Brompton on a bike

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.

The cargobike bloke....

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.

2011 Census: Help shape local transport

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.

3rd wheel

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:

Nexus 8 DIY Steering Stabiliser (Part 8)

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. 

"You must be mad!"

"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

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)

Shopping trip

Inspired by Mr.C who in turn was inspired by Urban Simplicity I thought I'd record my quick food trip. Since it's closest I went to Aldi in Hyde. Actually Morrisons is probably closer but I hate big busy supermarkets, on a week night Aldi/Lidl are nice and quiet so you can be in and out with everything you need in 20 mins without all the elbow barging.

On the way I cacked my pants when a group of 10 or so girls on their horses decided to have a full out sprint up the path that leads to Mill Lane just as I'm coming around the corner. This spot is a favourite for chavs on quads though, so I'll take the stampeding horseybirds over the 'innit' crew any day.

I managed to estimate how much would fit in the panniers and on the rack fairly well. It was mostly stuff to make packed lunchs and a few meals. The most important item being apple & plum strudel - yum.

There are at least some actual cycle racks at Aldi, unlike Lidl in Denton which seems to have nothing at all. Even here though you can see in the photo that the massive collection of trolleys get full cover from the rain, whereas the 3 cycle racks are languishing off to the side. **mini rant** - small stores like Aldi don't ever need this many trolleys!, why not have a few less and put the cycle racks under cover. Sigh. On a lighter note, if find you've forgotten a pound coin for the trolley, a 20p and a 1p on top of each eachother also works ;-)

Note the children's hoops (cereal) are not for children, they are for me. Damn good they are as well.

 

I should point out that my panniers are only small 25ltr front panniers. With big 40ltr ones you could easily carry more than this.

Nexus – bits & bobs (pt 4)

I used the Trek to go pick up a rather oversized parcel from the post office.

Contained in the monster box was a modestly sized zefal rack (£9.99) and a set of shimano spds (these were for using on the marin trail) and a whole massive load of shredded paper. I’m guessing either SJS cycles had run out of medium sized boxes or needed an excuse to get rid of some paperwork.

The rack went onto the Nexus pretty easily. It’s a bit of a fiddle to get everything lining up nicely and kit itself doesn’t come with all the fixing bolts you’ll need. Presumably because different bikes use different sized threads for the mounting points (they are bottle cage screws/bolts). i.e. the threads on the Nexus vitamin are the same as on my old Raleigh, but the threads on all the various mounting points on the Trek are not the same. For me it wasn’t a problem as I could swipe bolts from the Raleigh to make up the numbers, but for other folks it might take another frustrating trip to the shop.

Unfortunately  Zefal don't seem to have designed it with my Ortlieb Classic panniers in mind. There is no suitable place for the bottom hook to hold onto the frame properly. However with a bungee held in the right place that gives a decent place to hook the pannier to and is just as sturdy as if there had been a spot on the actual frame.There's the old adage 'you get what you pay for' and for moment the pannier problem made me regret going for the cheapest rack I could find, but that moment passed and I realised for £9.99 this rack is light, easy(ish) to fit and does the jobwell.

(although its not as pretty as this one).

With the rack fitted it meant the Nexus is now finally ready for some regular commuting, but when I was finished with the spds on the Marin trail I swapped them onto the Nexus to finish the job.

The gearing is still too low on this bike, so that’ll be the subject of part 5.

Transporting bits of bicycle by bike

The cheapo forks I ordered for my old MTB arrived. I'd had them delivered to my designated pick up point (parents house) so I had to go pick them up. It fitted quite easily on the Trek's rack, even if it did stick out a bit.

Not so long ago I would have nipped up in the car to pick up something like this, but since I was on my way home from work I just rode the 3 miles or so further and got them. It was also a good excuse to go down the section of Hyde Road that crosses the River Tame. It's always fun when the car drivers find they can't enter 'must past the cyclist' mode because I'm going faster than them.

Heres the forks in all their 'New Old Stock' glory.The MTB is purple so they should look suitably odd when fitted.