Cycling UK Forum

My Mercian has been stolen from my garage on Clarington Mews in Cheltenham.

It's a 24 inch frame with Nervex lugs; colour metallic read with silver head tube and silver rings on seat tube.; fitted with Campag ergopower shifters, chainset and gears; Mavic Open Pro wheels. It's a pretty distinctive bike (if you like that sort of thing).

I've reported it to the police - incident 324 16 June 2016.

The police tell me that bicycle theft is at a high level throughout the area.

I'd be grateful for any information on its whereabouts.

Thanks for reading this

Dave

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Following the theft I'd been monitoring Ebay, Gumtree, the CTC forum, and googling "mercian for sale". On Thursday I found it on Ebay. My bike had a name sticker retrofitted by me and easy to remove. The Ebay seller adverised it as Mercian ... Dave Jones...! (I'd have recognised it anyway though someone had fitted new bar tape, changed the pedals and removed the mudguards.)

I notified the Gloucestershire police who in turn requested Hertfordshire police to investigate. I got my wife to enquire about another bike he was selling and so obtained his address in Hertfordshire. The police recovered the bike and told me that he had bought it in a car boot sale in London and had a receipt from the seller. They decided that he would not be charged with receiving stolen goods. He had another 4 bikes advertised at much lower starting prices than my Mercian which he started at £500. These have now disappeared from his Ebay auction list - I thought the starting prices looked unrealistic but as I didn't watch them I don't know what happened to them.

I now need to travel to Stevenage to recover it. A better outcome for me than I'd anticipated, but I'd make the following observations:

1. The Gloucestershire police tell me that they will not be investigating the theft.

2. My bike must have been moved from Cheltenham pretty quickly to the anonymity of London.

3. The orginal thief will remain undiscovered and doubtless continue to steal bikes from my neighbourhood.

4. A google search on bike crime suggests that most thefts go unreported to the police which therefore understates the level of bike related criminal activity, and therefore discourages police investigations.

5. A CCTV film from a neighbour was forwarded to the police who told me that one of three people caught on camera was "known to them" but they said nothing about following this up.

6. Take a photo of your bike (and other valuables) and mark it with something distinguishing to aid identifying it later or back up an insurance claim. Keep your purchase receipt until you sell the bike.

Dave

I'll go with the commuting cyclist that I saw last night at 6pm on the A6 in Stockport. My wife was driving so I was able to look at him when were overtaking.

He had:
Flashing lights front and rear
Steady very bright lights front and rear
Fluorescent/reflective rucksack cover
A helmet

I think he was on fixed and was what I would call a keen cyclist - someone who commutes to work and rides out at the weekend (and is giving himself the best chance of staying alive).

Way to go!

Dave

Further thoughts on the above posting.

I'd go along with the view that the statistical evidence needs to be taken account of when debating compulsory helmet use, i.e. it needs to be pretty compelling. I don't pretend to have a full grasp of the issues involved.

It's for each cyclist to decide for themselves, and will doubtless be decided by their attitude to risk, and perception of risk in their own riding. "Anecdotal" evidence will play a part also.

Dave

Statistical generalisations are all very well, assuming you can understand them.

The probability of my winning a big lottery prize is very low, so I don't buy tickets, but millions do every week and a few people win thereby "defying" the odds.

It's perverse to describe the real experience of accident victims as "anecdotes". They can be regarded as case studies.

The Highway Code, RoSPA, the BMA, and Headway all advocate the use of Helmets (and other safety gear).

BTW: Judging by what I see on the road on Sundays the large majority of keen cyclists wear a helmet. I'd estimate that 95% of my CTC section do so.

Dave

That's the sort of first hand experience that's the decider for many people to wear a helmet, and a reminder, if it is needed, that fatal accidents can occur anywhere. Personally, I've only heard of accounts from people I know locally that they believed their head was saved from damage when they fell off. In both cases they are experienced club riders.
dave

The foregoing views are a good summary of the variety of views on this topic. Ultimately you have to assess the risks for yourself and your type of cycling.

Consider this: Cyclist collides with a dog which has run into the road, goes over the handlebars and breaks ribs and arm. The following day the paramedic who attended the accident shows him his smashed helmet and says to him "If you hadn't been wearing this we wouldn't be having this conversation today."

Do you insure your house against fire? I do though the chances of it burning down are hopefully remote. I think I'll continue to do so despite that it's never happened to me.

Cycling accidents happen anywhere, not just in London, due to human error - yours and other road users.

The Highway code, RoSPA, the police,and the BMA all advise cyclists to wear helmets (and his-vis gear).

Dave

mjr - thanks for the NICE pages - will check them out.

However - the argument that making helmet wearing compulsory will reduce numbers of cyclists and therefore lead to an increase in premature deaths may be true in the utilitarian sense of the "greatest good of the greatest number" but I don't want to be one of the few who die early due to a cycling head injury while not wearing a helmet, while others live longer.

I'm not in favour of a legal requirement to wear a helmet but I always wear one myself and encourage others to do so. The probability of injuring my head is very low, but the consequences for me if it happens may be catastrophic. This my personal risk assessment of cycling based on 30 years commuting and CTC club riding.

If cycling was "dangerous" I would not do it. Inevitably there is some risk in cycling which may be greater in some situations than others but there are risks in all forms of transport and also, say, in the home. One's own experience is the guide here. For example, I don't wait in the middle of a fast traffic road when turning right, but pull into the left side and check both ways. (This is after one of my two "near death" experiences where in this case I was overtaken on my right side just as I was about to turn, and it was on double white lines in open countryside. I don't use a mirror - perhaps I should!)

Perhaps I've contradicted myself here because a "near death" situation means that one has been in danger. But then I'm a keen cyclist and the joy of cycling has to be set against the risk.

Dave

Dave

While one accepts that cycling (and other forms of physical activity) is good for health and longevity, where is the evidence that it, i.e. cycling reduces the number of stroke victims or other brain pathologies?
Dave

Regarding rear mirror usage by lorries - A electrician friend who regularly drives a van down the A6 into Stockport told me that his difficulty with cyclists is that they may be coming alongside him both from his left and his right and he finds it difficult to monitor both sides.

Every cyclist /motorist collision is unique. I find it frustrating that it is difficult to discover what the cause of any accident actually was - presumably because this needs to await the inquest which may be long after the event. Perhaps someone has carried out detailed analysis of causation. The one we know most about is HGVs turning left. Presumably there are others?

The solutions, which embrace cyclist and driver behaviour and highway design, are difficult to achieve, at least in the short term. Human error will never be eliminated.

We therefore each of us need to assess the risks that we face in the immediate future while at the same time supporting the CTC's campaigning efforts in relation to highway planning and justice for victims.

Though now retired I have 30 years experience of commuting in Sheffield, and occasionally have to ride along the A6 into Hazel Grove which is heavily used by HGVs. I believe that helmets, good bike lighting, and reflective fluorescent jackets reduce the chance of accidents. And that the Highway code needs to be observed by all road users.

Dave

Still no news of the guarantee and weight saving over steel?
David

Before buying a titanium frame, I'd need to know the length of the guarantee. I was once shown a titanium frame with a cracked seat tube near the joint with the top of the seat stays. The framebuilder to whom it had been sent, by the owner requesting a repair, thought that it was actually unrepairable. I think that the frame had been purchased via mail order.

Incidentally - what is the weight saving over 631 etc?

David

I've come a bit late to this but here goes:

Bike 1: Narrow spaced canti pivots on traditional 531 tourer so older type canti brakes originally fitted; Lost a whole year of my life adjusting them so sawed off canti pivots and substituted Tektro long reach sidepulls (max 73 mm reach - reach on my frame is about 60mm) with Tektro drop brake levers. Improved braking. Then changed to flat bars with Shimano flat bar levers which improved braking again. Flat bar levers definitely pull the cable more firmly than any drop bar I've tried.

Bike 2: Modern Condor heritage touring frame with wide spaced canti pivots: Fitted Tektro 720 cantis with quite good effect but prolonged braking was hard on the hands. Fitted Shimano flat bar levers - braking now firmer and stronger with less hand strain. But - probably not as nice to use and not as sharp as the Tektro long reach sidepulls on Bike 1.

I'm using flat bars (520 mm wide) with longish bar ends giving 3 hand positions; don't really miss the drop bar positions as old age has reduced my flexibility in my back. I don't mind being different to my chums who are mostly on drops.

David

I've had resprays done by both Mercian and Ellis Briggs. EB frames, and resprays via Jackson, are excellent just as good as Mercian. They've also updated their graphics recently and their bikes now look really good. See their pages on Flickr. Vernon Barker at Dronfield will provide a more economical but good quality repair and respray.
David

On my Condor Heritage tourer, I've changed to a longer stem, flat bars with ski type bar ends, and MTB rapidfire shifters. Brake levers are Shimano 440 flat bar levers pulling Tektro 720 wide cantis.

Advantages are:

- Better control and stability descending with wider bars
- Better braking (compared with the previous Diacompe 287 levers pulling the Tektros as they require less effort).
- 3 good hand positions
- Better gear shifting than bar ends or Campag ergopower (on other bikes). I've no experience of Shimano STI road shifters. You also know what gear you're in.

Riding into a headwind - for me at 60 plus getting low down over drop bars is difficult. Comfort is more important than any aero advantage.

Dave

Having experienced this a few times I read this with interest. The following questions occur to me:

- Do racing cyclists who touch very high speeds downhill experience shimmy?

- Tortional stiffness: are 1 1/8 threadless steerers less likely to shimmy than threaded quill stem steers?

- Do MTBs ever shimmy? (Mine feels much more stable than my lightweight road bike)

- Can a combination of tall rider (me) and strong crosswind induce shimmy (certainly felt like it when recently riding down from the Cat and Fiddle to Wildboarclough).

Dave