow labels tied to the handlebars. Probably illustrates why its best to take extra care of your bike in Longsight, or it might end up in in this compound via the exploits of someone else ;-)

Making beer

2011-06-14T14:16:00.001+01:00

This posthas nothing to do with cycling. But I guess when you go out for a bike ride it’sentirely possible that you may stop off at a pub and drink some beer. And that’swhat this post is about. Beer!.

Catchy. So catchy in factthat the idea of homebrewing some beer crept into mind as I hummed it overand over again.

A visit to TheBrewShopin Stockport for a beginners kit and one box of Brupaks Indian Pale Ale and Iwas ready to begin. In the starters kit you get a big plastic bucket, a thermometer,a hydrometer, an airlock and a siphon. The Brupaks kit consists of two tins ofconcentrated wort, a packet of yeast, a bag of grain (kind of abeer teabag) and the all important instructions. One side of the instructionsis the idiots guide basics instructions, the other is the pro beardy advancedinstructions. I used the idiots guide.

To startoff we sit the big tins of wort in a novelty sized pan of hot water to soften theircontents. At the same time you rehydratethe packet of yeast in a mug of 40c water (forgot to take a photo of that).

It’simportant to sterilise everything so all the utensils and the bucket its selfgot a soaking in sterilising fluid (99p for a big bottle from wilkos).

Then weopen the tins. Mmmm lovely thick worty syrupy stuff. Tastes nice too. And aftera couple of puzzled tentative licks....dogs like it also.

Wort goes in the bucket.

Then youfill up the tins with boiling water to clear up the rest of the wort that itsstuck to the sides and drop in the beer teabag for 15 mins.

Doggy wantsmore wort syrup.

When the 15mins are up, you empty the two tins into the bucket and stir. Then the buckethad to go back into the garage (convenient tap, I guess the bath tub would bethe next best candidate for an accessible tap) to fill up the mix with coldwater til you get to the 20 litres mark (that’s the amount this particular kitmakes). 20 litres is roughly 35 pints! :-)

Mmmmmmmgiant beer.

Now we addthe yeast and give the whole lot a big stir for a few mins. I used a bigslotted spoon because it created a lot of bubbles and the idiots guide tells methe purpose of this stage is to aerate the mixture.

Now we’redone!. Put the lid on and fit the airlock with a dribble of water in it. Themixture should sit quietly for 5-7 days at 18-20c. Although I think if the tempis lower then you can just leave it for longer (?). Anyway, the cupboard undermy stairs seemed like a good place for it as it’s a nice 18c and is a smallspace with a light in it. So if the temp does drop, I can just flick on thelight for a bit and the heat from the bulb will get things back up to temp. Iwrapped the bucket in a sleeping bag for good measure.

The Hydrometeris used for measuring the ‘gravity’ of your booze – whatever that means. All thatmatters for now is that when the mix is started it floats at 1.050 which isapparently typical of commercial worts. And the fermented beer will be readyfor bottling when it has dropped down to around 1.010.

Now I justneed to get hold of a load of bottles and some corn sugar for the next stage inabout 7 days time. :-)

Fingers and toes crossed that it turns out drinkable, but from the lovely smell it was giving off as I was making it I'm hopeful at the moment.

Canal ride to Buxworth

2011-06-10T13:38:00.000+01:00

A few weeks back we went on a ride up the Peak Forest Canal up to Buxworth. Just with the aim of heading up there and back on a sunny day.

Starting off on the River Tame path to get to the Canal at Apethorn Lane in Gee Cross.

There is a big set off steep steps just before the weir which has a nice channel scored out by countless bikes that have been pushed up and down here. All choosing to do this rather than ride up and around the NCN route that uses some residential roads on a big detour.

Coming out of the Woodley Tunnel. This is a very long and almost pitch black in the middle tunnel underneath the main road in Woodley. It's a bit disconcerting in the darkest parts of this tunnel, because the black painted handrail vanishes from sight entirely and you feel like you will fall in the water at the next step.

This is Marple Locks, a flight of 16 locks which a obviously a very popular spot on a nice day. These locks are alot of fun to ride back down at pace and we'll have to visit again on a quieter day to race down them properly (bloody hooligans!)

My experience of canals has always been of the run down industrial and fairly unused Manchester canals, so it was a bit of a suprise to see so many boats running up and down as well as row upon row of moored boats.

Mummy duck has been busy.

When you reach the Bugsworth basin you ride along what used to be the tram track beds and come across this nice 3D map before reaching the Navigation Inn pub.

Another group arrived whilst we were having a pint, one bloke riding this extremely nice Indian built Hero bicycle.

On the way back I got chance to photo this nice little egg shaped tunnel which is part of the Marple lock flight.

Sharp eyed viewers will notice some cunning vandalism has been done to the information board next to Marple Viaduct.

A little ride up to Sowerby Bridge

2011-05-23T13:40:00.000+01:00

I'm miles behind with posts, but here's a little collection of photos from my solo trip up to Sowerby Bridge a few weeks back to join Mr.C's night time canal ride back to Manchester. I had planned to make my way there mostly by road with the main aim being to cycle up the A58 to the Whitehouse pub beside Blackstone Edge reservoir and back down the otherside through Cragg down Blackstone Edge Rd which is the longest continual slope in the country to reach Mytholmroyd.

On the way up there though I found by chance that a bit of disused old railway has been surfaced since the last time I was up here (probably 7/8 years ago), so I took that and headed towards Oldham.

Oldham is signposted but it doesn't actually get you there. I would probably make for a nice days riding to explore this valley but I didn't have the time so after a look at the supposedly closed bridge I headed up to Lees New Rd and back onto the roads to vaguely head towards Shaw on the North side of Oldham.

Before getting to Lees New Rd I went up Alt Hill Rd which is Tameside's 'Quiet Rd'. All seems a bit odd to me. This area is quiet anyway, since there is nothing around. Plus the idea of having a 'quiet' road then posting it as 30mph is...well... basically stupid. - aha! a new slogan for Tameside Council - 'Basically Stupid'

Fast forward through the boring typical north british streets of Oldham, Shaw, Milnrow, Hollingworth (Nice lake) & Smithybridge and we get to the base of what I presume is Blackstone Edge Hill and the A58 that climbs it. It's about 1000ft of climb and the red arrow is pointing at the pub!.

View from outside the Whitehouse pub looking back down the hill.

After a bit of recovery I carried on down Blackstone Edge Rd, which although downhill now it's such a wet & windy bit of moorland that the pedalling is almost as much hardwork as the ascent up here. Only once you've dropped a couple of hundred feet does it become a fast and fun descent, winding all the way down to Mytholmroyd.

Once in Mytholmroyd I tried to start follwing the National cycle route signs, which is easier said than done at some points. i.e. three signs pointing in all directions for the same route. But eventually found my way up the train station ramp to get to a path which runs alongside the railway line for a few miles until crossing over and joining the canal up to Sowerby Bridge.

Novelty wooden signs

The signage along this bit is all pretty good and I found my way quite easily. Eventually crossing on this bridge to get to the canal.

Of course now canal trip in spring is complete without seeing lots of baby ducks!

The perils of undertaking lorries

2011-05-19T19:33:00.000+01:00

It's not just bikes that should avoid undertaking lorries..... especially big long articulated ones with those flashy little orange things on the corner...in the left turn lane......turning left......oops.

Fixing stripped threads on a Sturmey X-FD axle

2011-05-10T20:34:00.000+01:00

A while ago I bought a Sturmey Archer X-FD 70mm Front Drum brake hub off ebay. I got it a bit cheaper than one would normally go for because the threads on either end of the axle were damaged. Presumably from somebody forcing either the wrong nut onto the axle or over tightening a small domed nut - most likely the later.

The damaged section of threads did not extend too far, but did mean it was impossible to fit a nut or remove the ones still on the axle. The solution was to recut the damaged threads using a thread cutting set. Except it wasn't quite that easy because the Sturmey Archer axle appears to use an M9/1 thread. Needless to say our thread cutting set doesn't have a cutting bit for this size.

So instead the damaged threads got cut with a smaller M8/1 thread. This way they would still be the correct pitch, but at a smaller diameter, meaning the axle nut could screw over the damaged area and reach the undamaged threads further on.

The same technique could be applied to any valuable but damaged hub axle if needed.

Brompton on a bike

2011-04-30T10:35:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately a temporal rift opened up in the space-time continium resulting in my bike being at work but it's rider at home.This little pickle would normally mean participating in somekind of vulgar act such as paying another £2.80 to a bus driver who thinks he's Lewis Hamilton. Thankfully a Brompton folds up small enough to fit on the normal rack of my Nexus. so I rode that in then the Nexus back. Just 4 bungess and a bit of cardboard to protect the paintwork. Even enough room for my pannier to sit in it's normal place.

Turns out those stupid barriers on the bridge do have one use. On that same note, as this exact spot, last week I passed a man pushing his wife in her wheelchair. They were using the cycle path as the pavement is too awkward (thanks to the barrier). What I wasn't expecting was a little old lady to mutter 'f*cking barriers' in the form of thanks for me pulling up to let them past.

Cree LED in a vintage bicycle headlamp

2011-04-24T09:22:00.000+01:00

Take one old style front bicycle headlamp bought from ebay for about £4. (this is a Halfords lamp, posher Raleigh etc ones will cost double+)

And one Cree torch of somekind bought from China of ebay. Mine is a 3xAAA powered 5W Zoomable Cree Headtorch which cost £5 posted.

Remove the rather sparce internals of the original lamp

Disassemble the Headtorch.

Go 'Ooooh' & 'Aaaah' at the tiny lens on the Cree LED. Decide whether or not you want to keep the larger glass lens & the zoomability. I decided against as the original lamps lens created a good light spread.

These are the only bits that we'll need from the Headtorch now. the LED unit has been de-soldered from the board to get it out of the casing. It will be resoldered later.

Discover that the LED unit and the Halfords lamp unit's reflector dish were made to measure for eachother.

Then discover that the headtorch's little on/off button is the exact fit for the original lamps red running light. - glue on/off switch in place. Remove rust/paint to your choosing.

Work out nice position for the battery pack and Alraldite in place. Work out some way of keeping batteries from falling out later - tape will do for now.

Put it all back together. Paint the bracket in Black Hammerite. & fit to the bike.

For other inspiration: Here's one made earlier by my brother using a Raleigh vintage lamp, painted with cream Rustoleum (Great stuff), a switch on top and using a Cree, powered by a large 18650 battery.

The cargobike bloke....

2011-04-21T20:06:00.003+01:00

Who is he. Nobody knows. He's a Manc mystery on wheels wrapped in an 3/4 length enigma. He pops up in more places than Droopy the Master Detective and even has his own 8 Freight fan page. Well here he is now on tape. Well ok his backside on tape. ....Never noticed the cargobay on 8 Freight was uncentred til now. Interesting that.

p.s I'm not wheelhugging. It's just a cheapo camera that's not very wide angle.
p.p.s @ 0.55 it sound like a tram honks at me!.....it was actually warning an ipod zombie about to cross the tracks.

Brazing a brake-arm clip for an X-FD drum brake

2011-04-19T19:08:00.003+01:00

Warning!: Ghetto, probably unwise, metal work below.

My Stowaway build includes a Sturmey Archer X-FD 70mm drum brake in the front wheel. Drum brakes have a long reaction arm which have to be secured to the fork in someway to provide a fixed point for the braking action to react against. This is usually done by using a clip-on fastening that is available in a variety of sizes, or the simplest way is to use a hoseclip (this is how my Sachs drum brake is attached to my Nexus bike). But since the Stowaway was stripped of paint anyway it made sense to install a permanent brake-arm clip on the fork. I'd already had my first go at welding with the Hopper, so this time it was a chance to have my first go at brazing.

This is not exactly the high-quality methods that will be employed in full-scale bike building to say the least, but the end result is good enough for me in my garage. Kudos go again to my brother who showed me how to do this using a canister of Mapp gas (ment for plumbers fitting copper piping) with the nozzle tightened slightly to get a smaller flame. Still, by brazing standards the flame was big and ugly, heating up a much larger area than needed - which is why the braze spreads so far. In anycase, brazing is such a nicer process to do than welding, mainly because you can take your time and fuss less with awkward gloves & face masks.

Here's a quick run down & a video

A small tab, just the right size to fit the X-FD brake arm, made out of a piece of scrap bracket.

Start heating it up

Beginning to melt the first bit of brass into the gap. Given up on the crappy mole grips by now, they kept falling off from the heat.

Decent amount of braze on there now

The brazed clip after a bit of filing

Fits nicely & when all painted up this is a much more elegant solution to securing the reaction arm than the alternatives.

Through the eye of the needle: Pinch points for experts

2011-04-13T13:12:00.000+01:00

Hart Rd, inFallowfield is one option for avoiding the chaotic horror show that is WilmslowRd in the Afternoon. However, quieter residential routes such as these justdon’t provide the technical challenge to test your speed, balance &perception skills in the same way as double parked cars or doors flying open orMagicbus drivers attempting to do 30mph in a traffic jam. Helpfully the counciltackled this issue head on as part of their traffic calming measures on HartRd. In a true test of any cyclists skill you can feel the adrenaline rushthat’s been missing from your relaxing route home by attempting to thread the‘Eye of the Needle’ using the cycle lane provided through the build-out.

10 pointsper build out ‘threaded’

20 pointsper build out ‘threaded’ with your eyes closed

40 pointsper build out ‘threaded’ with your eyes closed & doing a no-handies

80 pointsper build out ‘threaded’ with your eyes closed, no handies, no pedalies whilstpatting your head and rubbing your tummy simultaneously

5 pointbonus per build out ‘threaded whilst screaming ‘Weeeeeeeeee’

Sachs 5 speed Torpedo Pentasport hub gear

2011-04-11T13:33:00.002+01:00

This is a Sachs 5 speed Torpedo Pentasport hub gear - which is quite a mouthful of a name for a nice little german hub gear. This is the hub that will be going into my Stowaway build. It isn't stamped with a year and month as Sturmey Archer's handily are, so I can only guess at it's age. It is marked Sachs so precedes their taking over by Sram in 1997 and the 5 speed was introduced in 1987, so it's from sometime within that period.

It has got pretty respectable range of 251% which puts it a fair bit wider than a standard 3 speed (177%) and not too far away from my Shimano Nexus 8 (306%). The size of the steps between gears is also nice and even, with slightly shorter steps at either end of the range (1-2 & 4-5).

These Sachs/Sram hubs don't use a pull-chain that shorter range 3 speeds use, instead it has a 'clickbox' which clamps over the top of two push rods. The push rods are sleeved one inside of the other and when pushed in certain combinations will activate all 5 gears in sequence. It's this certain sequence that is dealt with inside the clickbox. The big advantage of this is that there is no adjustment to do, you just screw on the clickbox and hey-presto all 5 gears are selectable. The possible disadvantage of this is that the shifter, cable and clickbox come as a one piece unit. They are seperable, but each part is very specific and you can't for example just replace the cable as the cable is a solid wire with a special end fitting. You see most bike cables just have to pull, this cable has to push & pull. - which is a different kettle of fish. Basically if you need a new one, just go on ebay.de and buy the whole thing for a few euros.

Another aspect to this hub is the metal cover plate on the drive side of the hub. It's quite large. Meaning that the hub can't accept very small sprockets such as 15/14/13 maybe also 16. I haven't tested further, but it should be ok with sprockets larger than this. You can see in the wheelbuilding photos below that I've put a 15 tooth on just to hold the plate on whilst I do the build and this doesnt have enough clearance. This would probably make the hub unsuitable for smaller wheels such as a Brompton as they need small rear sprockets to maintain.a sensible gear range. But on this bike with 451mm wheels a 46 tooth front ring and, for example, an 18 tooth rear would give gear inches of 32 to 81 - a nice range.

I did open up the clickbox on mine out of simple curiousity and it was a bit of a mixed bag, it was a good thing because I renewed the grease inside of it, but a bad thing because it is quite fiddly to put back together.

Above is a view of the inside of the clickbox with some new grease in there. There isn't anything to worry about with this though, the casing and components are very solid and it is very well sealed. I only opened mine to regrease it because this thing is a minimum of 14 years old.

I've had this hub for a while, having got it off ebay in the spur of the moment sometime last year. So when I started thinking about what to put in my Stowaway built this seemed the obvious choice. Before I started building it into a new 451mm wheel I opened it up for the first time just to check if it needed regreasing.

It's a very simple hub to open. Much simpler than for example the well known Sturmey AW 3 speed. All you have to do it undo the two nuts on the none drive side (shown above),....

....then slide off the two retaining washer thingies.....

...and take off the big plastic dust cap. Once you have done that then the entire hub shell just lifts away from the internals - see below.

At first glance the inside of the hub doesn't look too delightful. but looking closer its actually very well greased up and doesnt require any attention. It has been regreased at somepoint by a previous owner using somekind of grey moly grease. Whatever it is, it is working just fine, so for the time being I'll leave it as it is. Below is the internals side by side with the shell.

With that done it's time to build it into the rim.

First of all the wheel needed a slight dish and fingers crossed this will all line up ok when the bike is built. Secondly the Damon Rinard spoke calculator Excel spreadsheet on Sheldon Brown's site came up with needing spokelengths of 198.5mm and 201.1mm for a 2 cross pattern. However I knew from building the Hopper that the calculator seems to overvalue the lengths by around 6mm. Maybe I'm using it wrong (I'm pretty sure I'm not), but I ordered lengths of 192mm and 194mm from SJSCycles and low and behold they were the perfect size. The rim is a Sun Ringle ICI-1 from Chainreactioncycles. They are very nice rims and the cheapest 451mm that it seems you can get with 36 spokeholes.

Starting off by loosely fitting a spoke from every other flange hole to every 4th hole along rim hole.

Then doing the same on the otherside

Now you start crossing the spokes by filling in the gaps on the hub flange with spokes coming in from the opposite side, crossing over the top of the next spoke and crossing under the spoke beyond that. That probably makes no sense, but there are much better wheelbuilding tutorials on the web than I can offer, besides the best way to understand it is to just build one and find out.

And repeat on the opposite side. Easy really. This is the first time I've built a wheel using brand new rims and I can tell you it is infinitely easier than using secondhand rims or existing ones from your bike. It simply laced up and was running tight and true without the slightest bother. (The Hopper wheels - built from well used BMX rims where the complete opposite and a real pain in comparison)

Shimano Nexus 8 Review & Regrease

2011-04-06T16:06:00.009+01:00

I've had my Nexus 8 hub for about 9 months now. In that time it's been ridden almost everyday of the week in all weathers, in particular through a very snowy winter period when temperatures were down to -9 at times. I bought it second hand off ebay, meaning it had done at least X? number of miles before I started riding it. I guess this means someone had already 'bedded in' the hub first so I can't comment on how the Nexus 8 runs during that period. I can however say for certain that it once bedded in and doing decent daily mileage the hub performs beautifully, smooth and reliably.

I commute a minimum of 15.5 miles per day and often do as much as 20 miles depending on the route, meaning the hub has been doing around 80 miles + on average per week.

My hub is the SG-8R31 which I think is the current standard model of the Nexus 8. The SG-8R36 being the premium redband version which is better in some way (possibly rated for off-road use, I'm not sure. The alfine certainly is for off-road use though and also takes a disc brake). If you google for reviews and info about Nexus 8 hubs it can be easy to be put off when you come across the odd forum thread or blog post complaining about their hub being ruined by water ingress. It's my guess that these issues will all be relating to earlier versions of the hub such as the original SG-8R20 which may have had different designs of seals.

The other possibility is that the issues have arose on hubs which have a roller brake fitted. If I was to fit a roller brake to my hub it would involve removing the plastic cover and an aluminium cap from one side to reveal the roller brake attachment. The problem with this that those two items do a very good job of sealing the hub on this side, without them - maybe the roller brake is not as good at providing a seal. This is total speculation on my part, but it does make sense when you are examining the hub itself. All I can say for my hub is that water ingress has not been a problem whatsoever. & this hub has been ridden straight through the middle of lakesized puddles, torrential Mancunian downpours and freezing snowy mornings.

The shifting is even and smooth. It is much easier to change down a gear than it is up. That's not to say it's difficult to change up gear, it's just extremely easy to change downwards. You can literally flick the hub right down the gears with one finger, even when under a mild pedalling load, which is a joy when you need to quickly lower the gearing on the go (Something you would struggle to do on a derailuer). The grip shifter is a decent piece of kit, but the plastic screen is quite susceptible to being scratched when you have the bike upside down (such as when fixing a puncture on the street).

A huge bonus of hub gears is that they are very easy and simple to adjust and once adjusted they are much less likely to need anymore attention - unlike a derailuer gear setup. The Nexus takes this a step further, as there are yellow alignment markers on both the top and bottom of the hub. With the hub in 4th gear, when these markers are aligned - then it's adjusted correctly. That's it, job done. This makes the Nexus even easier to adjust than a Sturmey Archer, which can require a bit of trial and error to get it adjusted correctly.

For the first few months I was riding the hub whilst using SPD clipless pedals, it works just as well in this setup as it does with flat pedals. When Shifting you just have to ease off the pedalling more when using SPDs than you do without.

So in conclusion of this rather ramshackle review here's a few of my main pro's:

One gear shifter
Extremely easy adjustment (almost fit & forget)
Allows the use of a Hebie Chainglider
Totally sealed and virtually silent gears
Wide 306% range of gears is more than enough for anything I've needed (there are some big hills around here)

I'm not going to do a list of con's because there really aren't any when you compare it to the alternatives. OK if you want absolute lightness to gear range ratio than a derailuer is better, but this hub is not for racing, it is for town and commuting bikes which need reliability, minimum maintenance and a decent gear range for a decent price. Of all those aspects I don't think there is much else that can beat it. Obviously a Rohloff or other examples are better in their own respects, but factor in the price and a Nexus 8 takes the prize for me on my commute. I'm not saying I wouldnt' want a Rohloff, a Nuvinci, a Sturmey 8, or Sram - I'd love to have them all ;-) but a Nexus 8 is what I've got and I'm very pleased with it.

Now onto the regreasing. Last week I came across this excellent post by The Golden Wrench & whilst my hub felt fine and was still running as nice as the day I first got it I decided there was no harm in finally opening it up for the first time and regreasing the outer bearings as a purely preventative bit of maintenance.

Before you start this, bear in mind that although I know a little more than your average joe about hub gears, I'm not a qualified bike mechanic and I'm happily making this up as I go along. - take apart your expensive shimano hub gear at your own risk - not on my guidance ;-)

So lets get started:

The hub still in the frame. It's covered in road dirt and I need to remove my Hebie Chainglider in order to remove the wheel.

This is the outer gear changing mechanism. It removes very easily by twisting the lock ring in the opposite direction to the arrow (which lines up the yellow dots)

With the mechanism removed, you reveal a locknut, some more gear changer parts and the clip for holding the sprocket in place. There is a little plastic ring cap which just prises off (that's what I'm holding)

With the sprocket removed, you can see how dirty it is behind. This is no problem and even after I've cleaned it this grime will build up again after a bit of use.

Flip the hub over and we have the plastic cover which protects the rollerbrake attachment. Remove the big nut and prise off the plastic cover along with the aluminium cone.

Underneath we find the rollerbrake attachment and the top of the bearing cone. This grease had mixed with water a little, but this is outside of the hub. Some time around this point I gave the wheel and the outside of the hub a bit of a clean to remove any loose crap. I'm not totally relubricating the hub here, so I don't want any loose crap getting inside the depth of the gears by accident.

Undo the two nuts to free the hub internals from the shell. It took a bit of a firm tap to free the internals from the hub shell - proof of how well sealed the rubber seal was on the otherside.

Here is the internals straight from inside the hub shell. Everything was still well coated in grease, albeit a little sparingly. No signs of corrosion or ingress at all.

The inside of the hub shell looks like it has just come from the factory.

Presumably the pink spots of grease are something from the factory process. Or maybe a marker for Shimano to tell whether or not the hub has been DIY'ed by someone like me. There is a gap in the needle bearings here - No idea why.

I cleaned off the outside grease and removed a bit from these built up areas inside which had collected some dirt.

The grease all wiped off. As you can see the hub is still in great condition.

Inside the shell after giving it a wipe.

This is as far as the disassembly got.

All the bearings got a thorough coating in Shimano's internal hub grease. I followed the example on Golden Wrenches post of how much to put on, but I think this was probably a bit over the top. Better than too little though, I guess.

**UPDATE**: After a few weeks I decided that my gut feeling had been right and that this was too much grease afterall. The hub just felt a bit too draggy in 7/8th gear and wasnt freewheeling as well as it had previously. so I took the internals out again and removed around 2/3rd of the grease. everything then felt alot easier on the legs when cruising at higher speeds.

After putting the internals back in and turning them a couple of times I took it back out and took this photo to show how quickly the grease spreads around to where it's needed.

There'll be lots of excess over the rubber seal ring. The tolerances in this hub are tiny, it's a joy to see after opening 1970's Sturmey Archers with massive gaps all over the place.

Flip the hub over and put the race back in (the correct way up - I always get this wrong - photos help) and grease it.

Put the bearing cone back on finger tight. This will lock the internals back in place. Helpfully this screws onto its own seperate thread and not the long axle thread as is the case on many other hubs - that saves a boring task of screwing it all the way back down.

Grease the back of the dust shield and stick in back on.

Grease the back of the 2nd metal dust shield and stick that on too. Then refit all the little parts of the gear changer mechanism and lock them in place with the retaining nut.

Then you can refit the sprocket and put the outer gear change mechanism back on by lining up the red dots. then lock this in place with the yellow dotted lock ring.

Flip the hub back over and grease up the inside of the rollerbrake attachment cover & stick it on.

Then do the same with the metal cover. Then lock these down with the big retaining nut.

When it's all back together and back in the frame the hub was a tiny bit out of alignment - see the yellow lines don't quite line up.

A couple of twists on the handlebar adjuster and it was back in alignment.

With this done the gear change was immediately nicer and more solid feeling, even though it felt fine beforehand. The was a slight tick when freewheeling in the higher gears of 5-8 which are on a different clutch from gears 1-4, but this bedded in and disappeared after about 30 miles. Job done.

Money pit

2011-04-02T12:28:00.001+01:00

Ever wondered just how big the tanks must be beneath a petrol station?...No me neither, but on my way home this last week or so I've seen the petrol station at my local Sainsbury's dug up - presumably to replace the tanks. I'm guessing they have a rated lifecycle and these ones have reached it. They have built a temporary station in the car park whilst this goes on, which doesn't affect parking in any way - because the car park is about 5 times the size it needs to be.

Oh and the title isn't a cynical joke (unusual for me) - this literally IS a money pit. These four tanks will have a capacity well into the high tens of thousands of Litres. Jungle juice is currently £1.30+ per litre. Thats alot of money.

If they've not already fitted and covered the new ones up by the time I go past again I'll take another photo and update the post.

Longdendale Trail

2011-03-28T21:13:00.002+01:00

At the weekend we took 3 bikes, 3 doggies, 2 little'uns and a little'uns trailer to the Longdendale Trail, which is a 6.6 mile long former railway line between Hadfield station and the Woodhead tunnels forming part of National cycle route 62. Among a card full of photos I did a little bit of filming too, probably boring, but I guess someone out there might type 'Longdendale Trail' into youtube one day :-)

Jeans, trainers & jumper....perfect cycling 'gear' for a day out. I took the Hopper & my first (rather dodgy) attempts at wheelbuilding stood the test of high speed cobbles and gravely bits really wheel ;-)

The trail runs alongside the reservoirs of Longdendale valley and is pretty damn pleasent along the entire route, certainly if you compare it to the A628 Woodhead road on the opposite side of the reservoirs (well known for its frequent holes in the walls due to overly ambitious driving).

The whole trail is surfaced with compacted gravel, but there is one particular section which rises up a steepish hill that has got lots of very loose gravel, meaning its extremely difficult to get up even in a low gear.

All the gates on the route are much more cycle, buggy, wheelchair, cargo bike etc friendly than on other abandoned railway route. they all look like the one in the photo above with a large wide gate or a choice of u-bend path or just nip through the gap if you fit. The bridleway gate is elsewhere.

We saw lots more cyclists and walkers, even an electric disability buggy. Some people you see coming back in the other direction as we did, others have carried on up and over the Woodhead.

This is a long distance photo across the reservoir looking at the A628 Woodhead.

The route doesn't actually go anywhere unless you intend on carrying on up and over the pennines, but makes for a great day out whether you are braving Mottram moor (we didn't) to get there, getting the train to Hadfield or driving.

When you get to the end of the railway line you find the 3 Woodhead tunnels, all disused by railway traffic, but now owned by the National Grid who run cables through the North tunnel, but are in the middle of laying new cables through the newer and larger Woodhead 3 tunnel. You can't get near enough to it at the moment, but before they started laying new cables you could stand right at the tunnel entrance. Standing here was a very odd experience as the temperature was massively reduced in the space of a few feet by the draft from 3 odd miles of deep underground tunnel air.

It's a steady incline from Hadfield up to the Woodhead tunnels and a decent 10mph or so wind was in our faces for most of the way (not so much fun with a trailer to pull), but that just means it was plain sailing on the way back down. It's an excellent day out, whether you are just out for a leisurely ride or after a bit of hard work and fancy riding the whole way there and beyond.

The first rule of cycle club is....

2011-03-24T09:27:00.000Z

...don't go up the lefthandside of skip lorries.

The second rule of cycle club is - Don't go up the lefthandside of skip lorries.

This morning I watched two people, a bloke and a girl, both sqeeze their bikes up the lefthand side of this bumper sized skip lorry - whilst it was moving - and whilst it was indicating left....sigh.

I'll freely admit to going up the leftside of the occasional big vehicle, but only when I know it really is safe to do so (99% of the time it's less hassle to simply hold back or filter down the right). This thing moving at 10mph AND indicating is definately not in that category. Besides, most of the time getting ahead of this thing at the lights only means it will it will overtake you again further on unless you know for sure that you will be making enough progress to get away from it. Overtaking lorries are never nice, even when done competently, so why create an extra overtake?.

Thankfully the driver saw them and slowed right down, but I'd rather rely on my own wit than on someone else's who might be too busy listening to Radio 1 next time.

This one even comes with a cryptic warning label. Presumably this is there to aid the bloke whose job it is to extract you from the chassis.

Stowaway - Stripping the frame

2011-03-23T20:35:00.003Z

I spent some time at the weekend stripping the paint off this frame. It's a fairly simple task and is nice and easy with noisy power tools. This cheap angle grinder makes a serious racket, so its handy to wear a set of ear protectors as well as goggles. Some kind of eye protection if a must with things like this. Especially when the brush starts getting to the end of its useful life. You'll know when this is because it will start chucking bits of wire off every few seconds and do this to your hands:

Of course only morons carry on going when bits of hot sharp wire are cutting your hands....

If you want to strip some paint like this, then do not go to B&Q (the Halfrauds of diy) because they charge £25 for the exact same cup brush that you can get on ebay for £2.50.


New set of spinny things

Here's the frame beforehand:

and a close up of the damaged headbadge and a bit of rust.

The Twenty and Stowaway do not have a standard style of headset. instead there is a large plastic bush at the top which allows the handlebar stem to be quick release adjustable. There is a wire inside of this attached to a bolt which prevents the stem from being pulled all the way out by accident. I didn't bother removing the bush, I was just careful not to ruin is when removing the paint in this area.

If you really wanted to go bonkers you can get the bare metal up to a brilliant shine, this is when you start wondering about a clear lacquer bike as used to be available from Brompton, but they seem to have stopped doing it for now.

The paint was already quite badly chipped and flaked. There was quite a contrast between the thickness of paint on this Raleigh frame and that on the Elswick Hopper Cosmopolitan. I'd guess that the Hopper's paint was at least twice as thick and as such took a bit more effort to remove than this paint did. When the paint is off you start to reveal some of the making of this bike, the odd splodge & dribble of braze here and there. There was even a patch of braze on the top tube, presumably a slip up during manufacture that got filed back down flush (top left).

At the same time the various bits of chromework got a good cleanup and the pedals a service. I don't know if I'll keep the pedals, these old things weigh a ton, but theres no harm in servicing them anyway. Old pedals like this are pretty bullet proof. There isn't any bearings to wear out, they just have a solid axle straight through, so after a bit of a clean and a smear of grease they are back to their best.

After a couple of brew breaks to give your back a rest you end up with one complete Stowaway frame and mudgaurds minus horrible blue colour. I'm thinking of repainting it in solid black (black is cheap and I already have some) in the hope that it will come out looking something like this one.

Raleigh Winner Singlespeed Handlebars

2011-03-19T13:33:00.002Z

The drop bars were not fun on this bike. When it comes to drop bars my current thinking is --Velodrome : Yes. Fancypants racing bike : Maybe (I have no real experience). but this bike : No.

So the initial plan was to do what countless other builders of fixies and SS's have done and turn those drops upside down, chop the ends off and create a set of bullhorn bars with the original brake levers mounted on the end of the horns. It was all going swimmingly until my brother suggested I see what the set of bars from a Raleigh Stowaway would be like upside down in the style of a Pashley Guv'nor (but with slightly less elegance and a bit more bodginess)
Hmmmm, not a bad idea said I.

I took a couple of photos of the drops upside down with the levers roughly mounted so that, in Bullseye fashion, I had a photo of what I could have had, then got started on fitting a moustache to this bike.

My thumb is at the point where I was thinking of doing the cut:

You can see here roughly what the outcome would have been. There are plenty of tutorials about doing this, such as this one.

The original Raleigh drop bars are aluminium with a 1 inch stem mount. Whereas for a 'Raleigh only knows why' reason the Twenty/Stowaways come with chromed steel bars that are slightly less than an inch in diameter at the mounting point. They overcame this by welding a shim into the stem on the Twenty and the Stowaway. So to fit them to the stem on this bike required a new homemade shim. This was made out of a piece of plate steel (actually a Corus rainscreen cladding sample).

This is the homemade shim just before the bars where slid fully in, once in you can't see it.

The brake levers are ones I bought on impulse as part of a larger order from SJS cycles a while ago. They cost a whopping £1.99 and purely by chance they match the bend of these bars perfectly.

Note the very short cable run this setup allows on the front brake. It also shortened the rear by about 6 inches too.

The red bar tape was recycled for grips and the chrome plastic end plugs modified with a pair of scissors to help them fit into the thinner gauge tubing of the steel bars. The final result is a bit Caff Racer.

This is now is much more to my liking. The effect on the steering is pretty profound as these bars place your hands a good few inches further apart that the drops allowed. And finally....this bike is veeery fast. It weighs bugger all and is so easy to get up to a high speed cruise. It's given me a new understanding on having only one gear, in a metaphysical la-di-da kind of way you don't have just one gear - you have a very short range of infinitely variable gears, because you are varying the gearing with your legs and not the mechanics of a deraileur or a hub. It's certainly not a practical everyday bike, but is now a great option for a sunny day and a fast ride.

As a Brucie bonus, the old single pivot brakes on this bike are now exceptionally good. Something I never thought possible. The combination of bmx levers, v-brake pads, super short cable run on the front & 4 hands instead of 2 when setting them up results in a fairly decent set of brakes.

The final result with mandatory Charge Spoon saddle fitted.

Raleigh Winner fixed/singlespeed

2011-03-17T13:05:00.002Z

This is the bike that got me started. About 3 years ago, abondoned in a Halifax a Raleigh winner, 21 inch 1980's racing bike was rescued from the big scrapheap in the sky. The wheels were knackered but nearly everything else was in reasonable condition. It was a simple 5 speed with a friction shifter mounted on the downtube. I've not got pictures of the original bike because this precedes the discovery of blogging, but I looked almost exactly like the photo below. Try to imagine it with bent, rusted wheels, no bar tape, threadbare cabling and a shreaded saddle.

This was about the time I was first attempting to commute on my Trek Navigator hybrid and moderately failing at it. The most noticeable thing back then was being overtaken by blokes on road bikes who zoomed off into the sunset, leaving me to wonder if a road bike was the way to go for tackling a 30mile daily round trip. In the middle of wondering this I diverged and got a Brompton which solved all my woes and meant the reason for rescuing this Raleigh became a bit null and void.

When thinking of what to do with it, I came across the FixedGearGallery and was hooked.....they are all so very clean and pretty. I could just create something sleek and simple as a project and forget about whether it would actually get used for anything or not. So I set about stripping the bike down into its constituant parts and attempting to prep the frame for repainting. (This is easier said than done when you haven't yet discovered angle grinders and cup brushes). The idea was very simple. Clean/refurbish almost every existing part and fit a brand new wheelset with a flip-flop hub. The wheelset was £75 off ebay, so including new tyres, tubes, brake pads and paint/laquer it cost roughly £120 to build over a period of a few weeks, but could easily have been done in a weekend with a bit of effort.

I did carefully remove and keep the headbadge.......then lost it somewhere.

£120, coincidentally is about how much this bike would have cost in the early 80's when it was new. The Winner was a lower end Raleigh race model, but low-end presumably had a slightly different meaning back then and even as early as 15 years ago when I got my low-end Raleigh MTB. Nowadays, buying the cheapest on the market will no doubt mean a horrific monstrosity weighing in at more than my Nexus (that takes some doing), with forks on backwards, & parts already rusting before it's loaded into the shipping container in China. But previously low end didn't mean crap, it just meant not as posh as the higher end stuff. The components where all still good quality kit and the frames were still hand crafted by the same blokes who, I suppose, might also lug together a bike costing 5 times the price.

Fixed gear however is hopelessy impractical for me and would be downright bloody dangerous at times around Manchester's drivers. So it has remained a pretty garage ornament for the most of its existence. I had been planning for quite a while to build a new rear wheel using a 3 speed hub for this bike, but last week I dusted it off and fitted a BMX 18 tooth freewheel orginally from the B'twin Vitamin. This increased it's useability massively, but I still didn't get on with the drop bars very well. Like the fixed cog, a very low thin set of drops just destroys my confidence on the road, knowing that unpredictable drivers are lurking behind every corner. So the next post will be about how I solved the handlebar issue on this bike and finally made it into something that gets a bit of use on sunny days.

Before & After

2011-03-14T13:28:00.000Z

Before militant intervention

After militant intervention:

Cable Lock Chop

2011-03-13T11:09:00.002Z

I recently picked up a rusty old bike for yet another project, but it came with a cable lock around the back wheel that the seller had lost the key for. Now, for a while I've fancied having a go at chopping a cable lock to see just how easy it is but haven't wanted to ruin any of my own. So this was the perfect chance to give it a try. Hopefully this will show just how easy it is for a chav with a set of bolt cutters (quite easy to carry inside your coat) can have away with you pride and joy within seconds if it's only locked up with a cable.

Saying that though, I locked my mountain bike up with just a cable for my entire time whilst at uni. I even once left it outside Morrisons for a whole weekend without trouble. The problem really is if someone does want to nick your bike then a cable is not much of a challenge if they've come with a set of cutters.

You can see that it's a pretty old crappy cable lock, but the metal cable inside of it is pretty much the same thickness as will be inside a new Kryptonite cable etc...

Grosvenor Contraflow and Apollo roundabout alternative

2011-03-09T13:10:00.001Z

There is quite a bit of cycle facilities work being done by Manchester city council at the moment. Mostly green and white paint, such as repainting on Wilmslow Rd using green blobs so thick that they create little cycle speed bumps along with new ASLs & square patches on Ashton Old Rd. Nothing particularly exciting. But on Grosvenor Street and Hyde Rd they are putting in a segregated contraflow and a dropped kerb roundabout bypass respectively. Neither are groundbreaking, but the Grosvenor street contraflow in particular is interesting because it reduces the space for motorised traffic a bit. I don't know the details of it as the consultation period passed me by and the pdfs have now been removed from the council website. But you can get an idea from the photos. It'll be a kerbed lane of somesort with Toucan crossings at the end to access the existing painted contraflow further on.

Personally, the kerbs look too nicey nicey to me and the lane too thin, but since I haven't seen the plans I'll wait til its done to pass judgement.

The Alternative route from Hyde Rd to avoid the Ardwick Green roundabout is supposed to be still in consultation, but they appear to have started anyway. In my opinion the dropped kerbs are too short, but arguably this will mean bikes can't join the footway too fast, which is in the best interest of pedestrians. So it's swings and roundabouts really. You can have a look at the route for this still on the council website. Not great but a nice alternative for anyone not prepared to negotiate a big roundabout.

On a side note - where the current cycle lane vanishes into a bus stop is a very dangerous spot (exactly where you see the girl on a bike in the photo). Because it guides you into a space that rapidly disappears, meaning you have to rejoin a fast moving lane of traffic. It's always been best to try and completely ignore this bit of lane and not get yourself stuck in the bus stop area.

one of three dropped kerbs put in already.

Super-Mega-Ultra-Power-Juice

2011-03-08T10:48:00.000Z

I got a parcel from Chainreactioncycles a while ago and with it came a free gift. It's not something small & useful.....like maybe a saddle cover or a trouser clip. Sadly, instead it's some tablets for creating your own Supermegaultrapowerjuice. Or to pen it's real name ' Zero Highs Advanced Fluid Replacement Sports Drink'.

The packet proudly announces that 'test subjects' (does that mean humans?, I'm not sure) burn 41% more fat during excercise. I'm sure that sounds great but I don't want to burn more fat, I do however, I quite fancy a bacon butty. So I'm afraid they haven't won me over on that one. And again the berry caffeine stimulant seems a little unrefined when I have a rather nice bag of Ethiopian roast coffee in the cupboard.

In the interests of public safety I decided to selflessly put my own health on the line and try this 'Low cal electrolyte sports drink with zero sugar' - whatever that means. So with a pint of water at the ready I chucked in the citrus flavour tablet (the berry caffeine stimulant looked a bit hardcore for the first try) and watched it dissolve. The first taste was a little citrusey. The second sip was a bit citrusey with a slight chemically aftertaste. The truth came with the third taste which was somewhere inbetween windolene and what the Swampthing urinates out the morning after a night on the beer.

Conclusion - I'll be sticking to my favourite and thoroughly 'research proven' beverage - a cup of tea.

But on a serious note, A free sample like this is wasted on me and probably the vast majority of customers they've been sent to. Why not add a set of tick boxes to the checkout with a choice of free samples. If a chainreaction cycles saddle cover was there I'd happily tick that and use when it comes = free advertising for them and a dry saddle for me. Anyone going on a big sportive who fancies trying out the chemical powder tablet can tick that box if they like. I shall tweet them the suggestion. Here's a behind the scenes of Chainreactions warehouse, looks like it might be easier to find things in the warehouse than it is on their website ;-)

2011 Census: Help shape local transport

2011-03-03T09:47:00.000Z

I noticed this poster up on Hyde road this week. Until I saw it, I had completely forgotten it would be the Census this year, so in what might be a first for the country, a Government advertisement scheme has actually had an effect on somebody.

I can't remember what any of the questions were like on the last Census, I just remember putting Jedi Knight down as religion. But if you believe the poster then your ticks in boxes will 'Help shape local transport'. A couple of minutes down the road I got the chance to take a photo of the current shape of local tranport. This is near showcase cinema in Bellevue. Imagine this level of nose to tail traffic for the next 2 miles or so til you get to Denton roundabout and you'll have some idea of what local transport in Greater Manchester looks like on most weekdays.

I built this! - (Hopper Pt 8)

2011-03-01T18:40:00.001Z

In my lastpost about the Hopper the bike was pretty much done and working, but I washaving trouble with the back wheel. Not only did it destroy a pair of Sturmeylock washers it was also had a tendency to try and pull the back wheel over toone side and cause an unhappy marriage of tyre with chainstay. After a lot oftrial and error me and my brother worked out a combination of:

Spreadingthe rear triangle a little
Dishing thewheel a bit more
FittingSRAM lock washers
Using a ½ chainlink
Removingthe sprocket spacer on the hub so that the chain line was straighter.

I think thislast point is the real deal breaker. TheHopper’s Bottom bracket axle is quite short, whilst the new SAB steelite hub isa bit wider than a standard AW hub. This meant when the bike was rebuilt thechainline was way off. Even with all the changes it still isn’t track-bike-ishlystraight, but its close enough to stop the wheel from wanting to cant off toone side when under a lot of torque. Which in turn led to having to overlytighten the axle nuts and end up crushing the lock washers. The half link inthe chain allowed the wheel to sit further back in the dropouts and spreadingthe rear triangle a bit gave yet more room for error.

A littleapprehensively, I rode it the 8 miles into work for the first time this morningand it all went smoothly. The X-FD & SAB brakes are fantastic – silent& powerful but very easy to modulate. The 46t-18t gearing on 20” bmx wheelsis just right for cruising along at 12+mph in 3^rd meaning the twolower gears are just right for setting off and going up the steep bits. I didn’tfeel like I was spinning out on the down hills either – it’s a cruising bikenot a racer. The rebuilt SAB hub ran smoothly and changed gear perfectly, so it’snew axle and a re-grease has done the job.

a round up of the components:
New: stem, saddle, X-FD hub, spokes, kickstand, cables, chain & tubes
Laying around the garage: handlebars, grips, pedals & sprocket
Secondhand off ebay: 90's SAB hub, BMX rims & tyres
Original: Frame + forks, chainring, cranks, mudgaurds, shifter & brake levers

Here’s afew shots of it finished (and more reliably working this time!). The Hammerite paint is looking good in a homemade kind of way. I've also bought a tin of gold enamel paint to do some pin-striping but cant make my mind up whether to do it or not yet.

The ride home was just as great, but the lumps and bumps of Manchester's roads will soon weedle out the weak areas. & I did subtitle this blog ' Making, Breaking and riding bikes in Manchester' so here's the bit that broke. The original mudgaurd hanger was probably the rustiest part on a very rusty bike, but also a fuss to replace. So I cleaned it up a little and painted it. However it got bent the other day and gave up on the way home. Luckily I had an emergency zip tie in my bag.

Cycling on a motorway

2011-02-27T11:13:00.002Z

On the way to the Wheeler's Brunch yesterday I went down an eerily quiet Ashton Old Rd. This was because the Mancunian Way is closed for the weekend. Big road closures tend to have this effect, they don't mean more traffic clogged up elsewhere they just mean less traffic is fed to the lesser connected roads. So on the way back I took a little detour and did my first, and possibly last bit of motorway cycling. It kind of felt like that scene in Ghostbusters 2 where they are walking down the abandoned subway lines. At any moment the totally empty road might suddenly fill with ghosts of R*nge Rovers blasting along honking their horns.

In this photo note how the beautiful February sunlight catches the hints of colour in the grey armco barrier, the grey tarmac and is further bolstered by the patternated staining on the grey concrete university tower. Its a shame that the sky chose to be so blue really. A good overcast grey would have really finished off the pallette.

Just in case you thought it might be odd to find some motorway going through a major city they have put some signs up to remind you. This is based on the same principle applied to cycle signage. Here they want cars to use the motorway, therefore = lots of signage to help you find it and use it. In most other places those people on bikes tend to get in the way a bit so avoiding helpful signage where possible will discourage them.

Some inconsiderate railway people have gone and put this bridge over the road. Next time they should be made to use some grey engineering bricks instead of those colourful reds ones or better yet make it out of concrete. And that stone detailing around the base of the arches is just showing off. Nobodies looking up there when they need to concentrate on which lane to be in for the junction ahead.

Cycling on the motorway is alot of fun, but I think I'll give it a miss on Monday when its open again.

*Update: Here's the plaque, made of concrete no less. This little spot beside Brook St is actually quite nice to travel through when the sun is out, hence the large number of pedestrians and a bike in the photo. Just a shame that most of the other similar spots underneath the Mancunian way are used for private parking. Thye do make good skatepark locations in other spots though.

Manchester Piccadilly on Fire...a bit

2011-02-25T08:56:00.000Z

I did wonder why every other vehicle on Ashton Old Road was a police van, turns out it's because Piccadilly is on fire. Well a bit on fire anyway.

Thankfully little hindrances like a tunnel network inferno and subsequent road closures aren't a problem for bikes and pedestrians. The motorists that had to do u-turns and anyone delayed on the trains aren't having such a good morning.

At least 5 fire engines there when I went past along with the mobile fire station lorry thing they have. Can Imagine a fire in a cramped old tunnel network is about as noxious & claustrophobic an environment you can get.

Triumph Trafficmaster (Twenty Stowaway)

2011-02-23T23:27:00.003Z

Back in October I got a couple of ~~Raleigh Stowaways~~ Triumph Trafficmasters. Neither were complete, but together they would make a single complete bike and another that could be stripped down and rebuilt in a new form. The seller I got them from has posted on the Raleigh Twenty forum in the past and has what can only be described as the greatest collection of folding bikes on the entire planet (or at least in England).

These bikes are alot of fun to ride. They're fast and manouverable but still comfortable (apart from those crap saddles). The main difference in feel is probably the wheelbase. It's a few centimeters short of the wheelbase on a large wheeled bike which makes a difference for the cruising stability - or Longitudinal stability which in a nutshell probably means something like 'Does it go around corners?' & 'how easy is it to hold a straight line?'.

Oh yes and in typical Raliegh 3 speed fashion the gearing is too high, but really its based on the notion that if you need a lower gear to get up that hill then you should get off and push because then the gearing will be right for going fast down the otherside.

Both frames are a little scratched, but one of them is a bit more rusty than the other. So the least rusty bike got to live and recieved the missing bits it needed off the other bike, whilst the other poor bike found out that it could be reduced to the contents of a cardboard box ready for rebuilding. The plan so far is a hub geared/hub braked collapsible tourer with (if I can get some cheap) a set of butterfly bars.

Surviving original bike got to play out in the sun

Poor rusty bike didn't even fit in his temparary cardboard home

While we're at it here's a romatic shot of my brothers genuine Raleigh Stowaway with all of it's ever so slightly better features than mine, such as chromed mudgaurds and sheathed brake levers....oh and a mickey mouse bell.

Why bike registration is a bad idea....

2011-02-22T09:30:00.003Z

......because some poor sod will end up walking out of Halfrauds with a numberplate like this on the back of his bike.

If the owner of this micra is anything to go by, then the embarassment of having a numberplate like this will be so depressing that you will take to the drink and end up with little comprehension of what colour the lights are or how they operate and have a total indecision of which lane to be in every 30 yards.

So there you have it folks. Bicycle registration would not only be waste of everyones time, but will cause drink-pedalling & depression. And my message to anyone who thinks it's a good idea....just think....when you buy your first born a shiny new bike for christmas - whats the wife going to say when her little darling exitedly rips open the wrapping paper and says 'mummy, what's CUM mean?'.

Ok, thats enough vulgarity, back to bike building in the next post!.

Visual & Mental Reasoning Test

2011-02-18T08:45:00.003Z

The test is to be completed by Mr. or Mrs. Average.

Existing cyclists or people who ride bikes please return to your respective holding pens and await the results. (or make yourself useful and go find a friend to take the test)

Dear Mr . or Mrs. Average you have 5 minutes to examine the attached imagery and complete the test.

Test begins.

Please examine the image above & take in the following scenario:

It is a pleasant February evening
Visibility is good & traffic is relatively light.
The image shows an AC 100/4 Terex Demag - 4-axle mobile crane, weighing in excess of 30 tonnes & travelling at approx. 20mph
The vehicle in question is being driven very professionally & will take great care when overtaking cyclists
This is the most direct route available to your destination consisting of a mixture of 40mph and 30mph roads.

The question:
If at any point in the future you decide you would like to take up cycling to work (or even the shops, a local restuarant or do the school run) - Would you:

A: Prefer continuous Dutch style segregated infrastructure on all A-roads so that your interaction with vehicles such as this is thoroughly minimised.

Or

B: Prefer to cycle 'vehiculary' amongst traffic bearing in mind that you are statistically very safe indeed & of course the driver of this vehicle is exceptionally mindful of your presence.

Test ends. Pens down. Hand in your papers in the comments section below.

Class dismissed.

3rd wheel

2011-02-16T13:29:00.000Z

Mr.C of Manchester Cycling identified my rather obvious weakness for drum brakes recently and promptly flogged me a rather well built 451 wheel with one of Sturmey's finest in the middle. I did such an excellent job of bungeeing it to the rack (If I do say so myself) that on the way home I had to double check it was still there for fear that the lack of rattling meant it had fallen off.

Later in the evening as I wheel spun my way across a sodden field in Denton (everywhere is so utterly sodden at the moment!) I came across Fantastic Mr.Fox just sitting there doing much about nothing. So I took his picture:

A load of old cobbles... & tarmac

2011-02-15T14:54:00.001Z

The state of Britain's roads is an unending source of material for journalists and complaining in general, especially after two pretty harsh winters but putting aside the apparently woeful ability of most councils to keep up with their maintenance duties there is another reason why our roads can suffer so much.

A significant number of our roads are the same roads and routes that have existed for centuries. They were never intended to carry the enormous capacity and shear weight of 21st century motor traffic and beneath them are the same cobble setts laid down for horses and carts or simply so that you had something solid to walk on instead of a muddy track.

I'm not a historian & certainly don't know much about when or how our roads and footways were paved. But I do know that from the seat of my bike I get to actually see the roads....and the potholes, undulations, cracks & collapsed drains. Something thats not possible from inside my car or on the bus. It becomes obvious that the massive pothole there and the sunken drain here isn't there because the council is failing abysmally at it's duties. (ok some might be). It's there because n+100 HGV's a day & n+150 Doubledecker buses and god-knows how many vans and cars are pummelling and tearing across a surface that simply can't cope with it.

The solution to potholes isnt more blobs of half-arsed tarmac or bigger council maintenance budgets. It's less heavy volumes of traffic in Town's and Cities.

Next time you're out and about have a look at the road you're using and you might be suprised just how thin and hastily tarmaced alot of our roads are. Peaking out underneath is the real bit of road, the bit built long before the motorcar.

A better photo than these would have been from around 10 years ago when I remember Ashton Rd in Newton, Hyde was resurfaced. I was amazed at the time to see about a mile of asphalt get steadily skimmed off each day to reveal an entire road of hand-layed setts. Before then it had never even occured to me that the original pavings were still beneath our 'modern' highways.

Nexus 8 - Laying back (Part 9)

2011-02-11T13:12:00.002Z

Forenote: If you are a framebuilder, or frame connoisseur of somesort - look away now!.

I originally bought an extra long adjustable stem off ebay for fitting to the Hopper. But whilst it was sitting around waiting I thought I'd see what it would be like on the Nexus. The result was a bit of fun, but not really rideable on a daily basis on busy roads. The main problem being that the higher handlebars aren't compatible with the seat tube angle. It creates a strange kind of feeling where you feel like you are pedalling behind yourself.

The solution (as Mr.C pointed out would be the case) is a slacker seat tube angle. i.e to have the saddle further back from the pedals. But thats not going to happen without starting over again with a vintage frame, or just buying a Dutch bike of some sort. The other option is a layback seat post.

So £8 found it's way to an ebay seller and and I was the proud owner of a 'new old stock' 25.4mm layback seatpost to continue my Frankenbike Experiment.

The original seat tube angle on the frame is approximately 75.5 degrees. With the layback post the effective seat tube angle goes down to 70 and in the process makes the much taller handlebars viable. The head tube angle was already around 70 degrees, so effectively the two angles are now parallel

This was originally just an experiment to see how it turned out, but it's so much nicer to ride that I knew I'd be keeping it setup like this after the first day's riding.

I'm under no illusions that this equates to the geometry of a classic Dutch bike, but it gives a nice mixture of the angles - which seems to work for giving that relaxed riding position but respecting the crappy vehicular context in which it's going to get ridden most days of the week.

Here's a little before and after animation, then a couple of random pics to illustrate seat angles because it's difficult to see what's going on without seeing the angles measured.

This is an aluminium Gazelle Touche, which measures at the same 70/70 that my bike is now roughly equivalent to.

Apologies to Amsterdammers for stealing & graffitiing their pictures. I'll make up for it one day by buying a bike of you.

The middle finger from Metrolink

2011-02-07T09:50:00.006Z

This is what Metrolink think of cycle infrastructure.

The polite 'conversation' with the ~~bloke~~ prat on the right went roughly like this:

Me: 'Can I cycle up there?' ...(sarcasm went undetected, he thought I was genuinely asking)

Prat: 'eh?, erm...'

Me: 'How am I supposed to ride up there?'

Prat: 'Oh, erm....just go up the road' (points at the one way road with traffic coming down it)

Me: 'Oh, thanks Einstein, great advice....'

Prat & Prat: .....both walk off giggling.

This is the contraflow lane featured here on Mad cycle lanes of Manchester. It might have the most convoluted method of access ever, but as a means to get up to Piccadilly Gardens in the morning it's very useful. Not so much today though.

The Metrolink is owned by GMPTE, whose HQ is the building in the background to the left of the bridge (No.2 Piccadilly Place). However the system is operated under license by Stagecoach. So it's anyones guess who these two actually work for.

Sigh.....anyway, time for a cup of tea.

**

Edit for the folks at Skyscrapercity enjoying this post. When I took the photo I didn't realise the guy's leg had partially blocked the number plate (annoying). From looking at my car check & consulting my resident Ford Transit expert we think this might be MV58 XPR.(although I may have just incriminated some poor unsuspecting plumber from crumpsall). Oh & rudenames have been substituted for 'Prat' because I wouldn't want anyone thinking something silly like me just trying to get to work in the morning makes me a 'Militant cyclist'.

On her Majesty's Service? ....that'll be 9.6p per mile

2011-02-03T09:35:00.000Z

If you happen to be lucky enough (or unlucky) to be called up for Jury service then you'll be pleased to know that as a person travelling by bicycle her Majesty's Courts Service have arrived at a figure of 9.6p per mile as compensation for your journey to and from the court. God knows how they come up with these figures, but I suppose it was a bit of a suprise to me to even see it included. (it's not me doing Jury service by they way, it's someone else at my work).

Strangely you get the exact same mileage for a motorcycle as you do for a car, which seems odd to me as a motorbike is much cheaper to run than a car. So on that basis, why is the bicycle mileage less than a third?.

Exemplar facilities on Ashton Old Rd

2011-02-01T09:53:00.000Z

A picture says a thousand words?...

10 points if you can guess what I did next....

Nexus 8 DIY Steering Stabiliser (Part 8)

2011-01-31T10:34:00.004Z

Steering Stabilisers are available from Hebie or come fitted to some Dutch & other utility bikes. They serve two purposes mainly. First they stop the front wheel from flopping to one side when the bike is parked on it's kickstand. Second they provide a slight dampening to the steering when the bike is in motion, which in theory makes it easier to hold a straight line & cruise for long distances.

I can't remember when the idea first came to my attention, but I liked the look of them and they seemed like something that should be fairly easy to bodge together a DIY version to see what happens. A bit of research turned up the various designs - some shown below. The general design is a spring suspended in tension between the back of the forks and a fixing of somekind on the downtube. All easy enough. The trickier part would be making the spring adjustable, but that could wait until I'd had it fitted and tested for a while.

The spring I used came from an old angle-poise lamp. It's quite a strong one, certainly stronger than the same springs on a newer lamp I have from Ikea. Once fitted it's obvious that the springs needed for this have to be quite powerful springs if they are to take the weight of the front wheel.

I made a small bracket from a piece of plate steel (powder coated orange helpfully) and bent it to a right angle. The idea being that this would fix behind the nut on my mudgaurd mount and provide a fixing point for one end of the spring.

For the time being I just held the other end of the spring onto the downtube with a cable tie.

It's pretty effective at keeping the front wheel from flopping to the side when parked and you can feel a difference when moving. Trouble is this was all about 3 months ago and much the same as with the chainglider, I've gotten so used to it just being there that I don't notice it doing it's job anymore. So it's still in it's cable-tied half made state :) in fact I'm not sure if I'll even bother finishing it because it does the job just fine as it is.

On a side note, whilst looking into steering stabilisers I came across 'flickstands' which are purely for keeping the wheel from flopping and look like they are more suited to sportier bikes without mudgaurds.

I'm afraid I saved these examples so long ago that I've no idea where I got them from so can't credit them. I do know the top right stabiliser is the Hebie retrofit version that's available from SJS or Velorution for about £15.

Edit: The bottom left seems to be a Hebie as well - from Practical cycles.

Canal ride home from Wheeler's Brunch

2011-01-30T14:40:00.001Z

After having a great time at the Wheeler's Brunch organised by LC of NaturallyCycling Manchester I decided to ride back up the Canals to get back to Hyde. It's a bit more hard work in this direction as the locks are all uphill so it's easier to jump off and push on some of the cobbled sections especially on the 20" wheels of a Triumph Twenty.

Someone has done a bit of work to the towpath around Dukinfield. Last week this stretch had got some very big potholes, which have now been filled with a gravel sand mix. It's better than nothing of course, but little more than a short term fix.

A little further a tree has fallen and blocked the canal completely. Doesn't look like it will be the easiest task to remove.

Hopper build (pt 7)

2011-01-27T09:04:00.002Z

It's been a pretty long time since my last post about the Hopper so here's an update.

All the various parts of bottom bracket, headset and cranks got a good soaking in turps and a rub with some wire wool.

The forks, frame and mudgaurds got sanded down with a combination of a cupbrush on an angle grinder and a dremel for the fiddly bits. No sand papering because thats boring. Then all the bits were given a good wipe down with meths to clear off any dirt as best as I could without actually putting much effort in :-).

In the past I've repainted a bike frame by going through the entire rigmoral of sanding it down, cleaning it up, applying undercoats, colour coats and then layer upon layer of laquer and you know what?....it's a complete waste of time and frankly the most boring process imaginable, plus the results are just not worth the effort to me. So this time I decided to Keep It Simple Stupid and bought a tin of good ol'Hammerite.

Then the entire lot was hung on a wire from the garage ceiling and given a liberal coating of dark green Hammerite. One thick coat is all it needs (ish) directly onto the bare metal, giving a tough shiny finish when you come back the next day which means it takes approximately 1 million less man-hours than spray painting and looks better in the end as well.

After that it was just a case of putting all the bits together, doing a bit of fiddling to get the chain tension right and the gears changing nicely then go for a test ride. (this is near the court in Ashton, just past a big gyratory of mortal peril)

The chain gaurd went on later (when I'd found it). The test ride exposed the rear mudgaurd as being rattly as hell, so the metal hanger for it got a piece of inner tube glued to the underside of it - which worked a treat.

Here it is in all its finished glory :-) its alot of fun to ride and actually has a very relaxed comfortable geometry. The drum brakes are amazing in the 20" wheels and just confirm to me that every bike I own from now on should have internal hub brakes where possible.

Unfortunately its out of action again now until I get round to replacing the lock washers for the rear hub. The ones I had weren't up to the task and have crumbled to pieces under presumably the torque of the drum brake and me standing on the pedals to test it out. Oops....

Sunday canal ride

2011-01-25T13:24:00.005Z

On Sunday me & my brother went for a trip round the Peak Forest Canal, Ashton Canal, Bridgewater Canal then a nip down Seymour Grove in Firswood (?) to get to the Fallowfield Loop. We took the mountain bikes, this wasn't really necessary but it's fun to bounce around on the suspension just for the day.

The canal system has never had a great reputation, but parts of it, especially the Peak Forest canal in Hyde are looking very neglected compared to the last time I explored a few years ago. The ruts are bigger, the litter is worse and the boggy bits are boggier. British Waterways is to be changed into a Charitable Trust as part of the quango axing, which is apparently a good thing as it will give them more access to grants and funds, so hopefully some of that (probably pitiful) dosh can make its way towards Tamesides canal system and upgrade the paths to the quality found closer to the city centre.

If you put the parts of dereliction aside, the canal system is a fantastic resource that goes totally unappreciated in a country thats prepared to spend £3.1m on making congested motorways more dangerous for instance. It's the fastest route to get from Hyde to Ashton for example and involves no hills at all. It's the same on the otherside of Manchester where to get from the city centre to Trafford park would involve a steady climb whereas the Bridgewater canal is a flat, unhindered & quiet route to the same destination. And even on a nippy Janurary afternoon a ride around the canals makes for a really pleasant day out, it's even nicer on a summers day when the sun's out.

Anyway, enough waffling. Here's some photos of the Peak Forest canal to get to Portland Basin in Ashton. (By the way I've taken some of the photos facing forwards, some back the way we've come from.... just in case you think the towpath is switching sides all the time!)

This spot is in a noticeably bad state, I've no idea how long its been like this but eventually the edging stones will collapse completely into the canal and become a much bigger problem to fix than if it had been seen to now. (near the Snipe retail park). There are a few other spots similar, but this is the biggest. The towpath has been collapsed in someway near Asda in Ashton for a long time, but I haven't been over there for about 10 years so haven't seen the state of it myself.

You then get to the Motorway bridge, which is the darkest and gloomiest part of the journey. The main problem here is the lighting is insufficient for any time of day & most of the bulbs have gone now anyway.

Just past here you get to the only 'posh' bit of the journey with a range of expensive looking canalside homes. The surface on this stretch is pretty good but I'm not a fan of this sandy gravel surface (whatever its proper name is). It's seen as being more 'countryside' and natural, when in reality canals are anything but natural and it would be a benefit to everyone if these towpaths were resurfaced with the wide tarmac like surface that can be found further on as you get towards the Sportscity.

The search for Alien life continues in Droylsden.....

A little further on you start to find the good old British tradition of 'Cyclist Dismount' signs. At least these ones are signed with British Waterways so you know who to blame for wasting money. From this point on there are quite a few shoulder gates, but there is no need to use any of them as some are off to the side for no reason and at others the gate next to it is permanently open.

From here onwards the surface is good and a decent uniform width. This is all part of when the Commonwealth games was held in Manchester and the whole stretch got a thorough refurb.

This bike rack caught my eye because it's a shining example of form over function. It's a fantastic piece of manufacturing and looks good, but it's quite obviously a useless piece of crap for locking bicycles to (the bent rusty front wheel illustrates this nicely!). Plus it's hidden out the way down the side of the building instead of outside the entrance & visible.....sigh.

This spot is obviously the favourite nicked bike dumping area. We counted at least 7 bikes and 2 shopping trolleys amongst other stuff.

Near Great Ancoats now and you start to find some big apartment buildings. The new metro line goes right past here as well and there is a fair bit of ground works going on. You can stay on the towpath here and come off somewhere near the BDP Architects building on Ducie St, but we chose to come off and zip down the roads to get under Picadilly train station and over to Canal Street where you can rejoin the towpath.

Canal St is one of nicest parts of the city centre. Infact such a good job has been done of creating a pleasant, relaxed, traffic free daytime environment on Canal St that I propose British Waterways should join forces with the LGF and embark on a pioneering revival of the Northwest's waterways.

Once you are back onto the towpath you are heading towards Castlefield with it's city centre living atmosphere, bridges, viaducts, bars & restaurants and.......hmmm what is it that makes this place so nice?...no cars blasting around.

Once you are outside of Castlefield the towpath reverts back to the thin sticky sand-gravel stuff.

Our journey on the canals ended at Throstle Nest Bridge where we used the excellent segregated facility (Pavement) to partially negotiate the Mega roundabout of death and begin to head towards the Fallowfield Loop.

On the Loop we met this little fella who I saw again the next morning, but this time at the complete other end of the Loop. So there you have it, the canals are good but the Loop is so good that stray kittens think its worth making Home. That's a seal of approval to be proud of :-)

Tesco Stockport cycle trolley shed

2011-01-21T20:03:00.000Z

As part of the Megasizedhellholewehaveeverthingontheplanetunderoneroof Tesco development in Stockport they were of course obliged to provide a certain amount of cycle parking. This will have been proportional in some way to the size of the development*. Which is why Tesco Stockport has got the biggest cycle parking shelter in the whole ~~world~~ area.

Unfortunately because of the nature of MEGA stores like this and the surrounding MEGA lane roads and MEGA roundabouts its pretty unlikely that anyone will fancy popping to the shops on their bike. Which is why this nice big shelter with its nice big sheffield stands is nothing more than an employee smoking shelter and a shopping trolley dumping spot. Shame really, because it's better than what you might find in much more deserving spots.

At least part of the development meant building this segregated two-way cycle path which leads to a section of shared pavement (sigh) and allows access to NCN62 across Tiviot Way.

If the photos look a bit weird, that's because I seem to have had the camera set to the 'what's it like to have a visual impairment mode?'.

Another supersized retail park of somesort is being built opposite this Tesco on the site above the motorway, next to the allotments. Can't wait to see it's cycle parking.

Now if every A & B road in Stockport and Greater Manchester had Dutch style continuous cycle infrastructure this sort of cycle parking might well be packed with bikes......here's hoping we can find out if that's true in the future.

*naughtily built 20% larger than the planning permission if I remember correctly.Quietly forgotten about by now I would expect.

Manchester Velodrome: Taster Session

2011-01-17T20:20:00.002Z

A couple of weeks ago I went on an hour long taster session at Manchester Velodrome. The omens were good as I cycled straight there from work, setting off at the same time as everyone else (all going by car) and arrived a good 10 minutes before anyone else. I rode up Ashton Old Rd then up the partially segregated lanes on Alan Turing Way. When you get to the point that you need to turn right off Alan Turing Way the traffic lights have a cyclist only phase to allow you to pootle across the massive expanse of tarmac safely. It's a shame every mega junction doesn't have this style of setup!.

There is a good number of Sheffield stands up the steps out the front, but they are on thier own,in the dark and pretty unappealling. Luckily as part of the new work being done (building an indoor BMX track nextdoor) they have installed a new sheltered cycle rack directly outside reception. It was still fenced off though - solution?....move the fence and use it anyway. Note my cunning use of a Tesco bag which I put on to protect my saddle from the rain......then I realised the shelter has a roof......

Once inside I realised that if you are willing to carry your bike down a short flight of stairs then it was ok to take your bike indoors with you, as a couple of other people had done in the session that was just finishing.

The taster session itself was brilliant. Most in our group got the hang of cycling up on the banking even if there was some apprehension beforehand. It was a bit of a free for all really, with people cycling round at all speeds and over & undertaking on both sides. I guess the idea being to let you have a feel of what it's like to cycle a fixed wheel on a track rather than learn all the rules and etiquettes.

A few random impressions:

Listen to the man in yellow and do what he says
The blue concrete is slippy as hell in daft ~~clown~~ road shoes.
Don't stop pedalling
Power through the bends
I found it worked best for me if I looked at the exit of the corner
Hold the bars gently
Shoulder checks before doing anything.
Pootling around daily on your slow utility bike is ideal preparation
Say thanks to the man in yellow afterwards.

Even if you've got no intention to become a track cycling aficionado and have never been above 15mph on your bike I'd still recommend having a go at a taster session just for the experience. Bonus points are awarded if you ride your bike to get there :-)

When we had finished there was quite a big group of riders waiting to get on the track so I took a couple of blurry snaps of them doing things properly before heading off.

The Dutch win again - this time road building

2011-01-13T09:08:00.000Z

The Dutch company is called Vanku. More details & photos here.

Almost everything you see online from The Netherlands is fascinating but depressing at the same time!, Why can't we do this?

In contrast here is a recent photo of road maintenance in Manchester ;-)

The gas men are here

2011-01-12T09:20:00.001Z

Gas works on Peter Street this week (and probably for many many weeks further) which means we get the pleasures of signs like this slapped in the middle of the cycle lane yesterday.

Fortunately it makes almost sod all difference to the everyday experience of this cycle lane because without fail there will always-always be a white van man parked up outside the newsagents in Peter house.

Oh look!....here's todays white van man. DG07 XMZ

On the flip side of things, its not just cycle lanes the gas workers have screwed up this morning. The huge jam of cars in the photo is because the temporary lights up ahead are stuck on red in all directions (do temporary lights have any other setting?). Oh well, at least on a bike it's almost impossible to be made late for work by traffic like this :-)

UPDATE: The sign has now been move forward a bit and put on the pavement. Hopefully this was done by the gas workers to correct their error and not a pissed off member of the public, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Brooklyn Vs Denton

2011-01-02T12:02:00.000Z

In an entirely uneven comparison I present you with Denton's finest piece of cycling infrastructure - Denton roundabout bridge.

It's features include:

A conflicting mixture of 'No Cycling' signs on one side and shared path signs on the other.
It's only supposed to be used heading west, whilst heading East you must either illegally use the pedestrian crossing or take your chances with the RLJ lorries (because for some reason the equivalent cycle route was never completed and is now blocked off with fencing)
Many people, unsuprisingly, forego the last option and simply use the bridge in the opposite direction - which means having to use the pavement down the side of a motorway slipway for a short stretch.
Bizarrely in the photo below the sign warns to 'Look left', even though technically all cycles should be coming from the right. So this signs hints that the bridge is actually allowed to be used in both directions? even though that wouldn't legally be possible.
Best of all. This schizophrenic oddity represents the single best piece of infrastructure available to cyclists heading into Manchester on Hyde Road - which only goes to show how abysmal things really are.

Meanwhile in Brooklyn they are busy creating this:
The Taming and Reclaiming of Prospect Park West from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Last snow ride (for now)

2010-12-28T16:24:00.000Z

I went for a dogwalk / bike ride on Boxing day which turned out to be the last day of snow for now, it's all melted away completely with today's rain. Since I knew I'd be getting a lift somewhere else later on I took the Brompton. It's a very capable bike in the snow, mainly because it's very easy to put a foot down whenever needed and weighs so little, but you do have to watch out for the chain tensioner freezing up and skipping occasionally.

When it comes to the roads I'm kind of glad the snow is gone now, but on the flipside the clean compacted snow made all the paths around the river Tame and the canals very rideable. Whereas now that its melted these paths will be back to the unrideable filthy, muddy, gravel mess they were before. (ok - rideable if you want to get filthy on a mountain bike, but not rideable if you're visiting friends/family/shops/work i.e. anything practical and everyday).

Secret Santa

2010-12-23T09:57:00.000Z

:-D

"You must be mad!"

2010-12-20T10:15:00.004Z

"You must be mad!" is what a guy said to me on a side street in Denton this morning as I cycled past.

"I could say the same!" I replied, whilst he carried on scraping the ice from his car.

Was a lovely ride in this morning. My outdoor thermometer said -9.5 when I set off, but I didn't feel the need for studded tyres at any point. I find slush is usually the main enemy in this weather but the colder temp meant slush wasn't forming.

Long johns, balaclava, big thick boots, leather gloves and you're good to go.

Here's a panda video from the Fallowfield Loop, apart from a couple of dog walkers I had it all to myself.

p.s. anyone know why they are called panda-shots?, I keep reading it, but don't know where the name comes from.

A real kid's bicycle

2010-12-16T10:09:00.001Z

This is my nephew's new bike courtesy of the wonderful world of ebay!. As you can see it comes from an era when children's bike were built as miniature versions of their parents utilitarian bikes with full mudgaurds, chaingaurd, and integral rack. But where they ever like that in this country?, I don't know. All I remember is BMX's grifters, choppers, budgies etc - all silly shapes and sizes, then when your legs were longer you would get an equally unfit for purpose mountain bike.

This bike is italian though, built by Bottecchia who are more famous for building racing bikes. To what extent they dabbled in making kids folding bikes I don't know, but we are glad they did because this little bike is light years ahead of the crap you'll find in your local Halfords today and its from the 1970's.

Maybe one day we'll see enough of a resurgance in cycling in this country for companies like Pashley to begin making proper childrens bikes that will last rather than chinese tat that finds itself in the tip once its one and only owner has out-grown it. (go to the tip any weekend and you'll see what I mean, the scrap metals bin is always full of kids bikes!)

Here it is next to my Nexus to show the size comparison. The seatpost is very long, so it can grown with the child. Oh yes, and it's lots of fun to ride it as an adult too ;-)

So my recommendation for anyone out there looking for a kids bike is to keep an eye on ebay rather buying a chinese plastic monster straight away, there are some really nice handmade, all-steel kids bikes come up and go for not much money at all.

The nearest I can see from a little googling to find a modern version are Puky Bicycles.

(photos are from a while ago, hence the lack of snow, frost & generally cold nastiness)

Poundshop Bargains

2010-12-10T13:28:00.000Z

I'm sad enough to have noticed that the poundshops in Manchester city centre (at least the two in the Arndale) seem to have this year reached a bit of a threshold. They now stock more cycling stuff than car stuff and have started to stock some pretty decent useable items too.

For instance three things I've recently bought are a puncture repair kit, a kick-stand and a set of rack straps. The repair kit comes with alot more stuff than a normal one - the metal tyre levers being the best bit, one of the kick-stands will go on the Hopper and the straps fit perfectly on the Nexus rack and look alot neater than the thick old bungees I was using before.

A tiny victory for cycling I know, but not that long ago you would have struggled to find anything to do with cycling let alone a whole range of stuff. Chose wisely though, most of what they sell is still crap! and what they have changes all the time.

Segregation over Integration

2010-12-08T21:23:00.002Z

There hasbeen a lot of debate about segregation recently. Notably on:

http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-lcc-pro-cycle-lanes-or-not.html

http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/11/ctc-rep-to-talk-cycle-paths-and.html

http://quickrelease.tv/?p=1351

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/reality-vs-myth-dangers-of-dutch-cycle.html

http://42bikes.warnock.me.uk/2010/11/24/am-i-for-integration-or-segregation-for-bikes/

http://karlmccracken.sweat365.com/2010/11/12/segregation-im-with-the-pfj/

With all this ongoing I realisedI’m not entirely sure what my own position is on the subject. I’d reckon mostcyclists don’t know either. Dave Warnock’s post is along these lines – i.e.trying to find which sides of each argument suits my own position and thinking.I’d think that most cyclists would broadly agree with Dave’s findings, as I do,especially the point that waiting for segregation will mean I miss out on thebenefits cycling can offer me today. But I do want every new piece of cyclefacility to be aimed at reducing my interaction with motorised traffic andthink segregation is the only way to go with cycling policy as long as its madeclear that its decent, properly designed, continuous segregation that isprovided. The obvious problem with that is that it would mean relocating roadspace from motorists to cyclists & walkers.

One thingthat is never mentioned is thatintegrationists are unbelievably outnumbered. Every single potential rider outthere, who doesn’t ride because they fear the road can be considered to be asegregationist. If the UK implemented the facilities and rules that theNetherlands has (or even followed the route that places such as New York are following)then masses of these potential riders would begin to cycle. Why?, because the ratiobetween cost and perceived safety would be reversed. It’s nothing to do withsustainability and CO2, but entirely to do with providing Joe Bloggs and hisfamily with an alternative way to get from A to B without fear. As soon as itmakes more financial sense for the fearful to cycle instead of drive - theywill.

Take a lookat the Dutch. Dutch cycling policy isn’t about ecofluff and saving the planet.It’s a fiscal policy pure and simple. It makes financial & social sense tofree your populace to be as mobile and time efficient as possible, whilst keepingthem all healthy, fit, happy and richer.

Vehicularcycling is a reaction not a solution. I’m a vehicular cyclist, so is everyother cyclist in the UK. Not through choice, but through situation. I have noother choice but to ride in heavy traffic and mix it with HGV’s, buses and 4x4'son a daily basis. The only alternative would be to get on a train, bus or carand immediately see my income eaten up by costs and my quality of life declineas I not only have less money but I waste time waiting for unpleasant buses that nevercome, packed trains that get cancelled or sit in traffic getting fat.

Segregationas the Dutch have done is a solution not a reaction. It was done ‘in reaction’to the influx of the motor car, but not as a reactionary measure to survive asvehicular cycling is. The Dutch implemented segregation to solve the problemcreated by motor cars and provide normal people with a way to get about withoutfear or unfair costs or being killed at every junction.

Currentlyfor 99% of the UK population the perceived dangers presented by cycling soheavily outweigh any of the advantages that even popping to the shops on a bikeis unthinkable, let alone doing their daily commute on a bicycle. None of thosepeople enjoy paying out for a train ticket that rises in price each year whilstthe service declines. None of them enjoy paying to sit on an uncomfortable noisy bus.Nobody enjoys burning money through the exhaust whilst sitting in start stoptraffic for an hour each way every day. If these people had an alternative thatwould cost them nothing in fares or fuel they would take it. The only way toprovide that alternative is with proper segregated cycle facilities on each andevery major road in the country along whilst eliminating rat runs and makingroutes more permeable.

It’sunderstandable why some cyclists in the UK are against segregation. They seesegregated paths as being a white line on an existing pavement, poorly droppedkerbs, no priority over side roads and so on. And rightly so, because this iswhat so many of the segregated ‘facilities’ are like in the UK. Here’s just oneexample from Manchester. There are thousands more. (having trouble seeing it?, I'll give you a clue, it runs down the righthand side of the Bull's Head Pub) Or how about this fine example from Great Ancoats

View Larger Map

This isshit. And does not, never would or never will get used by cyclists because notonly it is more dangerous than being on the road itself, it’s also more inconvenientand unpleasant to ride on. The fear for existing cyclists that opposesegregation is that facilities like this will be built if people shout forsegregation. It’s a genuine fear and even people who dream of having Dutchstyle facilities (me!) know that this is Britain and the cynicism is wellfounded.

Segregationisn’t about facilities like this, it’s about a fundamental shift in the way ourtowns and cities are treated by government and councils towards the Dutchmethod. I don’t believe it will happen, but I’m free to wish forit.

Properlydone segregation isn’t about benefitting us existing cyclists, it’s about creatingthe only environment in which the other 99% of the population will feel safe tocycle. The trouble for existing cyclists like myself is that whilst the Dutchhave spent 40 years building the most comprehensive cycle infrastructure on theplanet, the UK has spent 40 years going in the opposite direction. We aren’tjust 40 years behind the Dutch we are 80 years behind them and no living UKcyclist has got that much time to wait for segregation. Doing ‘A Hembrow’looks increasingly attractive. In the meantime we can only try to do our bestto improve the situation for cycling in Britain. For me that means suggestingsegregated facilities at every opportunity and making it clear that they shouldbe a certain kind of segregated infrastructure (not the shit kind).

This is why it's great to see Jim at the LoFidelityBicycleClub begin to setup a Cycling Embassy of Great Britain. I still believe the UK is much too far down the slippery slope, but at least this project might provide a focal point for those who don't see their own position represented by groups such as the CTC/LCC.

Lock-Fail

2010-12-07T11:12:00.000Z

Found this photo from a while ago, it's up somewhere near Piccadilly Gardens
Spot the problem.... :)

The Only Winter Cycling Accessory you need...

2010-12-04T10:58:00.002Z

(along with hat, gloves, scarf, coat, double socks, boots)

is....

.....Lofthouse's Fisherman's Friend!

It's no coincidence that the Dutch spend a lot of time outdoors (some of it cycling) and they have a serious appetite for liquorice (that's liquorice 'drop' not that squidgy crap).

Your morning commute will go alot easier with a Fisherman's Friend warming your noggin.

Maybe you tried these as a kid and thought they were vile, well our tastes mature over the years and I bet you'll like them now. Try you first one when your are stood outside in the cold.

Obligatory snow ride post!

2010-12-03T09:53:00.002Z

I took an extremely roundabout route to the poundshop yesterday, taking in some of the Fallowfield Loop, Debdale Park and then exploring up King's Road which is a rough track which cuts through the Fairfield & Denton Golf clubs.

The compacted snow of the Loop is lovely to ride on, plenty of grip, just needs a little more concentration than normal.

Looking back up the Loop towards Reddish

The ride gave me chance to test a Sachs drum braked front wheel I got off ebay. A bit squeaky til it was bedded back in (I don't think it's been used for a while) but nice and powerful feeling.

Drum brakes need to be used with caliper style brake levers not V-brake levers* so I fitted an old Sturmey Archer lever.

I stopped at one of the bridges in Gorton and noticed a lad on his BMX contending with a double Whitevanman overtake. Good job it's a 20mph zone eh!?, shame that most 20 zones are still open to through traffic- i.e rat runs.

The Loop connects up nicely with Debdale Park and the reservoirs
This is King's Road (although it looks the same as anywhere else in the snow!). It connects Hyde road with Audenshaw and the only thing stopping it from being a busy road full of traffic is the terrible surface. I'm guessing it is unadopted, possibly owned by the golf club and its kept intentionally rough to to keep it empty. The surface is much smoother with a layer of compacted snow on top.

*See the comments - I may or may not be talking sillystuff - do whichever works for you!.

Knog-esque

2010-12-01T12:07:00.000Z

I've got to admit when I looked at the little rubber knog lights in the past I wasn't too impressed, they were neither bright nor cheap and I just didn't see the use in them other than gimmickry. But this week I was spending £25 in Clas Ohlson and they have a christmas offer on where you get £5 off if you spend £30. So I thought I may as well see what the Clas Ohlson version of Knogs are like since they would only be costing me 99p. (£5.99 full price)

Well they are great!, really bright, simple and effective. They won't light your path on the Fallowfield Loop, but that's not what they are for. They are however, a piece of cake to strap on to the bike in all kinds of locations and just as easy to swap between bikes and that's the real beauty of them.

These ones are not the one piece rubber stuff that real knogs are, but the transparent plastic does mean the entire unit lights up and not just the led at the front, so there is a little bit of visibility to the side as well.

Pretty good for ~~£5.99~~ 99p.

Impressions from Tameside Cycle Forum

2010-11-30T13:16:00.006Z

I can’t bearsed trying to type up a full account of last night’s cycle forum, so here’sa few bullet points for anyone out there who has never been to their localcycle forum or wonders what might go on in others. (this is the first I’ve everbeen to)

Sorry ifthey all seem negative!. Just my personal impressions, I'm sure others had a variety of takes on the same.

First therewas a presentation by Richard Dolphin from Greater Manchester Urban TrafficControl which was mainly about the different types of traffic light systems andcrossings that are used across the country and Manchester. Richard was a really nice blokeand a regular cyclist too. Impressions from his presentation were:

Thatalthough all the systems are very sophisticated (a lot more sophisticated thanI had thought) all that sophistication is good for nothing when there aresimply too many cars on the roads.
How much isspent on fancy systems like SCOOT whenproviding a proper cycle network would achieve the same goals more effectively?.
Richard swearsblind that the induction loops that are buried in the road to detect thepresence of traffic DO detect all types of bicycle – shame that that has noresemblance to reality! They are useless unless you are on four wheels.
It appears to be unthinkableto have a press button that immediately stops all traffic to allow a cyclist tosafely proceed in any direction on their own phase. (It’s all detection loopsand radar cameras that don’t work and only wait until all the car phases havefinished anyway).
All thesefancy systems linked into a huge network must be horrifically expensive but can’tsolve the simple problem of there being too many cars.
All thetraffic light systems are part of a huge integrated network. it seems the country is too fardown that path to think about approaching traffic management in any other way.
Ridiculoustoucan crossing setups on massive junctions (where a cyclist is expected to useabout 6 separate crossings to turn right etc) are only there for mums and kids.It’s presumed ‘real’ cyclists will pretend to be a car and use the junction asif they are motorised traffic.
There is nocomprehension that certain junctions/roads (i.e as in the last point) have a v.low cyclist count becausethey are utterly terrifying and therefore nobody on two wheels dares go nearthem.
Stats etc about traffic & congestion in Manchester available at www.gmtu.gov.uk/

Impressionsof the meeting in general (after the GMUTC presentation had finished):

The factthat nothing has ever been done about problems such as Denton Roundabout proveto newcomers that the cycle forum has a serious problem with achievingimportant goals. Which may or may not be due to a lack of cooperation/bureaucracy.
Every otherword from council employees is about the lack of money and cuts, totally understandableif you are worried about your job, but does seem like its being too readily usedas an excuse.
No detailsof the Sustainable Transport Fund have yet been released to the councils, butno doubt Stagecoach have got a copy knocking about somewhere ;)
It’s verydifficult to get any ideas and points across when time is short and there areothers who want to speak, so for people like me it’s probably best to getthings down in writing and email them over afterwards. (or in other words I'm too polite to moan in person, so I'll do it via email)
Apparently certainissues such as street cleaning and policing of bad parking, ASL’s etc are bestaddressed at the District Assembly. Although I can guess that if you went therethey would suggest you go to the Cycle forum instead!
There is lots of cycle parking in Ashton - except none of it is anywhere near where it should be!. - suggestions on a postcard. I'll be making my own suggestion as soon as I can get a photo of the precedent I'm thinking of.
There did seem to be genuine interest in suggestions for cycle parking/ solutions to certain problems on roads etc. I guess the only way councils will know that a certain road is a problem is if people inform them - whether they can do anything about it once they know is a different matter though!.

Can't think of much else right now.

Had a greatpootle back to Hyde following Ian with a lot less traffic than I’m used to onmy normal rush-hour rides, but every ASL had a vehicle in it (it’s so common Idon’t even notice anymore!) and we managed to get beeped at for being twoabreast & chatting when approaching a red light. Bloody ~~cyclists!~~ People onbikes!.

It's not all bad, If you want to see some guys who are cheery even when they are getting beaten down every week just have a look at these poor gits!

Brooks B67

2010-11-27T17:20:00.000Z

The majorityof the things I own are decent second hand items, but occasionally when I dobuy something brand new I like it to be well worth it. You can’t get much moreworth it than an iconic piece of British handmade craftsmanship. Ok I’ve stillbeen stingy in a way, as I could’ve gone for one of the copper hand-hammeredspecials, but a plain steel riveted Brooks is still a beautiful thing.

I’d beenriding the Nexus with my dad’s old B17 for a few weeks, but after installingthe swept back bars this bike needed something nice and wide with springs on it(both from an aesthetic and functional point of view). The way up was between aChampion Flyer or a B67. The Champion flyer is a sprung version of the B17 fortouring, whereas the B67 is a wider shorter city bike saddle. In the end I wentfor the B67 because I figured I already have a B17 so it would be best to trysomething different.

I've never needed to break a saddle in before....and I still don't because it's perfectly comfortable right from the get go.so I'm not too sure about all this breaking-in stuff I think maybe it’s not the saddle, it’s your arse and your seating position. My backsideis already well used to cycling, so all it takes is a few miles of cycling withan allen key and a spanner. A few stops to do some adjustments and after 2 or 3stops the saddle is in just about the right place and hey presto I’ve got awonderfully comfortable saddle straight out of the box. Over the course of a few weeks it should start to mould to my sit-bones, but the important thing is to have it in just the right position in the first place.

The springsneeded a tiny drop of oil at either end to stop them squeaking, but other thanthat everything is perfect.

I have secure parking at work (back of the office), so spending good money on a good saddle makes sense, but to be honest I would be thinking twice & stick to something cheap and undesirable if I was having to lock the bike up in public all day.

Heres a good video about Brooks. I especially like the machine that makes the springs and the wobbly set-off at 2:40 - something tells me he turns the key in his Mercedes more often than he sets off on his bike.

Dynohub (GH-6)

2010-11-22T11:15:00.000Z

This is aSturmey Archer GH-6 dynohub from 1956. It was rescued from a skip by my dad andalthough we really have no use for it, it’s nice to clean it up, take it apartand have a look.

It was inits original moss-ridden rod brake rim with a lot of broken spokes.

The boltcutters made light work of those.

Before crudremoval

After crudremoval.

Dynohublogo. The text ' Do not remove magnet without keeper' is a bit cryptic, it means dont seperate the magnet from the armature unless you have a big iron plug called a keeper. This maintains the magnetic field in the magnet. Best to just not seperate them.

Date stamp. (September 1956)

Removing themagnet fixing screws after undoing the locknuts (tiny little bolts and washers on these)

The magnet &armature removed. These should be kept together, if they are separated then themagnet will lose half of its power in an instant.

Inside theshell – filthy.

All cleanedup.

Back togetherand giving it a test. It works perfectly even after 54 years. I’m not planning on using it for anything as it’s basically redundantcompared to modern dynamo hubs. But it’s anice piece of historic kit and doesn’t deserve to be in the skip.

Piccadilly Place Car Park - Cycle Racks

2010-11-20T18:15:00.000Z

I recently discovered that there is some cycle parking within the Piccadilly Place Car Park on Whitworth Street Near Piccadilly Station. There's not that many of them, especially considering they are taking up the space of around 6 car spaces and only providing space for 16 bikes. I've no idea if it's free, but I couldn't see anything to do with charges for cycles or any kind of tickets on the bikes, so I presume it is free.

That London lot have raved recently about some cycle parking in a multistorey car park, but it seems us Mancs have half heartedly beaten them to it! ;-)

Apologies for the shit pictures. And don't be fooled by the lack of bikes, this was on a Saturday morning, presumably it looks a bit more packed on a weekday.

Transport for Greater Manchester - TfGM

2010-11-19T15:40:00.000Z

News to me and probably to most is that Manchester is to get it's own version of London's TfL. I found out about it on Tameside's ~~labryinth~~ website, but there is more info here and better so on Wiki - here about the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and here about GMPTE which will be turned into the new TfGM.

As usual with government, this whole scenario appears to be ludicrously and overly complicated and it's difficult to know what any of it means for the future. In principal a single body able to influence and coordinate policy across boroughs sounds like a step forward. But what direction will that policy be?.

When it comes down to it the choice is between more cars or less cars.

The interesting bit from the GMCA wiki page is:

The Transport for Greater Manchester Committee (TfGMC)^[1] and its sub committees would be formed from a nominated pool of 33 councillors to manage the TfGME and create transport policy, TfGMC will also elect its own Chair and Vice-Chair. The committee would assume the roles of the previous Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Agency (GMITA) as well as the newly devolved transport powers and responsibilities from Government and the Councils. These councillors would have voting rights on most transport issues despite not being members of the GMCA however some decisions would still require approval by the GMCA, the functions which would be referred (but not delegated) to the TfGMC would include making recommendations in relation to:

The budget and transport levy
Borrowing limits
Major and strategic transport policies
The local transport plan
Operation of Greater Manchester Transport Fund and approval of new schemes

It sounds like those 33 councillors are going to be pretty important when it comes to the future of cycling in Manchester. Question is, will any of them dare consider that trying to accomodate more and more cars on the roads is a hopeless cause. Whereas the Dutch model of reducing car use whenever possible leads to huge benefits in every aspect of a region's prosperity.

Baby Pannier

2010-11-18T09:23:00.000Z

It's great to see mums on bikes, especially on a cold November morning. Cycling will forever remain a fringe-lycraclad-sporting activity until mums, grannies and children feel safe enough to take to their bikes for everyday journeys. But that's never going to happen whilst bikes are expected to mix it with buses, HGV's and 4x4's.

Take alook through the excellent Pays-Bas Cycle chic to see some ultimate biking mums (& dads!) in the Netherlands.

( It's a Toucan Crossing by the way, to get her back onto the Fallowfield loop)

Normal service resumed on a frosty morning

2010-11-15T15:05:00.000Z

The first frosty morning we had a few weeks ago left the bike stands of Manchester looking a bit bare. Thankfully it looks like everyone has managed to find some warmer clothes and get back on the saddles. Snapped at dinnertime at virtually the same time as the last post and I'd say this mornings frost was colder than the previous one.

And yes, that Audi Q7 is parked in the ASL box.

Where's the parking?

2010-11-15T11:21:00.000Z

Further to my Bury Old Road post. As you can see there is a serious lack of proper cycle parking in this area, the owner of the penny farthing has had to resort to locking their bike to the lampost.

Bury Old Road, Prestwich

2010-11-11T11:51:00.000Z

This 'cycle lane' along Bury Old Rd alongside Heaton Park is a time allocated cycle lane (best name I could think of, what the hell would you call this?). I've never seen one of these before, but have noticed another one since.

So it's works like most buslanes do, i.e. only during rush hour.

Except its just a solid line mandatory cycle lane.

Except its not because its only during certain hours

But the presence of the white line may keep drivers over to one side even out of hours, much as buslanes are not used much even when it's permitted.

On the other hand, the proper position to be cycling would be at least as far out as the white line anyway.

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But solid lines like this encourage drivers to just breeze past rather than overtake with a safe distance as they might if the line didn't exist. There are also a number of pinch points which inevitably cause conflict and endanger cyclists - see the google streetview above.

So any advantages seem to come with equal, if not more disadvantages. So has it really been of any benefit?. No not really. In fact it's crap. It's a sub standard, paltry attempt to meet a government target with the minimum amount of effort.

A segregated two-way cycle path would solve all these issues and create a decent useable facility. There is plenty of room to do this even on a road like this. The evidence is already in place a little further down the road where the two car lanes have been shrunk and shifted over to create a buslane. That exact same area of 'buslane' should be a segregated two-way continuous cycle path.

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